Coronavirus testing czar: Nobody on task force ‘afraid to bring up anything’ to Trump

Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services who is leading the administration’s coronavirus testing efforts, said Sunday that nobody on the White House coronavirus task force is afraid to press President Trump on the need to expand testing. 

“Everyone at the administration understands the importance of testing. Nobody in the task force is afraid to bring up anything either to the vice president or president,” Giroir said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“Every time I’ve met with the president he’s been listening to all the data, he assesses that he understands it … no one is trying to stop testing in this country. No one has ever told me to do that, in fact we want more, we want better, we want quicker,” he added.

CNN’s @jaketapper presses Admiral Brett Giroir about why the Trump administration hasn’t implemented the Defense Production Act more for Covid-19 testing. “We look for every opportunity to invoke the DPA. Now, the DPA isn’t a magic tool,” Giroir says. #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/UaLBoVzrle

— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) July 26, 2020

CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Giroir on a seeming reluctance for officials to push Trump to get testing up to speed, and the resistance to further invoking the Defense Production Act to increase lab hiring and the manufacturing of lab equipment to help with testing speed.

While testing has increased across the country, coronavirus outbreaks across the country are putting a strain on testing capacity. Wait times for test results have grown to days, or even weeks, hampering health officials’ responses and making efforts to trace contacts of confirmed cases almost pointless.

{mosads}Giroir claimed the DPA is not necessary to help labs. 

“We look for every opportunity to invoke the DPA, the DPA isn’t a magic tool. It doesn’t violate the laws of physics you can’t recreate something out of nothing. Most companies do not need DPA on them,” he said. 

Giroir also said he is “never going to be happy” until the crisis is “under control,” but he continued to defend efforts the administration has taken.

“We are not going to stop our efforts on testing until it is really where we want it to be with rapid turnaround times,” Giroir said. 

Tapper also asked Giroir when Trump’s comments from March, claiming anyone who wants a test can get one, will be true. 

“What is true now is that anyone who needs a test can get a test,” Giroir responded.