Yesterday’s back and forth
Monday, Apr 6, 2020 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Gov. Pritzker yesterday…
I really believe that governors that haven’t taken the kind of action that we did, or took it much later than we did, are unfortunately, they have been listening to President Trump and his advice. And his advice has been, first it was this is a hoax. Then it was this is just like the flu. This will go away in a few days. I think many of them were listening to all of that while the President was not taking this very seriously. I think now that he has taken it seriously, many of them have moved toward more stringent orders.
* President Trump yesterday…
There’s a governor, I hear him complaining all the time. Pritzker. I hear him, he’s always complaining and yet, I just said ‘give me a list of a couple of the things we’ve done in Illinois.’ And we’re building a 2500 bed hospital in McCormick Place, that’s a big Convention Center in Chicago.
And we’re helping to staff it, and probably will end up staffing it because he’s not able to do what you’re supposed to be able to do as a governor. He has not performed well.
It’s being locally staffed so far, but we’ll see.
* Vice President Pence yesterday…
Later during the briefing, Vice President Mike Pence said he had spoken to Pritzker, and the governor did “express great appreciation for the fact that our Army Corps of Engineers had constructed 500 beds at McCormick Place [convention center], and before the end of this week would construct another 2,500 beds for an overflow health facility in Chicago.” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the Army Corps was “outstanding,” Pence noted.
“We have sent 600 ventilators to the state of Illinois, but I assured the governor, and I assured the mayor, that while the principle focus that we have in the next several days is the rising cases in the greater New York City area and Louisiana, that Michigan and Illinois are in the forefront of our thinking,” Pence said. “At the president’s direction, we’re gonna make sure that the people of Illinois and the people of Michigan have the resources, equipment and support that they need.”
* Gov. Pritzker yesterday…
I think sometimes people mistake when I am being critical of the White House or the president, they mistake that for me being critical of the people are helping at the federal level.
The Army Corps of Engineers has done a superb job for the state of Illinois. The Army has come in and they’ve met with me, a number of times, they are putting their personnel forward, they’re working with our Illinois National Guard. We’re the best in the nation to make sure that we’re building out the facilities that we need to.
And FEMA, the FEMA officials that we deal with here in our region, and the HHS officials, all are working very hard. They live here in Illinois, most of them. And so they want this to succeed for them and for their families as well as for all of us.
So I am grateful for all of the help that we get from those federal employees who work day and night really to protect the people of Illinois. And so my criticism has been the lateness of the policies decisions that have been made by the leaders, and therefore the lateness of any help that we have gotten, which has been due to the people who are above the people that I just described, and their unwillingness to make good decisions that work to the to the betterment of everybody in Illinois.
* Deputy Gov. Christian Mitchell…
Deep breaths before commenting, please.
