White House senior advisor and the U.S. president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has defended the Trump administration’s strategy to combat the coronavirus pandemic, saying others have tried to use the crisis to “play politics” — but not President Donald Trump.
“Some people have chosen to play politics with the pandemic, President Trump has opted not to politicize it and he’s done everything possible to try to figure how to help people get whatever care they need,” Kushner told CNBC in an exclusive interview on Friday.
“This is a global pandemic, it came from China into our country. It’s ravaged many countries throughout the world and I think President Trump has dealt with it in a very responsible way,” he added.
Since then, the coronavirus has infected more than 21.5 million people worldwide and killed at least 773,000 people, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. is the worst-hit nation and accounts for about 25% of the global cases reported so far.
Jared Kushner, senior advisor to President Trump, listens to the president during a listening session with cybersecurity experts in the Roosevelt Room the White House in Washington on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017.
Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Asked by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble whether it had been a mistake for the U.S. not to have a national program to fight the virus, Kushner said the government oversaw the procurement, production and distribution of resources needed during the pandemic, such as masks and ventilators.
“With regards to a national strategy, the job of the federal government was to get the resources that the country needed,” he said.
“You heard all these hysterical reports about doctors on the front lines not being able to get masks, not having enough ventilators, you had governors requesting a lot more ventilators than they needed, and again, every patient in America that needed a ventilator got a ventilator, President Trump distributed them properly,” Kushner told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble.
The U.S. government has been criticized over its handling of the coronavirus epidemic, where over 5.4 million confirmed cases of the virus have now been recorded and where there have been over 170,000 deaths, according to Hopkins’ data on Sunday.
Kushner led a coronavirus response task force aimed at securing protective gear for medical workers and devising a national testing plan. His task force, which parallels the government’s official task force spearheaded by Vice President Mike Pence, was accused of inexperience and a lack of transparency over its dealings.
It was widely reported that a national strategy over testing was dropped in favor of a state-by-state response to make the Democratic governors in some of the hardest-hit states look bad. The White House denied those allegations.
Kushner insisted that the Trump administration had ensured an adequate supply of resources to states, but that it did not want to take over their decision-making.
“The federal government has done a lot to stimulate the supply (of resources). Every governor that has needed resources, we’ve dealt with them and we’ve done it. Governors run the states … President Trump from Washington is not going to tell them how to run their states.”
Asked if there were any regrets about the White House’s approach, Kushner said “there’s always things you could do differently. He did not elaborate further.
“But again, this is an unprecedented challenge and I think he’s (Trump’s) made a lot of right decisions … we have 50 states, which means you have 50 CEOs, and his job is to work with all of them,” he added.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
