President Trump announced Wednesday that he had signed an executive order claiming emergency powers under the 1950 Defense Production Act, allowing him to order U.S. manufacturers to increase production of dwindling medical supplies like masks and respirators, and had dispatched two Navy hospital ships to New York City and somewhere on the West Coast to help manage the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Trump clarified in a Wednesday night tweet that while he signed the executive order activating the Defense Production Act, he only did so "should we need to invoke it in a worst case scenario in the future," and "hopefully there will be no need." Defense Secretary Mark Esper also told CNN that the two ships — the USS Comfort and USS Mercy — won't deploy for at least 10 days. The Comfort, headed to New York, is undergoing maintenance in Virginia for "a couple weeks," he added, and neither ship will treat coronavirus patients.
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