President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Obama administration left him with an empty national stockpile for emergencies.
"But they also gave us empty cupboards. The cupboard was bare. You’ve heard the expression, ‘the cupboard was bare.’ So we took over a stockpile with a cupboard that was bare," he said in an April 6
White House briefing. In
previous briefings Trump described the stockpile as "empty."
Trump is exaggerating. While the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted shortcomings in the nation’s stockpile of emergency supplies and equipment, Trump did not inherit bare inventory.
It was full of supplies, but not enough to handle this particular pandemic. Most notably, the stockpile was short of N95 masks, the supply of which was depleted following the 2009 H1N1 outbreak during President Barack Obama’s tenure.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Obama administration left him with an empty national stockpile fo
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