The New York Times on Wednesday wrapped up America’s year under President Joe Biden in the space of two sentences.
Biden, the Times reported, “promised that his administration would mail 500 million of them [COVID-19 tests] to Americans, free of charge. There was a major hitch: The administration had yet to secure a single test kit for the program.”
But Americans shouldn’t worry. Biden found those tests – in China. Which is also the same country, as investigative journalist Peter Schweitzer points out in his new book, whose communist leaders paid the Biden family $31 million in business deals Biden began cutting before he left the White House the first time as vice president.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked on Wednesday if the administration was concerned at all about the “optics: of shipping Americans tests made in China for a virus unleashed on the world in China.
“Well, I would say our objective continues to be to increase U.S. manufacturing capacity of tests, Psaki replied.
“We also needed to meet a need that we had in this country for more tests and a shortage of tests and the understandable demand from people across this country to get tests and make them free and accessible, which required us purchasing some of those tests from China in order to meet that demand.”
Continuing, she added, “But that doesn’t change our commitment to increasing our U.S. manufacturing to ensure that we will be able to meet that demand with products made here in the United States over the course of time.”
For the record, that Chinese company, iHealth landed a $1.3 billion contract for the tests – even though, as that Times report indicated, the company had never made a rapid COVID test until late in 2021.
That was the biggest chunk of change in the whole testing pot.
The Times noted that U.S.-based Abbott Laboratories and Roche, a Swiss firm, each reaped about $300 million to supply the feds with tests.
U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida essentially nailed it in his comments on the deal. Biden, he told the Washington Free Beacon, is “paying the arsonist for helping put out the fire.”
Last month, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a sharply center-leaning Republican, explained how harebrained Biden’s policy is.
Before Biden created a demand for 500 million tests, his policy on tests actually cost Maine 400 jobs, as Abbott laid off workers in Maine when the administration passed on buying more tests.
“The money was there. The manufacturers were ready. The employees were there,” Collins told local media.
“The manufacturing lines had been ramped up and the administration made a critical error in scaling back dramatically in the midst of the pandemic the number of tests that it ordered. I just don’t understand it.”
You’re not alone, senator.
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