White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain must be really unhappy with Joe Biden’s COVID response. That is unless he’s a complete hypocrite.
In 2020, he made clear he believes the bucks stops with the president on testing shortages. He said it over and over again:
- April 2020: “The president needs to take leadership…we need a national approach, we need to be able to use the president’s authorities under the Defense Production Act to accelerate the production of testing kits…to test anyone who wants it.”
- April 2020: “The power [the president] really has—the power to take control of the supply chain, to demand that more tests be made, to demand that more gear be made, to get that gear out … That’s a power Joe Biden would use as president if this is still going on when he becomes president to make sure that we are testing the American people.”
- June 2020: “Think about how great it would be if there was an entity with a national strategy for testing that kept a promise to make testing available and affordable to all. LIKE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT! Come on WH Task Force: do better!”
- July 2020: “[Biden would] make sure that all Americans have access to regular, reliable, and free testing.”
- September 2020: “The WH almost certainly won't deliver on this promise, any more than it has delivered on its other promises about testing.”
Bottom line: it was another promise Biden made and another promise he broke, and by the Biden administration’s own standard, they are responsible.
