A story was posted here about Peter Navarro has treated WH staffers as dirt

[question everything]

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14013191

and

On Monday, the administration terminated one contract that Navarro had directly negotiated — for 42,900 Philips ventilators. A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said the cancellation was “subject to internal HHS investigation and legal review.” The contract had been criticized by a House oversight subcommittee, which concluded that the government had overpaid for the ventilators by $500 million.

Interestingly, though, a few days earlier, as I was reading the vast investigation by the WSJ about the chaos that the administration sowed, pitting one state against the other, I found this note:

Peter Navarro, the president’s chief manufacturing adviser, warned about the scarcity of masks and gowns, writing a series of memos saying that shortages needed to be addressed, White House officials said. At the time, top officials, including those in charge of the supply chain, focused on more immediate problems, such as outbreaks on cruise ships, and ignored the memos, the officials said. (Mid March, I think)

Among other things, Mr. Navarro recommended building up the domestic supply by halting the export of N95 masks and guaranteeing to U.S. companies that the federal government would buy their products. Other White House officials worried that would hamper China’s ability to contain the disease, an important goal at the time, and could prompt retaliatory measures.

Mick Mulvaney, then the acting-White House staff chief, summoned Mr. Navarro, who wasn’t on the administration’s coronavirus task force, to his office in February, telling him to stay in his lane or be fired. “People are dying,” Mr. Navarro told Mr. Mulvaney, according to someone familiar with the conversation. “Do whatever you have to do, and I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-trump-sowed-covid-supply-chaos-try-getting-it-yourselves-11598893051 (subscription)

[brush]

1. Sounds like Navarro was trying to do the right thing.

[question everything]

2. He clearly marches to his own drum

He clearly marches to his own drum