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“They don’t want to use all of the capacity that we’ve created. We have tremendous capacity,” Trump said during a briefing at the White House. “They know that. The governors know that. The Democrat governors know that. They’re the ones that are complaining.”
Trump’s comments come after the White House released a three-part guideline this week, saying that states can enter the first phase toward reopening once they see a continued decrease over two weeks.
As of Saturday afternoon, there were more than 732,000 confirmed cases in the US and at least 38,600 people had died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Even as Trump said his administration is working with governors to “help them find and unlock the vast unused testing capacity that exists in their states,” the President suggested it was the governors’ fault for not making use of that capacity.
“The governors should use it,” Trump said of private lab testing capacity. “They’re waiting for business from these governors.”
The President lambasted governors even as his own health experts have acknowledged shortfalls in testing around the country and he himself committed on Friday to shipping 5 million additional testing swabs to states this month due to shortages.
Republican and Democrat governors alike have said they are facing shortages of crucial testing supplies, which has hampered their ability to dramatically scale up testing to the point that is needed.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, have both said they are facing shortages of the chemical reagent needed to conduct more tests.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
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