Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City, however, spoke for many Democrats.
“We’re talking about a president who is basically doing what Herbert Hoover did at the beginning of the Depression and minimizing the danger and refusing to use available federal action, and people are going to die, and they shouldn’t, they don’t have to, if we could get the support that we’re asking for,” he said in an interview with WNYC on Friday.
Republicans have not been openly critical, but some governors have been explicit in describing their difficulty in depending on the private sector for medical supplies.
In a call held with Mr. Trump at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters on Thursday, a group of governors stressed to him that they were struggling to address the staggering demand for equipment and supplies.
At one point, Gov. Kristi Noem, Republican of South Dakota, grew frustrated as she expressed to the president and members of the task force that state officials had been working unsuccessfully with private suppliers.
“I need to understand how you’re triaging supplies,” Ms. Noem said. “We, for two weeks, were requesting reagents for our public health lab from C.D.C., who pushed us to private suppliers who kept canceling orders on us. And we kept making requests, placing orders.”
She added: “I don’t want to be less of a priority because we’re a smaller state or less populated.”
Mr. Trump promised her that would “never” happen before Ms. Noem’s telephone line was disconnected.
The Defense Production Act, passed by Congress in 1950 at the outset of the Korean War, granted President Truman the power to spur the production of aluminum, titanium and other needed materials during wartime. Since then, it has been used for both the prevention of terrorism and to prepare for natural disasters.