Analysis: Virus pulls federalism debate into 21st Century

1 / 5Virus FederalismFILE - In this March 19, 2020, file photo President Donald Trump attends a teleconference with governors at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington. Trump has framed his fight against the pandemic as a war, and himself a wartime president.

Trump has framed his fight against the pandemic as a war, and himself as a wartime president. But rather than fully lever the power of the federal government, he has increasingly put responsibility on the states, reigniting the kind of tension the nation’s founders wrestled with more than two centuries ago.

“So even though Trump’s sense of federalism has historic precedent, and could be said to be closer to what the founders considered the proper division between states and the federal government — with the former having the lead responsibility for citizens' health and immediate well being — it is entirely out of step with almost every response we’ve seen from presidents facing crises in anyone’s living memory.

One of the clearest measures of that would be Trump putting the Defense Production Act in full force to compel production of critical supplies. Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt did so without a law as the foundation for their action. On Friday, after repeatedly saying that he would spur private production through persuasion, Trump in effect ordered General Motors to make ventilators. “GM,” Trump said, “was wasting time.” But the company was already on that path.

“Governor Inslee, that's the state of Washington ... And you know, he's always complaining,” Trump told Fox host Sean Hannity on Thursday. “And your governor of Michigan, I mean, she's not stepping up.I don't know if she knows what's going on. But all she does is sit there and blame the federal government. She doesn't get it done. And we send her a lot.”

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