There was almost 10 year gap I think from the last SkyLab mission to the first flight of the shuttle,when Americans had no capsule available for manned missions.
It has been nearly nine years since the US lost the capacity for manned space flight so there's a kernel of truth, /s or not.
This is an interesting time to be following along, as SpaceX just completed an in-flight abort test last weekend which was - by all appearances - a success.
According to spaceflightnow.com, the manned follow-up mission which will launch astronauts to the ISS on a Crew Dragon capsule, DM2, could happen within the next 50-100 days[1]:
> The schedule for the Demo-2 launch with Hurley and Behnken will partly be determined by a NASA decision in the coming weeks on whether to extend the length of their mission at the space station from a short-duration stay of about a week to an expedition that might last as long as several months.
> Bridenstine said the Demo-2 crew will have to undergo additional training to perform duties on the space station if NASA extends Hurley and Behnken’s mission.
> Kathy Lueders, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, suggested Friday that the Demo-2 mission might be ready for launch as soon as the first half of March.
> But it’s more likely to happen in April — at the soonest — when the space station’s crew is downsized to three people through October, assuming no U.S. crew launches in that period.
For those who missed it, the in-flight abort test itself was interesting[2].