Pence told governors on a video conference earlier Monday that an email was sent to governors listing labs in their state. But Hogan said much of the unused lab machinery listed for Maryland in the report was in federal labs that the state does not have access to.
Trump opened the briefing by saying some governors, including Hogan, didn’t understand the list despite it being “pretty simple.” He said that labs have “tremendous capacity.”
“He didn’t understand too much about what was going on, so now I think he’ll be able to do that,” Trump said, without using Hogan’s name. “We hope to be able to help [Hogan] out. We’ll work with him and work with all of the governors.”
But as the nearly two-hour briefing continued, Trump doubled down on his statements and continued to harp on Hogan’s actions. He said it was “really obvious” to those listening to Monday’s call with the governors that Hogan “didn’t know about the federal labs.”
“If he did know about it, he would’ve been happy,” Trump said.
Hogan, speaking to CNN’s Blitzer, said he wasn’t sure what the president was talking about.
“I have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on and I appreciate the information that was provided by his team," Hogan said during the interview. “But he wasn’t there. I’m not sure what he was trying to say.”
Hogan sought to expand Maryland’s testing capability by purchasing the tests themselves from a South Korean company, while the Trump administration’s comments appeared instead to address the availability of labs to run the tests.
The governor reiterated what he said earlier in the day during a news conference, that the list of labs provided by the federal government included many federal and military facilities that the state doesn’t have access to.
