For months, health experts have emphasized the need for adequate testing for the virus that's upended daily life in the United States if there's any hope for a safe return to normalcy.
President Donald Trump's administration has constantly fallen short when it comes to facilitating the crucial testing.
In the early stages of the outbreak—as the President was still dismissing the virus's threat—Trump's CDC rolled out hundreds of faulty tests which delayed diagnoses and allowed the virus to spread further. The President has since said that states should be left to their own resources as far as testing, relying on the federal government only as a backup.
As recently as Monday, the President said the testing shortage was little more than a media conspiracy designed to undermine his presidency.
Following Trump's insistence that states facilitate their own testing apparatus, Republican Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, and his wife—who is fluent in Korean—secured five thousand testing kits (capable of performing 500 thousand tests) from South Korea after negotiating with diplomats and suppliers in the nation.
The day after Hogan's state received the testing kits, Vice President Mike Pence insisted in a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press that testing capacity in the United States was "sufficient."
Governor Hogan, however, says otherwise:
"Luckily we had a very strong relationship with Korea. But it should not have been this difficult."
For his part, the President criticized Hogan's intelligence and said that the administration provided a list of thousands of laboratories prepared to accept tests.
The President said at the Monday press briefing:
"Some of the governors like, as an example, the governor from Maryland, didn't really understand the list, he didn't understand too much about what was going on, so now I think he'll be able to do that. It's pretty simple. They have tremendous capacity. We hope to be able to help him out."
But it's Trump who doesn't seem to understand that, while labs have the capacity to accept tests, they don't consistently have the capacity to supply them.
Hogan pointed out this distinction while throwing perfectly subtle shade toward Trump.
The tweet perfectly encapsulated the lack of assistance the federal government has provided in regards to testing, and highlighted that Hogan was more easily able to secure testing kits from a foreign government than from the executive of his own country.
The shade was readily apparent.
It wasn't lost on people that Hogan identifies as a Republican in a time when criticizing Trump is tantamount to political suicide for members of his party.
It's almost like Hogan prioritizes the lives of his constituents over winning elections.
What a novel idea.
For a deeper look into the ineptitude of Trump's administration, check out A Very Stable Genius, available here.
