Andrew Cuomo (D), governor of New York, praised President Trump’s decision to rely on the Defense Production Act to force General Motors to manufacture hospital ventilators for coronavirus patients, but declined, along with the president criticize the company’s processing time for the devices.
“I greet the President for his application of the Defense Production Act in his conversation about General Motors,” Cuomo said in a CNN interview on Friday evening. “It gives him the power of the law to get companies to actually respond to the production of ventilators, and that’s exactly what we want.”
CNN presenter Erin Burnett asked Cuomo if he believed General Motors was “dragging her feet.”
“Pulling her feet indicates devaluation,” said Cuomo. “Basically, if you apply the Defense Production Law and have the law on your side, you can order a private company to do something to make a product. It is undoubtedly an extreme measure, but it is an extreme time.”
He added: “From the President’s perspective, General Motors did not deliver the product and was not preparing it. And look, if a company deals with the normal time frame that suits them, that’s one thing, but here the president says, “I need this product and I need it quickly.”
“These ventilators will be a matter of life and death,” said Cuomo, “and whether they will be delivered in four weeks or six weeks or 10 weeks or 12 weeks, you speak of tens of thousands of lives.” to rely on. “
Officials in New York and across the country are quickly running out of ventilators to treat patients with severe symptoms, officials said. The impending deficits will certainly force doctors to make careful life and death decisions about which patients to connect to the devices.
When Trump referred to the Cold War law, he accused GM of “wasting time” and said that his actions would help save lives. However, it is not clear what Trump’s mandate will do to speed up production. GM has already signed a contract with a fan manufacturer, Ventec Life Systems. The first batch of devices is expected to arrive in late April, the Washington Post reported on Friday.
GM said in a statement on Friday that it had “been working around the clock for over a week to meet this urgent need.”