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To this day, hundreds of thousands of Americans have now died from COVID-19 since it broke out in early 2020 during what would be the final year of the Trump administration. According to the authors of an upcoming book about the Trump administration’s response, then-White House adviser Jared Kushner’s testing initiative backfired.
Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damien Paletta spoke with The Daily Beast as their book, “Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic that Changed the World,” launches this week. Abutaleb and Paletta revealed that Mr. Kushner, who is the son-in-law of now-former President Donald Trump, launched an initiative that involved making tests for COVID-19 more accessible. The initiative ultimately backfired on Mr. Kushner, and as a whole, on the administration.
The panning of the initiative slowed down the federal response, leading to deaths and millions of Americans getting infected. Over 600,000 Americans have now died from the coronavirus.
“When he came in and wanted to launch that initiative, he actually caused a two-week shortage of testing because all the swabs and a lot of the personal protective equipment had been diverted to this drive-thru side,” said Abutaleb. The drive-thru testing sites would be at major pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens to make it easier for Americans to get tested and receive their results.
It is not only Mr. Kushner who is currently under fire following the revelations of his role in the administration’s response to the pandemic. Ivanka Trump is also under legal scrutiny as of late, following documents related to an ongoing probe into her father’s 2017 inauguration. According to a former FBI official, Ms. Trump may have committed perjury when she told prosecutors that she was not heavily involved in the planning for the inauguration.
Former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi cited that the documents obtained by the news outlet Mother Jones revealed that Ms. Trump was actually very involved in the planning of her father’s inauguration events. The Washington DC Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit against Trump’s inauguration committee, alleging that the committee overpaid their booking of the Trump International Hotel to enrich the Trump family. Figliuzzi said that Ms. Trump’s denial of being involved in the planning means that she may have perjured herself.
