Trump says he is 'starting the process' of having the military assist with coronavirus response

Asked at a news conference Tuesday if he would support that request, Trump said, "We've been asked to ...Yes we're starting to. We're starting the process, we hope it's not going to be necessary but it could be necessary, the state is working on it very hard themselves but we'll probably supplement."

"The Army Corps of Engineers is ready, willing and able, we have to give them the go ahead if we find that it's going to be necessary, we think that we can have quite a few units up very rapidly," Trump added.

"I've worked with Gov. Cuomo and ... we're talking to California about different sites," he went on to say.

As the outbreak has spread, politicians including Cuomo and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden have been asking why the military has not been doing more to help. On Monday the Pentagon said it "is ready and willing to support" US civilian authorities but suggested any assistance would involve trade-offs.

Trump met yesterday with the Commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite.

"The President directed us to work with the Department of a defense, there's two ways that DoD could be helpful in terms of expanding medical capacity," Vice President Mike Pence said while appearing alongside Trump.

"I know the governor of New York has asked us to look at the Army Corps of Engineers which could perhaps renovate existing buildings but the President also has us inventorying what you all would understand as field hospitals or MASH hospitals that could be deployed very quickly," Pence added.

Pence said "The President has tasked us to evaluate and to make available and to consider every request from governors for either field hospitals, expanding facilities, or the Army Corps of Engineers which could retrofit existing buildings."

On Sunday Cuomo penned an op-ed in The New York Times asking for the military to have the Army Corps of Engineers build hospitals to alleviate the burden on civilian hospitals.

"This is exactly what they do. Deploy the Army Corps of Engineers to come work with states to build temporary medical facilities. Get us backup beds so when the hospital is overwhelmed, we can have some of the people who are in the hospital beds go to a backup medical facility," Cuomo said at a news conference Monday.

"If you don't do it, you know what is going to happen: You're going to overwhelm the hospitals," he added.

The US Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday that it was aware of Cuomo's request for it to build temporary hospitals but said that no formal request has been made.

"The US Army Corps of Engineers is prepared to assist the nation in a time of crisis to the very best of its capabilities, and we are postured to lean forward when an official request is received through the Department of Defense," a spokesperson for the Army Corps of Engineers said in a statement to CNN, adding "as a precautionary measure, USACE has begun assessing our capabilities in this area in conjunction with our partners."

"USACE does have the capability and experience in medical facilities construction," the statement added, while saying "At this time, however, USACE has not been assigned a COVID-19 support mission."

Defense officials have said that any military support to respond to the outbreak will involve sacrifices.

Decisions will be "informed by the facts of what is possible and what is not and what those trade-offs are," Pentagon spokesman Jonathon Hoffman said Monday.