White House’s pandemic relief effort Project Airbridge is swathed in secrecy and exaggerations

On May 1, as White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, an illustration of an airplane flying to the moon appeared on the monitors beside her.

“One hundred flights for Project Airbridge have been completed to date,” McEnany said, delivering “nearly 1 billion pieces” of personal protective equipment to the front lines. The flights had traveled 720,000 miles, the display read, equal to “more than 3 trips to the moon!”

Since the debut of Project Airbridge in March, the Trump administration has promoted the initiative as part of a historic mobilization “moving heaven and earth” to source and deliver vast amounts of medical supplies from overseas to pandemic hot spots in the United States. Continue reading.