Officially, Vice President Mike Pence was appointed to lead the Trump regime's response to the coronavirus, but as you know Pence is little more than a thumb-shaped automaton who isn't capable of virtually anything.
Pence, as useless as he is all on his own, is subject to both Trump's whims and the shadow task force run by Trump's personal handler and son-in-law Jared Kusher.
Cities and states have never been able to obtain the supplies they need from the Pence Task Force because procurement has been handled by the Kushner Task Force and the latter, it may not surprise you to learn, is staffed by people who have no idea what they're doing.
A whistleblower who was a member of Kushner's team filed a complaint with the House Oversight Committee that says some of the people Kushner placed in key positions of responsibility have no relevant experience for it.
Although some of the volunteers have relevant backgrounds and experience, many others were poorly matched with the jobs they were assigned, including those given the task of securing personal protective equipment, or PPE, for hospitals nationwide, according to a complaint filed last month with the House Oversight Committee. [...]
The document alleges that the team responsible for PPE had little success in helping the government secure such equipment, in part because none of the team’s members had significant experience in health care, procurement or supply-chain operations. In addition, none of the volunteers had existing relationships with manufacturers or a clear understanding of customs requirements or Food and Drug Administration rules, according to the complaint and two senior administration officials.
Members of Kushner's task force were also taking orders directly from the most batshit insane hosts on Fox News according to the complaint.
Supply-chain volunteers were instructed to fast-track protective equipment leads from “VIPs,” including conservative journalists friendly to the White House, according to the complaint and one senior administration official.
“Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade, for example, called two people he knew in the administration to pass along a lead about protective equipment in an effort to be helpful, according to two people familiar with the outreach. Fox News Channel host Jeanine Pirro also repeatedly lobbied the administration for a specific New York hospital to receive a large quantity of masks, one of the people said.
I'm sure the hypothetical Biden administration won't be perfect, but I feel completely confident in saying nothing like this would ever be allowed to happen under him. It wouldn't have happened in a Clinton administration, either, or any other Democratic administration. Even George W. Bush did not place unqualified children in charge of disasters. He screwed that up all on his own.
I expect to still be reading stories about the corruption of our response to the virus years from now because that's how long it will take to unravel it and much of the disaster is still yet to come.