After One Tweet, This Man Got $69M from New York for Ventilators
buzzfeednews.com
buzzfeednews.com
NY pays millions of dollars to these companies and none of them deliver any ventilators because NY didn't do any due diligence.
This one guy gets called out because a NY state official claims he came at the "direct recommendation of the White House." This makes no sense, but Buzzfeed rolls with it, and it's likely CYA for the state official to pass the blame onto the federal government.
This is a perfect example of fake news. Deep down there is a story of incompetence and duress on the part of NY State, but instead it’s presented to the public as yet another made up anti-Trump circle jerk.
2. "The White House Coronavirus Task Force was never informed of this contract" does not actually deny having recommended the vendor to NY. It's a pretty careful wording that doesn't actually contradict the article at all.
By truncating the rest of the quoted text you’re further proving my point of the fake news circle jerk. The full quote from the article that you selectively truncated is (emphasis mine):
>> "The White House Coronavirus Task Force was never informed of this contract and was not involved in it at all."
My layman’s reading of “not involved at all” would cover denying recommending the vendor.
“We recommended the vendor and put them in touch with NY, then washed our hands of it” fits just fine with the wording there.
I don't know why it doesn't look like it to you, but I see lawyer speak, not layman speak.
None of that excuses NY from doing due diligence, but I'm just saying I wouldn't jump to conclusions about who told whom what.
I counted only three: Turkey — Baykar Biyovent, Pakistan — Kamra PakVent 1, India — Marutu Suzuki emergency ventilator. That's very few.
Even if NYC government didn't dish those money to him, it would still be unrealistic to expect anybody being able to deliver on that in any capacity, other than existing manufacturers.
How they didn't know that?
Similarly, the story with PCR tests. Those were available at least a month prior to emergency in NYC, yet USG spent sweet time dishing out random grants and contracts, despite the solution already being on the table.
https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-tesla-ventilators-coronav...
> But as noted by NPR, The American Society of Anesthesiologists warned in guidance published on February 23 that BiPAP machines may actually "increase the risk of infectious transmission." Experts have said the non-invasive devices can let air escape, resulting in potential virus spread.
I'm always surprised at the degree to which people will take a good deed and twist it make it seem wrong or ineffective. Why? Is it a general hatred for Musk? ...or something more general? A hatred of successful people? Or a hatred of wealthy people? Why the irrational bias?
I've run into vendors who don't have websites or any appreciable presence, where you wind up going "holy crap, I had no idea you existed and you serve like half the industry". (I've also been one of these.)
It's plausible they assumed the White House had one of these sorts of vendors.
The President failed to make sure the task force member who recommended the vendor had done his diligence and the state government was just 100% blindly trusting of the very same White House they claim to hate at every step of the way, therefore it's Trump's fault?
What ever happened to trust but verify?
I just don't understand why type of micro-manager would be needed for this to not be his fault then. It wouldn't be a human at that point, you'd need some sort of AI that manages the smallest of minutia of every aspect of government.
Please don't fall prey to the emo journalism of the day. And don't rachet it up even farther. For the most part, these are professionals doing their jobs. There's been a lot more failure than typical, on both sides, in the face of an historical pandemic. But let's not demonize either side here, or assume that others do.
For the record, Trump does run the executive branch, and if one of its people pushed this through, it reflects horribly on his leadership and whoever eventually gets thrown under the bus.
But, this article doesn't bring much to the table in terms of sources. Doesn't make sense to point fingers until someone involved in the purchase does, without anonymity.
> The Silicon Valley engineer, who had no background in medical supplies but was recommended by the White House, never delivered the ventilators.
The article has a direct quote:
> “The guy was recommended to us by the White House coronavirus task force because they were doing business with him as well,” said the New York state official.
I don't think the state government expected that the White House would recommend a scammer.
If the Task Force recommended someone, yes you expect that they aren't recommending scammers.
> After this article was published, a spokesperson for Pence, Katie Miller, said in a statement that "The White House Coronavirus Task Force was never informed of this contract and was not involved in it at all."
Contract, not contact. They deny knowing about or being part of the contract. Nowhere do they deny recommending the vendor.