Trump praises Tennessee's GOP governor even as state runs out of hospital beds for COVID patients

Tennessee is running out of hospital beds as the state fails at responding to the Delta variant of the coronavirus pandemic.

"As the coronavirus pandemic explodes with unprecedented speed, hospitals across the state are running alarmingly low on usable beds, and there is no clear measurement of how much space is left. Doctors who must transfer patients to other hospitals, either due to space shortages or for more sophisticated care, often find there is simply nowhere to go," the Tennesseanreported Friday.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center spokesman John Howser said that the facility's emergency room and adult hospital are both "completely full" thanks to the pandemic, and the facility has been forced to turn away some patient transfer requests.

Despite the state's strained healthcare system, Donald Trump praised the state's GOP governor on Friday, who has so far refused to do anything to mitigate the spread of the disease.

"Governor Bill Lee is an outsider who led the Great State of Tennessee through difficult times, without compromising his Conservative Values. Tennesseans enjoy more freedom than ever before," Trump wrote in a statement emailed to reporters. "Re-electing Bill Lee means putting America first. Bill has my Complete and Total Endorsement!"