'We're competing against the federal government': States accuse Trump administration of seizing medical equipment

While the White House tells states to seek their own medical supplies following requests for aid from a national stockpile, officials in several states have accused the federal government of confiscating shipments that they've ordered, forcing them to compete with other states for critically needed equipment in the face of the coronavirus pandemic

Officials in Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Texas have said that Donald Trump's administration has blocked or re-routed shipments to their states, without explanation, while the president and Jared Kushner criticised officials for their lack of preparedness.

On 4 April, Colorado Governor Jared Polis told CNN that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has "swept up" the state's order for 500 ventilators.

He said the state has been made to compete against "any other state, every other country [and] now we're even competing against the federal government," which has been accused of winning bids for equipment orders against the states.

The governor said: "We've been asking what we're going to get from FEMA, we'd love a timeline, and numbers."

An order of 35,000 N95 masks to Somerset County, New Jersey has also been diverted by the federal government, county official Shanel Robinson told the Franklin Reporter and Advocate.

Political consultant Jared Leopold, former communications director for the Democratic Governors Association, told The New York Times that "it would be like high school cafeteria drama if it weren't life or death".

He said the president is "basically playing political games around life-or-death issues and leaving states to fend for themselves, which is unheard of for a president to show zero federal leadership" during the crisis.

On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence told governors that the federal government's "air bridge" distribution plan is using FEMA as a "control tower at the airport" to create a singular distribution network. According to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times, Mr Pence said that the administration has "the visibility on medical supplies that are moving into this country and are available to vendors" across the US.

The disarray follows statements from the White House that the national stockpile isn't intended for the states.

In his first coronavirus briefing appearance, the president's son-in-law and adviser told reporters that "the notion of the federal stockpile was it's supposed to be our stockpile" and is "not supposed to be states' stockpiles that they then use."

By definition, the stockpile is "the nation's largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out," according to the US government's website about the stockpile.

But the website was edited some time after Mr Kushner's statements to more closely match his claims.

The edits did not, however, change the US code on which the website's original language was based.