In place of rallies, or to get out of the White House, Trump has been traveling purple states (purely by coincidence) looking at factories and highlighting American production of goods and materials for the epidemic.

On Friday, it was Guilford, Maine’s turn to host the massive footprint that descends upon any place to which the president travels.

Trump visited a swab factory owned by Puritan Medical Products.

However, according to USA Today, none of the swabs manufactured while Trump toured the plant will be used. That’s right, every swab made while Trump walked his big old self around is headed for the trash:

Puritan Medical Products said it will have to discard the swabs, a company spokeswoman told USA TODAY in response to questions about the visit.

It is not clear why the swabs will be scrapped, or how many. The company described its manufacturing plans for Friday as “limited” – but the disruption comes as public health officials in Maine and other states have complained that a shortage of swabs has hampered their ability to massively scale up coronavirus testing.

Workers in white lab coats, hair nets and plastic booties worked at machines making swabs while the president walked through the room. Trump, who did not wear a mask for the visit, stopped at one point to talk with some of the workers.

Now, I am not a rocket scientist. But the line about “it is not clear” why the swabs won’t be used – even though there is a shortage – along with the detail that every worker had masks, booties, hair covers all that? USA Today printed that detail for a reason, and also noted that Trump rolled through without any protective gear, only wearing his girdle, high lift shoes, no mask, dead ferret hair, all sticking out? If I had to guess the reason that the swabs manufactured while Trump visited must be thrown out, I would pay attention to those details.

Not quite up to code, so to speak.

But that’s just a guess. It appears to me that the plant’s unwillingness to say why they will throw every swab away surely stems from the fear of embarrassing a man very prone to embarrassment and rage.

Just a guess.

The USA Today article noted that Puritan is one of only two factories in the entire U.S. that currently manufacture these swabs, and they remain scarce in many areas. Puritan has been unable to keep up with the demand just in their own state: nearly one-third of Maine’s nursing homes had no swabs last month, and about sixty percent said they had seven or fewer on hand.

Shameful.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom