Donald Trump established the coronavirus task force with VP Mike Pence leading the way.  What we’ve only recently learned is that Jared Kushner has his own shadow group of advisors, to reportedly cut through the red tape and get things done.  It’s sort of like a giving the young one a Lego set to give him something to do. Well, young Jared has made so much progress with his project, father-in-law Trump decided to let him tell the class about it. So yesterday, in the White House briefing room, Jared made a rare appearance before cameras, where he promptly showed he wasn’t quite ready for prime time. At the White House briefing, he took to the podium to pit the federal government against the states in the battle for ventilators and masks:

“The notion of the federal stockpile is that it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”

Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) replied to these remarks saying, “Dear Jared Kushner of the @realDonaldTrump Administration: We are the UNITED STATES of America. The federal stockpile is reserved for all Americans living in our states, not just federal employees. Get it?” And Lieu’s response isn’t a political one. A simple search of the Strategic National Stockpile on the Health & Human Services government website backs this up saying:

When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency. 

And yet Kushner contradicted this basic and lifesaving information on national TV. It’s either a sign he is uninformed, out of his league or just trying to play by his own rules. In a New York Times opinion piece titled, “Jared Kushner Is Going to Get Us All Killed,” columnist Michelle Golberg writes that “Trump’s son-in-law has no business running the coronavirus response:”

In our hour of existential horror, Kushner is making life-or-death decisions for all Americans, showing all the wisdom we’ve come to expect from him.

“Mr. Kushner’s early involvement with dealing with the virus was in advising the president that the media’s coverage exaggerated the threat,” reported The Times. It was apparently at Kushner’s urging that Trump announced, falsely, that Google was about to launch a website that would link Americans with coronavirus testing….

The president was reportedly furious over the website debacle, but Kushner’s authority hasn’t been curbed. 

The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist adds:

The chaos, confusion and incompetence at the federal level magnify our daily anxiety and uncertainty. We have lost control of our lives, and those supposed to lead us through this ordeal are deepening our national trauma. Years of contempt for expertise, for competent government and for truth itself on the right now haunt us all. 

*This piece contains opinion and analysis