Secretary Mnuchin: This is War Against Coronavirus

Today, Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin joined Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria" to discuss the CARES Act and the substantial benefits it provides to the American people. 

• On Coordination with the Federal Reserve: "Chairman Powell and I are speaking multiple times a day, every day. Even before this legislation was passed, the Fed requested use of 13-3. Those are their emergency powers. The way this works is the Fed makes a request to me as Treasury Secretary--I have to approve it. I have approved all the requests so far. We have announced five of these transactions using existing money that we had before the legislation was passed. And the mechanism works in some of these, where the Fed is doing certain transactions, they get credit support from Treasury and money that we put up with the Exchange Stabilization Fund." 
• On Support for Workers and Families: "The number one issue is not what the economic numbers are right now. The number one issue is the hardship to the American people who are losing their jobs. And we have multiple approaches to this to help the American workers, because this is not their fault." 
• On Support for Small Businesses: "We have a small business lending program for retention loans, that should help 50% of the U.S. payroll, and provides 8 weeks for people to work with forgivable loans. I am on record saying we are going to have a new program up by next Friday where banks can lend. That would be a historic achievement that is just incredibly aggressive."
  • "The Treasury working with the SBA, we are doing everything we can, because Americans need that money now. They can't wait for government to take three or four or six months like we normally do."
• On Direct Payments to Americans: "We also have the economic impact payments. Again, during Obama years it took months and months for Treasury and IRS to get [payments] out. I committed to the IRS, we will get these direct deposits in three weeks. Again, American workers can't wait." 
  • "The last part is the unemployment insurance, and that will go through the states. I know the states are a bit overwhelmed in unemployment insurance but going to work as hard as they have." 
• On President Trump's Action to Combat the Coronavirus: "I think 90% of the things in this bill reflect what the President wanted. The President's priority is to get the economy back to work, and also, the President's priority is to send money to hospitals and states to fight the coronavirus." 

Watch the full interview here.