Apparently President Trump's tweets weren't enough.
On Friday, Trump announced that he had invoked the Defense Production Act to compel General Motors to start producing ventilators. GM was "wasting time" in negotiations, so Trump sidestepped those talks to "require General Motors to accept, perform, and prioritize federal contracts for ventilators," he said in a Friday statement.
Trump activated some provisions of the Korean War-era DPA last week, calling himself a "wartime president." But he didn't utilize the provision that can compel companies to ramp up production of needed medical supplies; We "haven't had to use it because no one has said NO!" Trump tweeted Tuesday. Still, Democratic lawmakers and national security experts kept pushing Trump to invoke the act.
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Trump targeted GM and Ford yet again in a tweet just a few hours before invoking the DPA, calling on GM to "immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!!" Unfortunately, six exclamation points just couldn't get the job done.
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