Gov. Tony Evers addresses reporters on July 7, 2020, five months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Evers and other governors say they struggled to secure testing materials and other needed equipment to address the pandemic at the time, while according to a new book Donald Trump secretly sent COVID-19 tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin during that period. (Screenshot from Youtube)
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and two other Democratic governors joined Friday in condemning Donald Trump after reports that as president Trump shipped COVID-19 tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin early in the pandemic.
In a new book, journalist Bob Woodward writes Trump sent the tests to Putin secretly, and that Putin told Trump not to reveal what he had done to avoid political repercussions.
The book, to be published Tuesday, Oct. 15, was the subject of a Washington Post report published Tuesday. A Trump spokesman dismissed the book’s claims about Trump as false.
In a joint statement Friday, Evers, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wrote, “Former President Trump betrayed us.”
When the three governors sought in the first months of the pandemic to obtain COVID-19 testing kits, ventilators, and N-95 masks, the federal government “abandoned us to fend for ourselves,” the governors added. Trump and the federal government ignored requests for help at a time when the pandemic’s death toll was still unknown and hospitals were beleaguered as they tried to treat patients and protect health care workers, according to the governors. “It was a terrifying time.”
The governors assert that after Trump rejected their pleas to ramp up domestic production of those supplies under the Defense Production Act, states turned to “price gouging foreign suppliers” and purchased what they needed using state funds.
“Now we are reading reports that during this unprecedented and historic public health crisis, while Americans were dying and desperate for life saving supplies, former President Trump was personally sending testing kits to Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the governors wrote. “For that, we demand answers.”
The statement claims that Trump’s “cozy relationship with Putin has been well documented,” and that the new report shows him “putting a foreign dictator before Americans, threatening our national security in the process.”
“Former President Trump betrayed us. Americans suffered during the pandemic. 1.2 million Americans died, many because they did not have access to adequate supplies at a critical time,” the governors wrote. “Donald Trump must explain why he put his personal friendship with Putin, a ruthless dictator and war criminal, over the American people.”