The Lincoln Project was correct to make this into an ad. Most Americans are unaware of the disconnect at the White House with Jared Kushner a top aid.

What is most astounding is that as the Midwest becomes entrenched with outbreaks of COVID-19, there seems to be the same disconnect.

September 17, 2020
By Katherine Eban

...On the evening of Saturday, March 21, (click here) a small group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, business executives, and venture capitalists gathered in the White House Situation Room to offer their help to the Trump administration as it confronted a harrowing shortage of lifesaving supplies to battle COVID-19....

...Those representing the private sector expected to learn about a sweeping government plan to procure supplies and direct them to the places they were needed most. New York, home to more than a third of the nation’s coronavirus cases, seemed like an obvious candidate. In turn they came armed with specific commitments of support, a memo on the merits of the Defense Production Act, a document outlining impediments to the private-sector response, and two key questions: How could they best help? And how could they best support the government’s strategy?...

...Kushner, seated at the head of the conference table, in a chair taller than all the others, was quick to strike a confrontational tone. “The federal government is not going to lead this response,” he announced. “It’s up to the states to figure out what they want to do.”...

...According to another attendee, Kushner then began to rail against the governor: “Cuomo didn’t pound the phones hard enough to get PPE for his state…. His people are going to suffer and that’s their problem.”

“That’s when I was like, We’re screwed,” the shocked attendee told Vanity Fair.

The group argued for invoking the Defense Production Act. “We were all saying, ‘Mr. Kushner, if you want to fix this problem for PPE and ventilators, there’s a path to do it, but you have to make a policy change,’” one person who attended the meeting recounted....

...That attendee said he remains “angry” over the federal government’s intransigence in stockpiling supplies and feels certain that people died because of it. “At the time I just thought of it as blind capitalism and extreme libertarian ideals gone wrong,” he said. “In hindsight it’s not crazy to think it was some purposeful belief that it was okay if Cuomo had a tough go of it because [New York] was a blue state.”

According to another attendee, it seemed “very clear” Kushner was less interested in finding a solution because, at the time, the virus was primarily ravaging cities in blue states: “We were flabbergasted. I basically had an out-of-body experience: Where am I, and what happened to America?”...

The disconnect is political and continues today. In Wisconsin, Governor Evers is looking under every rock to find funding and supplies for the surge in COVID-19 cases. The state Republicans are fighting him all the way.

October 14, 2020

By Julia Marshall

Wisconsin — Two Democratic state senators (click here) allege that Wisconsin GOP leaders refused to join a call for federal PPE support in Wisconsin, according to a letter Wednesday.

According to a letter from Senator Janet Bewley and Senator Gordon Hintz, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos refused to join them in signing a letter to Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Peter T. Gaynor.

The letter asked Gaynor to rescind restrictions on the federal relief fund. According to Bewley and Hintz, these restrictions would negatively impact Wisconsin’s COVID-19 response and limit the state’s ability to purchase PPE.

In an email to TMJ4 News from a spokesperson, Speaker Vos said that he "agrees with the prioritization of these FEMA dollars for health care workers, patients and first responders on the front lines of the pandemic, especially with the recent surge in cases and hospitalizations."

Amazing, the Speaker can talk out both sides of his mouth at the same time. He agrees to prioritize FEMA dollars is important, but, he refuses to sign a letter stating the measure needed for Wisconsin to adequately respond to hospitals.

"The state and federal governments have other resources to assist our educational institutions, including the nearly $2 billion in CARES Act money," the spokesperson continued.

While the Democratic senators allege Fitzgerald and Vos refused to sign this letter, the senators say Vos and Fitzgerald did sign a letter urging United States Senate Leadership and Judiciary Committee members to approve Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the US Supreme Court....

The partisan approach to the national emergency of SARS-CoV-2 is not limited to New York and Wisconsin, Michigan also has a majority of Republicans in its State House. It is obvious the GOP is attempting to raise the "misery index" among the populations of their states regardless of illness and deaths, so the public will blame Democrats in an election year for their problems. Do the Republicans actually believe that is working?

They are getting away with it. Everything to them is party first walking hand in hand with their cronies and Americans are always last on that list. It is a crime to ignore public health for the sake of politics.

The Lincoln Project is correct. The response by the Trump White House and it's party in general to the national emergency of COVID-19 is based in political dogma and very bad priorities.