Here’s Trump himself, tweeting like a coke fiend who’s just had a fix, about the “fast-tracked deal.”

x Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! @fema Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are? @RepMarkMeadows @GOPLeader @senatemajldr Ã¢ÂÂ Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2020

According to the New York Times, however, that deal has fallen apart. There will be no ventilators being hastily assembled and sent to the rescue by our caring, altruistic private sector. At least not anytime soon.

WASHINGTON — The White House had been preparing to reveal on Wednesday a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems that would allow for the production of as many as 80,000 desperately needed ventilators to respond to an escalating pandemic when word suddenly came down that the announcement was off.

The exciting, imaginary “deal” was deep-sixed because, apparently, no one in the administration realized it would cost a lot of money. Hey, private industry don’t work for cheap!

The decision to cancel the announcement, government officials say, came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it needed more time to assess whether the estimated cost was prohibitive. That price tag was more than $1 billion, with several hundred million dollars to be paid upfront to General Motors to retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Ind., where the ventilators would be made with Ventec’s technology.

FEMA also contends that the much-ballyhooed “deal” was only going to produce 7500 ventilators. Barely enough to equip a single small city for what’s coming. Not the vaunted tens of thousands that were being dangled before our eyes like magical fairy dust.

Government officials said that the deal might still happen but that they are examining at least a dozen other proposals. And they contend that an initial promise that the joint venture could turn out 20,000 ventilators in short order had shrunk to 7,500, with even that number in doubt. Longtime emergency managers at FEMA are working with military officials to sort through the competing offers and federal procurement rules while under pressure to give President Trump something to announce.

Yes, that’s bad, but it gets way, way worse.

At the center of the discussion about how to ramp up the production of ventilators is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House aide, who has told people that he was called in two weeks ago by Vice President Mike Pence to produce more coronavirus test kits and who has now turned his attention to ventilators.

Remember that scene in Braveheart when Longshanks, returning home from a long campaign, hears that William Wallace has sacked York, leaving England totally vulnerable? And he discovers that his son has done absolutely nothing to prepare his kingdom from impending attack? I’m reminded of that scene.

Wel,l little Jared has apparently been in put in charge of this fiasco, at least for the past two weeks.

He has been directing officials at FEMA in the effort. Two officials said the suggestion to wait on the General Motors offer came from Col. Patrick Work, who is working at FEMA. Some government officials expressed concern about the possibility of ordering too many ventilators, leaving them with an expensive surplus.

Yes, it would be terrible to have a “surplus” of ventilators lying around. God forbid.

Kushner has no experience managing a federal agency, least of all one currently in the throes of a deadly pandemic. Placing him in charge of the FEMA effort to procure ventilators at this point in time is an act of criminal negligence, pure and simple.

With regard to the GM/Ventec “deal,” FEMA officials (now under Jared’s expert direction) were apparently taken aback at the fact that the cost to produce such an amount of ventilators in such short order was the equivalent of, as the Times reports, “buying 18 F-35s, the Pentagon’s most advanced fighter jet.” These officials have been “struggling” to understand how many ventilators are actually needed, and the administration’s various agencies can’t provide a coherent response.

So apparently Kushner and other White House officials who now hold the lives of thousands of Americans in their hands, have sat there, waiting for a back-of-the envelope cost-benefit analysis from FEMA before approving any project. But FEMA can’t get its act together because it has no guidance on what is actually needed from the White House or its agencies (which, by and large are being run by incompetents or religious zealots). As a result, no “deals” are made, no contracts are signed, and the hospitals continue to fill up.

So it’s back to the drawing board. After all, as the Times notes, there are several proposals in the pipeline for Kushner to review, once they get to his desk.

One of them ought to do the trick. At least by July or August.