Coronavirus US live: Trump boasts about sending supplies abroad as US hospitals struggle – as it happened

• Donald Trump repeated misleading and false claims at a coronavirus briefing. During the briefing, the president invited several executives — including My Pillow CEO and Trump rally fixture Mike Lidell — to tout their coronavirus efforts.
• Even as US hospitals complained of shortages and struggles, Trump boasted that the US would soon have a surplus, and be able to provide millions in aid to Italy, France and Spain. He came under fire today over reports that the US provided nearly 18 tons of ventilators and other equipment to China, weeks after the first cases were reported in Washington state.
• Judges in Texas and Ohio temporarily overrode efforts to ban abortions during the coronavirus pandemic. A federal judge in Texas ruled that only the Supreme Court can decide if states are allowed to restrict abortion access during a national emergency. Conservative lawmakers have tried to block abortions by asserting that they do not constitute an “essential” health care service.
• Joe Biden called on Trump to move “more rapidly” against coronavirus. The Democratic frontrunner has also demanded that Trump use the powers of the Defense Production Act to speed up the production of medical equipment.
  
• The governors of Virginia and Maryland issued “stay at home” orders, as the number of coronavirus cases in the Washington metropolitan area continues to rise.
  

Here’s the full story on Trump’s latest briefing:

Late Friday afternoon, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs notified the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe that it would revoke reservation status for 300 acres of tribal land, and remove it from the federal trust, according to Cedric Cromwell, the tribe’s chairman.

“The steps being taken right now – in the middle of a nationwide pandemic – to disestablish our reservation and take our land out of trust has created a crisis on top of a crisis,” Cromwell said in a statement. “We now have no choice but to divert precious resources from COVID-19 to address this unwarranted attack on our sovereignty.”

When the federal government holds tribal land “in trust”, it allows the tribe special legal status and autonomy over that land. In February, a US appeals court upheld a lower court decision declaring that the federal government didn’t have the authority to take the 300 acres of land in Massachusetts into trust.

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In Texas, a federal district judge granted abortion providers a temporary restraining, allowing them to continue through April 13, after attorney general Ken Paxton sought to ban abortion access during the coronavirus pandemic, saying it did not qualify as “essential” health care.

In Ohio, a judge struck down a similar policy put forth by the state’s health department.

“Patients will suffer serious and irreparable harm,” said Judge Lee Yeakel of the Western District of Texas. Only the Supreme Court has the power to decide whether a ban on abortions during a national crisis is constitutional, Yeakel said.

Women’s health advocates are seeking similar rulings in Oklahoma, Iowa, and Alabama, which have also sought to restrict abortion access amid the pandemic.

Senators, they’re just like us!

Many of us who are sheltering in place, or under quarantine, have sought artistic outlets for our anxieties. Senator Cory Booker has turned to poetry.

“We can’t touch/But we still reach out,” Booker writes. “We are distant/But we stand together.”

“I haven’t heard about testing in weeks,” Donald Trump told the governors of rural states, who are requesting medical supplies and testing equipment, according to an audio recording of the call between the president and governors obtained by CBS News.

My colleague Oliver Milman recently pulled out some of Donald Trump’s most common coronavirus claims, including, “Anybody that needs a test gets a test...And the tests are beautiful” and, “I’ve always viewed it as very serious.”

Take a look:

The president finished speaking a while back, but. we’ve just now finished fact-checking his words — for now. Please reach out to me via Twitter (@maanvisings) if you spotted any other statements from the president that you’d like us to vet.

30 Mar 202018.35 EDT

Adam Gabbatt

Fact check: Are American coronavirus tests better?

“Our testing is also better than any country in the world,” Trump bragged.

In fact, some of the initial coronavirus tests sent out to states were seriously flawed – some did not even work. Part of the problem came from the CDC insisting it would manufacture the tests itself.

Other countries – after their first coronavirus case – swiftly asked private companies to develop their own tests. South Korea, which recorded its first case on the same day as the US, did so within a week

The US only allowed laboratories and hospitals to conduct their own tests on February 29, almost six weeks after the first case was confirmed.

“The federal agency shunned the World Health Organization test guidelines used by other countries and set out to create a more complicated test of its own that could identify a range of similar viruses,” ProPublica reported.

Even as US hospitals report shortages and struggles, Trump boasted during the briefing that the US is “going to be sending approximately $100 million worth of things, of surgical and medical and hospital things to Italy.”

“And Giuseppe was very, very happy, I will tell you that, they’re having a very hard time,” the president said. Trump said he had spoken with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and made the pledge.

It’s unclear why Trump is emphasizing aid to other counties, which he has often opposed and runs counter to his principle of “America first”. His administration came under criticism today amid reports that the government sent nearly 17.8 tons of medical supplies to China—including masks and respirators— weeks after the first cases of coronavirus were reported in the US.

“Trump, you incompetent idiot!”, said Maxine Waters, a democratic representative of California, in a tweet criticizing the move.

The president defended saying, a month ago, that a “miracle” would bring the number of coronavirus cases down to “I could cause panic,” he said. “But I don’t want to do that.”