Describing himself as a “wartime president” fighting an invisible enemy, President Donald Trump invoked rarely used emergency powers to marshal critical medical supplies against the coronavirus pandemic. Trump also signed an aid package — which the Senate approved earlier Wednesday — that will guarantee sick leave to workers who fall ill, EDNews reports citing Associated Press.
Trump on Wednesday tapped his authority under the 70-year-old Defense Production Act to give the government more power to steer production by private companies and try to overcome shortages in masks, ventilators and other supplies.
Yet he seemed to minimize the urgency of the decision, later tweeting that he “only signed the Defense Production Act to combat the Chinese Virus should we need to invoke it in a worst case scenario in the future.”
“Hopefully there will be no need,” he added, “but we are all in this TOGETHER!”
“It’s a war,” he said. “I view it as a, in a sense, a wartime president. It’s a very tough situation.”