President Donald Trump is facing fresh criticism after deploying his son-in-law Jared Kushner at a White House coronavirus task force briefing on April 2, 2020, and accusing Democrats of launching a fresh "witch-hunt" on the President in the middle of a global pandemic.
Kushner is married to President Trump's daughter Ivanka and is a senior adviser to the US president. He made a surprise appearance on the podium on Thursday and said that President Trump had instructed him to break down every barrier needed to make sure that the teams can succeed in their fight against the pandemic.
Kushner added on the briefing "The president also wanted us to make sure that we think outside the box, make sure we're finding all the best thinkers in the country, making sure we're getting all the best ideas."
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Jared Kushner leads coronavirus briefing
Kushner stated that President Trump became concerned about the supply shortages after hearing about them from his friends from New York. Experts took it as an implication that Trump responds to anecdotes instead of listening to the state governor or public health officials.
Kushner said that the task force went to the president before the briefing and that Trump called Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York to inform him that the task force is going to send a month worth of supply to the New York public hospital system.
Vice President Mike Pence said that there would be 200,000 masks sent to New York to help with their current shortage problem. Kushner added that they will be doing the same things to all public hospitals that are in the hotspot zones and they will make sure that they are in constant communications with the local communities.
Kushner, a property developer with no medical expertise, is being called out by media reports and they are suggesting that he is running a "shadow taskforce", which is a rival power base that conflicts with the official task force led by Vice President Pence.
Kushner stated that he had been serving in the direction of Vice President Pence and that the vice president asked him to get involved in different projects. He also said that he and the vice president talk at least 10 times a day to discuss the action that they will take to help the country during the pandemic.
On April 2, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a new House committee that will oversee all aspects of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. She did not rule out an investigation in the style of the commission on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Trump on his 'witch hunt'
The prospect stung Trump, who compared it to the special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and the congressional hearings into his dealings with Ukraine that led to his impeachment.
Trump told reporters that this is not the time for politics and that the endless partisan investigations of the Democratic party have done extraordinary damage to the country. Trump calls it a witch-hunt after witch-hunt after witch-hunt and added that it is not the time for witch-hunts.
The White House also released a letter in which the President assailed Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader from New York. he wrote:
"Thank you for your Democrat public relations letter and incorrect sound bites, which are wrong in every way. If you spent less time on your ridiculous impeachment hoax, which went haplessly on forever and ended up going nowhere (except increasing my poll numbers) and instead focused on helping the people of New York, then New York would not have been so completely unprepared for the 'invisible enemy'."
Aside from Kushner, Trump also introduced Peter Navarro, the national Defense Production Act policy coordinator. Navarro claimed that there were people from the black market who were driving up the prices of protective gear. Navarro stated that they will crackdown on the hoarders.
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