He just said he has 100k ventilators he's saving for when things go bad
He was saying 10k or just under 10k during the press conference today--not quite 100k, but still he did go out of his way to repeatedly say the federal government has ventilators they're not giving to states now because they want to be able to immediately give them to states later. So your point still stands.
The issue governors face is that Trump was, less than two weeks ago,
bitching about governors needing to go out and buy their own supplies. They've been trying to do so and it's turned into a bidding war. He pivoted today into saying they
shouldn't be bidding against one another, and should come to the government when they find themselves in those situations, but as far as I know he's done nothing to actually try to prevent states from buying their own shit (and anyone following his recommendation from two weeks ago would be encouraged to do so.)
So the 10k ventilators they're 'holding back' just adds another wrinkle of fuckery, since now he's apparently reversing the mandate for states to try to source their own supplies, but also overlaying that with the idea that these things might just get stockpiled at the federal level while waiting for the surge.
It's classic Trump--contradict yourself 75 times and then point to different excuses at different times for why it's not your fault.
www.newyorker.com
www.forbes.com
covid19.healthdata.org
