Trump praises Pennsylvania workers, calls on state to reopen

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — In his first visit to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, President Donald Trump emerged Thursday from Air Force One maskless and in a speech about an hour later, pressed Pennsylvania to loosen restrictions in place to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have to get your governor of Pennsylvania to start opening up a little bit,” he told a cheering audience at Owens & Minor Inc. in Upper Macungie Township outside of Allentown. “You have areas of Pennsylvania that are barely affected, and they want to keep them closed. You can’t do that.”

Trump’s visit Thursday was part of his broader push to reopen the country and highlight successes after initial stumbles in his administration’s response to the public health crisis. He touted the administration’s work to ramp up testing, and praised Allentown as the place “where it starts.”

“Allentown, your ancestors in this region are the patriots who mined the coal, lowered the rail cars, and poured the steel that built our biggest cities and raised our tallest towers,” Trump said, adding: “Pennsylvania workers, once again, you’re going to lead the way. With your help, we’re going to vanquish the virus.”

As coronavirus case counts decline, Trump has criticized Democratic governors, such as Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf, who have taken a more cautious approach to lifting restrictions on businesses and gatherings.

He used the backdrop of the medical equipment distribution center to announce plans to replenish and reconfigure the Strategic National Stockpile, which was under-supplied for the current crisis. The Trump administration has faced criticism for how those limited supplies were distributed, but the president has directed blame at his predecessor, saying the Obama administration did not restock supplies after the H1N1 outbreak in 2009.

The new effort to revamp the stockpile will seek to build up a 90-day supply of critical gear, including masks, medical gowns and ventilators, and expand the pandemic-fighting supplies kept in that stockpile. The administration also is seeking to boost domestic manufacturing to better prepare for future surges in demand, entering into contracts to maintain capacity and to cycle out supplies with a limited shelf life.

“You’ll never have to deal with empty shelves,” Trump said.

The president was in the Lehigh Valley for about two hours Thursday afternoon, coming to tour the 200,000square-foot Owens & Minor warehouse, out of which the Virginia-based company sends N95 masks, surgical gowns, gloves and other medical supplies to hospitals across the country, which have a heightened demand for the products because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Most of this equipment is made in the USA,” Trump said during the tour. “That’s the way we like it.”