Trump tells Sean Hannity the US has plenty of ventilators and cites Hannity's own show to back up that claim

• President Donald Trump told Fox News host and unofficial White House adviser Sean Hannity that states across the country have plenty of ventilators, citing Hannity's show to back up his claim.
• Trump has insisted that states fend for themselves in acquiring critical medical supplies and he's repeatedly argued that governors are exaggerating their needs.
• Researchers at Harvard Medical School predict the US could require up to 31 times the number of ventilators it has in its stockpile in order to treat coronavirus patients.
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President Donald Trump told Fox News host and unofficial White House adviser Sean Hannity that states across the country have plenty of ventilators - and he cited Hannity's show to back up his claim.

This comes as governors are pleading for more life-saving breathing-assistance machines as coronavirus infections spike in their states and they prepare for hospitalization rates that could overwhelm their healthcare systems.

"In fact, we just saw on your show and a couple of other people just reported back to me that everyone is in great shape from the standpoint of ventilators, which are very hard because they were expensive and big and they are very high tech," the president told Hannity on his primetime program on Tuesday night.

Trump has insisted that states fend for themselves in acquiring critical medical supplies and he's repeatedly argued that governors are exaggerating their needs. In many cases, states are forced to bid against other states and the federal government to acquire supplies from vendors.

Trump added that ventilators are "very hard to get," but that the US government is "building thousands of them, and we have that in good shape."

Researchers at Harvard Medical School predict the US could require up to 31 times the number of ventilators it has in its stockpile in order to treat coronavirus patients.

Anywhere from 10% to 25% of COVID-19 patients need breathing assistance equipment at some point while they're sick with the illness. And about 5% of patients require a mechanical ventilator, which is critical to save the lives of those with acute respiratory distress syndrome.

The federal government has a well-documented shortage of ventilators in its Strategic National Stockpile, which the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, falsely claimed wasn't designed to aid states. And thousands of ventilators in the federal emergency stockpile do not work, The New York Times reported earlier this month.

In late March, the Trump administration sent 170 ventilators to California, after the state requested 10,000 of the machines, and all 170 were broken.

At a press briefing on Saturday, Trump said: "[Ventilator] shortages have led to inflated requests. We have some states and areas that are just asking for far more than they need."

As the administration fails to answer states' requests, governors have begun stepping up to help each other. California, Oregon, and Washington announced they will lend ventilators to the national stockpile to be used by states struggling with rising coronavirus caseloads, the Associated Press reported.

James Pasley contributed to this report.

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