MSNBC Attacks Trump For Using The DPA After Criticizing Trump For Not Using The DPA
President Donald Trump has used the Defense Production Act to ensure beef, pork, poultry and egg plants keep operating to avoid a food shortage. That did not sit well with MsNBC Chris Hayes who objected to Trump using the DPA after blasting Trump for not using the DPA. For weeks, I have been raising what I view as a widespread misconception of the DPA and its function. This is an example of how the DPA has become part of a media mantra to suggest that the Administration refused to use the Act when it could have addressed shortfalls. This spin redirects the primary responsibility for the failure to prepare for a pandemic from governors, who ignored years of warnings of shortfalls and lack of stored material. There are legitimate questions about mistakes made in this pandemic but the DPA has increasingly been used in a way disconnected from factual and legal foundations.
Hayes objects that the Trump Administration failed to use the DPA to force production of ventilators and other items. However, as I have said previously, there is no reason to use the DPA if the Administration believes that companies are at maximum input. One legitimate objection that the Administration has made about the coverage is the widespread misrepresentations of the ventilator issue. Dr. Deborah Birx and others have noted that no one was actually denied a ventilator and that states had a surplus. We are currently producing an astonishing level of ventilators that far exceeds our expected needs by a sizable degree.
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https://jonathanturley.org/2020/04/29/msnbc-attacks-trump-for-using-the-dpa-after-criticizing-trump-for-not-using-the-dpa/