Chris Wallace Grills Mnuchin for Predicting Quick Economic Recovery From Coronavirus: ‘Goes Against the Forecast of Most Experts’
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin faced a series of questions from Fox News’ Chris Wallace when he insisted that the American economy would recover from the coronavirus pandemic by late summer.
Asked on Sunday to elaborate President Donald Trump’s recent claims on how quickly the economy would be able to rebound, Mnuchin predicted that “you will see the economy really bounce back in July, August, September.” He made his argument by pointing to the “unprecedented amount of fiscal relief” Congress is trying to disperse into the economy to offset the pandemic’s financial impact.
“But that quick bounce back that you talk about goes against the forecast of most experts,” Wallace noted. As the Fox host referred to pessimistic projections from the Congressional Budget Office and Goldman Sachs, he asked Mnuchin “are all those independent experts wrong?”
“We’ve never seen anything like this. This is not the financial crisis [of 2008],” Mnuchin answered. “This is a scenario where we have closed the economy and we’re going to open the economy. So all these models are based upon health assumptions, how quickly we reopen, so we will see.”
The interview continued with Wallace asking Mnuchin about the Paycheck Protection Program, asking questions like whether the next round of funding will be enough, and whether it will be allocated properly when loans were issued to major chains in the last version.
Watch above, via Fox News Sunday.
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