President Donald Trump will declare a national emergency Friday afternoon in response to the coronavirus outbreak, various reports claimed.
The emergency declaration will invoke the Stafford Act, which will allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency to use roughly $40 billion in the Disaster Relief Fund to help state governments respond to the virus.
The president said on Twitter Friday morning that he will host a press conference at 3:00 p.m. ET in the White House to announce the declaration.
I will be having a news conference today at 3:00 P.M., The White House. Topic: CoronaVirus!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2020
The news comes after Senate Democratic leadership sent a letter to the president urging him to consider a disaster declaration.
“This would not be an unprecedented action, President Clinton issued an Emergency Declaration under the Stafford Act in 2000 for New York and New Jersey and utilized this authority to pay for mosquito abatement. COVID-19 must be addressed swiftly and effectively, with all federal resources made available to impacted communities and tribes,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a letter signed by 33 Democrats.
President Trump addressed the nation live from the Oval Office Wednesday night and announced a temporary travel ban on several European countries.
“This is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome as a nation and as a world,” he said. “We are all in this together. We must put politics aside, stop the partisanship and unify together as one nation and one family.”
As of Friday morning, the United States had 1,727 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 41 deaths.
“To this point, and because we have had a very strong border policy, we have had 40 deaths related to coronavirus. If we had weak or open borders, that number would be many times higher,” the president said on Twitter Friday.
To this point, and because we have had a very strong border policy, we have had 40 deaths related to CoronaVirus. If we had weak or open borders, that number would be many times higher!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2020
The emergency declaration will be the second of Trump’s presidency, and the just the third since the 1960s targeting a disease outbreak, Bloomberg reports.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
I feel so much safer now. (Sarcasm)