Today, Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin joined Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday to discuss the state of the U.S. economy and negotiations with Congress on a legislative package to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
- On the State of the Economy: “If the medical professionals are correct and we are doing all the things, I expect we are going to have a big rebound later in the year. So this isn’t like the financial crisis, as I’ve said, this will have an end to it as we confront the virus.”
- On a Legislative Deal to Support Businesses: “We need to get economic relief to the people that are impacted by this and as I’ve described this, we’re in the second inning. The first inning was the $8 billion. The second inning, we passed bipartisan legislation to make sure that workers that need to be home, and small and medium-size businesses will get paid.”
- “We are now going back to Congress and focusing this week on the airline industry, the hotel industry, the cruise ship; there’s no question that the travel industry has been impacted like we’ve never seen before.”
- “The President is absolutely determined that we will use whatever tools we have, and whatever tools we need we’ll go to Congress and get, and there’s a lot of bipartisan support.”
- “This focuses on employers that are 500 and less people. That’s a portion of the economy but that’s the economy that’s going to be hit the hardest.”
- On Financial Markets: “I have every confidence that this market is going to be higher down the road and the U.S. is still the greatest place to invest.”
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Secretary Mnuchin also joined Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week” to continue discussing the Administration’s efforts to combat the coronavirus.
- On the State of the Economy: “The real issue is not the economic situation today. The real issue is what economic tools are we going to use to make sure we get through this. This is a unique situation. We have a situation where travel has been ground to a halt. We’re clearly going to have a slowdown. We’re addressing issues for small and medium-sized businesses, and later in the year, the economic activity will pick up as we confront this virus.”
- On the Administration’s Travel Order: “The President was very clear, he wanted to address a very important point, which was he made the move to shut down travel so that we shut down more cases coming in. He wanted to reassure the American public, I don’t think in an Oval Office address you can address every single issue as you’re discussing it.”
- On Working with Congress: “The President has instructed me: we’ll use whatever tools we have and whatever tools we don’t have, we will go to Congress on a bipartisan basis and get more tools. The Speaker and I are already in conversations about airlines, hotels, cruise ships, more SBA lending, more liquidity, some type of stimulus. I think we’re in the second inning of nine innings and we will use whatever tools we need to make sure the economy and hardworking Americans get through this.”
- On Collaboration with the Private Sector: “Google has made commitments to us. They’ve been incredibly helpful. I want to thank Google and all the technology companies. I mean, let’s focus — this is all of corporate America, small and medium-sized businesses coming together, and the President is bringing all the companies to make sure whatever resources we need. Industry is working with the government.”
Watch the full interview by clicking here.