Thread by @weareoversight

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee about the government’s Covid-19 response.

Emails we obtained reveal a heated exchange in which the Trump administration complained about tweets from Pritzker criticizing its Covid-19 efforts.

On March 14, the White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Douglas Hoelscher emailed Pritzker’s chief of staff, Anne Caprara, to complain about Pritzker’s tweets criticizing the federal government’s travel restrictions for causing O’Hare Airport delays.

In his tweets, Pritzker asserted that the delays created crowds and increased the risk of Covid spread.

Hoelscher's email included links to several of Pritzerk's tweets.

americanoversight.org/document/publi…

Hoelscher said that he called Pritzker about these tweets and complained that “nobody on your team reached out to me ... despite the Vice President underscoring that we are here to help work through shared challenges of this unprecedented public health challenge.”

The next morning, Caprara responded: “Was glad to hear that your response to this situation last evening was to call the Governor of Illinois and scream at him over the phone and then ask for a public apology for his tweets.”

”You guys really have your priorities straight. He left that call with no sense as to what you are actually doing to alleviate the situation at hand btw.”

Caprara also claimed the White House had failed to inform the Governor’s Office that it planned to issue the restrictions on travel from much of Europe.

She wrote, “Which tells me one of two things: either you had no idea it was going to happen because you didn’t prepare AT ALL for the consequences and logistics of the President’s travel ban OR you knew and decided not to warn us. Both are unacceptable.”

She continued: “We are also ‘just a phone call away’ but apparently the phone didn’t work when we needed to be warned this might happen.”

“It takes days for the governor to get anyone on the phone who has real decision making authority. Our repeated calls for more [test] kits have gone unanswered.”

“So please spare me the sanctimonious preaching about ending partisanship and coming to the table – the time for that was weeks ago when we needed an aggressive federal level response to head off this disaster."

"Instead we got ‘everyone who wants a test can get a test’ and ‘this is no worse than the flu.’”

In a follow-up email, Hoelscher claimed that Caprara didn’t accurately describe his call with the governor, but admits that he “did express frustration to the Governor about not picking up the phone to work toward a solution in partnership.”

Caprara responded: “On the testing issue - my boss has been calling White House officials, including the Vice President, about this for two weeks. To be quite honest, we’ve all given up getting a straight answer from you guys.”

This email exchange starkly demonstrates the behind-the-scenes frustrations of state leaders as they handled the fall-out and confusion of the Trump administration’s haphazard and irresponsible coronavirus response.

americanoversight.org/document/publi…