March 13, 2020

Fox News anchor Martha McCallum simply could not get a straight answer from Seema Verma, head of Medicare and Medicaid services about whether there were enough ventilators to handle patients who needed them during the coronavirus epidemic, and here's how it ended:

McCALLUM: Okay. That's not a direct answer to the question, but it sounds like a hope that there won't be enough sick people and we won't run out of ventilators because we have mitigated. We certainly hope that's the case.

"Three times. She talked about -- the answer was, instead of ventilators, she talked about rapid dialogue. We're going to have rapid dialogue," Mika Brzezinski said.

"Willie, the head of HHS was asked a very direct question. Sean Hannity asked a question that followed up on what the president said. If you want a test, you can get a test. Sean Hannity asked the question. I think the most important question, actually, that Americans want to know right now. If I want a test for my parents, if I want a test for my grandparents, if I want a test for my child, for my boy or girl that have an underlying health condition, can I get it? Azar didn't answer. What did he say? he said, we're going to try to make it, quote, 'a more seamless experience.'

"This, this is why the markets are freaking out. This is why the markets have lost the majority of what they gained under Donald Trump as president. These questions have to be answered on ventilators, hospital beds. The CDC, Willie, reporting in the New York Times, said up to 21 million people in America could be hospitalized because of this pandemic. 21 million people. We have 925,000 hospital beds in this country. That means over 20 million Americans could be without hospital beds. We need answers. None of the president's men or women are giving answers not to, quote, fake media, but to hosts on Fox News."

They talked about how people can't even get tests.

"Everybody screws up. Everybody makes mistakes. Every president makes mistakes. Every administration is asleep at the switch from time to time, all right? Okay, you screwed up. We get it. Even Sean Hannity said last night, the White House screwed up on testing. Okay, great. So what are you doing now?" Joe Scarborough demanded.

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