Trump’s Air Bridge to Nowhere
June 11, 2020
What is Project Air Bridge? It involves Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, and the distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE). Project Air Bridge is an example of GOP kleptocracy.
Propaganda proclaimed that as the US was strained for medical supplies, Project Air Bridge would save the day by importing PPE within days instead of weeks or months. And on March 30, 2020 CBS reported that Project Air Bridge had achieved its first success. According to CBS, Trump announced that the first FEMA-funded delivery of equipment from Shanghai included 80 tons of personal protective equipment such as N95 masks, gloves, and thermometers. Way to go, America! (Nevermind that Donald Trump hadn’t compelled US companies to handle the production of such equipment in a timely manner.)
But how has Project Air Bridge proceeded? Trump Watchdogs suspected that all wouldn’t be well. After all, the same CBS story quotes Donald Trump as doubtful of the veracity of equipment requests: “I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being in said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be. I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” Mr. Trump told Hannity. “You know, you go into major hospitals, sometimes they’ll have two ventilators, and now, all of the sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?'” It seems that Trump doesn’t understand exponential growth.
On June 9, 2020 Senators Elizabeth Warren, Charles Schumer and Richard Blumenthal formally requested an investigation of Project Air Bridge. They charge price-gouging, cronyism and other abuses against American taxpayers:
Preview of Senators’ Project Air Bridge investigation doc