Appearing on CNN's "New Day," national security expert Juliette Kayyem claimed that the best and simplest thing that Donald Trump could do would be to put in motion the National Defense Production Act to get health workers the vital personal protection equipment they so desperately need.
Enacted in 1950, the act allows the executive branch to intervene and compel private industry to give priority to defense production.
Speaking with host John Berman, Kayyem explained that doctors and health care workers are doing the lion's share of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and the president simply has to give them the tools to deal with it.
Following a clip of Massachusett's Gov. Charlie Baker (R) complaining about the chaos of trying to get equipment -- only to be outbid by other states -- Kayyem said the supply and demand problem falls on the president.
"So because the market is open now because we're not utilizing the Defense Production Act, it means that the seller has leverage," she explained. "Because you have desperate buyers, 50 governors begging for the stuff the federal government trying to get it. That gives leverage to the seller because we live in a capitalist society. They then begin to raise the prices."
"People in other states get desperate, they say 'I'll go up with you on that price' and they outbid either Massachusetts or another state or the feds do the same," she elaborated. "This is why we need to stabilize the supply chain; this is the easy part, it's just logistics, satisfy the supply chain."
"The defense production act sets the market at fair market value, you don't have this bidding," she added. "You don't have this price gouging or price increases and you stabilize -- this is the simplest part of this: satisfying the supply chain. The doctor and his colleagues are doing the hard part, right? This is just get them what they need."
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