A deconstruction of the Jared Kushner Briefing

The link to the press conference is here.

When the Vice President first asked me to help on the task force with different tasks, I asked the President what he expected from the task force and how I can best serve him in the task force.

The task of the task force member is to perform the tasks which must be performed to complete the tasks.

What the President asked is that all of the recommendations that we make be based on data. He wanted us to be very rigorous to make sure that we were studying the data, collecting data. A lot of things in this country were happening very quickly and we want to make sure that we were trying to keep updating our models and making sure that we were making informed decisions and informed recommendations to him based on the data that we were able to collect and put together.

The task is clear: the data will be used to make informed decisions using data driven methods based on reliable data.

The President wanted to make sure that we had the best people doing the best jobs and making sure that we had the right people focused on all the things that needed to happen to make sure that we can deliver in these unusual times for the American people.

This was stated unironically.

The President also wanted us to make sure we think outside the box. Make sure we’re finding all the best thinkers in the country. 

Once again, unironically.

Just very early this morning, I got a call from the President. He told me he was hearing from friends of his in New York that the New York Public Hospital System was running low on critical supply. He instructed me this morning, I called Dr Katz who runs the system. I asked him which supply was the most supply he was nervous about. He told me it was the N95 masks. I asked what his daily burn was and I basically got that number. Called up Admiral Polowczyk. Made sure that we had the inventory. We went to the President today and earlier today the President called Mayor de Blasio to inform him that we were going to send a month of supply to New York Public Hospital System to make sure that the workers on the front line can rest assured that they have the N95 masks that they need to get through the next month. 

After using the word ‘data’ seven times, we now have an example of what data is being used and how. The president heard off hand from a friend in New York that they were having problems in the public hospital system, Trump told Kushner, who called the head of the public hospital system in NYC, and asked him for the one item that the hospital was having supply troubles with. Kushner then arranged for 200,000 masks to be sent the next day.

Jacob Robbins

Author: Jacob Robbins

Jacob Robbins is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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