Trump Doubts That New York Actually Needs 30,000 Ventilators

President Donald Trump was told by New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, that the state needed 30,000 ventilators, but Trump (literally) isn’t buying it. The U.S. president spoke to Fox News’s Sean Hannity over the phone on Thursday, where he addressed the shortages of medical supplies in New York amid the coronavirus pandemic. Trump was not shy about voicing his doubts on New York’s demand for equipment. “I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” he told Hannity. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators.”

“You know you go into major hospitals sometimes they’ll have two ventilators,” he continued. “Now, all of a sudden, they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’” The statement comes after Governor Andrew Cuomo had requested exactly 30,000 ventilators for New York State—which has been hit hardest by the pandemic—and subsequently blasted the government for only sending a mere fraction of that number. “You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators?” Cuomo said in a press conference, enraged. He added that tens of thousands of New Yorkers are “going to die” as a result of Trump’s neglect, unless he really steps up and provides the supplies that the state needs. Trump told Hannity, however, that purchasing a ventilator is like buying a car—a “very expensive” and “very intricate” process. “And you know they’d say, like Governor Cuomo and others, they’d say ‘We want 30,000 of them’” Trump recounted. “Thirty thousand? Think of this, you know you go to hospitals that have one in a hospital and now all of a sudden everyone’s asking for these vast numbers.”

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“Look, it’s a very bad situation,” Trump concluded. “We haven’t seen anything like it, but the end result is we gotta get back to work, and I think we can start by opening up some parts of the country.” Trump is already hoping that some Americans will be returning to work as early as Easter (April 12th), a decision that has been widely criticized as premature and irresponsible. Watch the full conversation with Trump on Fox News below: