Trump signs $8.3B emergency spending bill to fight coronavirus
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an $8.3 billion coronavirus emergency spending bill Friday, but before the ink was dry, Washington was debating how much more money to spend and who should get it as the economic toll from the spreading virus mounted.
In Tennessee, Trump said that he was considering options to provide additional economic relief for airlines, cruise ships and travel entities hit hard by the outbreak.
The White House offered no further information on what the administration is considering.
On CNBC, White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow cautioned against panicking over the economy and voiced his preference for a targeted fix that could help workers who lost paychecks and businesses socked with cancellations.
Trump hopped Friday from Washington to Tennessee, where he surveyed tornado damage, to Atlanta, where he visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to Florida, where the president will spend the weekend at his winter White House, Mar-a-Lago.
As Trump traveled, Vice President Mike Pence, whom Trump put in charge of the administration’s efforts to contain COVID-19, again assured America that the risk of the general public contracting the virus remains low.
On Thursday, Pence and the President’s Coronavirus Task Force visited Washington state.
The virus’ death toll in the U.S. reached 17, including the first two deaths from Florida.
While Pence tried to calm public anxiety about the virus, Trump tried to soothe jittery Wall Street and executive suites.
As he signed the $8.3 billion bill, Trump said, “You have to be calm. It will go away.”
Inside the beltway, economists debated how best to mitigate an economy reeling from the cancellation of business meetings, conventions and flights.
Jason Furman, chief economic adviser to former President Barack Obama, argued in the Wall Street Journal Thursday that Congress should pass a measure to pay $1,000 to every adult U.S. citizen and $500 for every child to hedge against economic losses.
“If the economic shock is small and stimulus proves to be unnecessary, its negative effects are likely to be small. But if the shock is bigger and policy makers fail to act now, it will be harder to reverse the economic damage,” Furman argued.
On CNBC, Kudlow rejected Furman’s prescription, instead favoring a more “targeted” package.
“We met with the airline executives a couple days ago in the Oval,” he said. “We would like to be targeted and timely.”
Democratic operative Ron Klain, who served as Obama’s Ebola czar in 2014, faulted Trump for trying to shield the economy from bad COVID-19 news. That led to delays in what should have been swifter production of test kits, Klain argued during a Center for American Progress panel Friday.
“We’re going to make mistakes, I understand that,” Klain said, “but also have no doubt part of this fiasco is the president setting as the default, ‘Bring me no bad news. Do nothing to disrupt the economy. Don’t tell me bad things are happening. I want to minimize the case count… I really don’t want to know what’s happening.’”
As a result, Klain noted “cancellations of travel and cancellations of conferences are going to ripple through the economy.” Among those hurt the most will be hourly workers in the hospitality industry.
For his part, Trump has blamed an “Obama rule” for hindering his administration efforts to develop laboratory tests.
Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler gave that assertion “four Pinocchios” in part because the so-called rule was “guidance” never adopted by Congress.
Food and Drug Administration commissioner Stephen Hahn said that 900,000 tests had been shipped out by Thursday.
Pence emphasized progress made on the testing front. “All state labs have the test,” he said.
LabCorp, one of the nation’s largest testing companies, said Thursday it has begun offering coronavirus testing to doctors, hospitals and other health care professionals in its network. Patient samples must be sent to a company lab and results should be available in three to four days. Quest, a rival diagnostics company, said it will begin offering its own test for the virus Monday.
For the first time this year, the Trump campaign has no Keep America Great rallies listed on the campaign website, although the president is scheduled to speak at the Republican Jewish Coalition annual meeting in Las Vegas on March 14.
On Monday, Trump said that his rallies are “very safe.” Asked if he thought it appropriate to hold rallies during a public health crisis, Trump responded, “Well, these were set up a long time ago. And others are. I mean, you could ask that to the Democrats because they’re having a lot of rallies.”
The Review-Journal is owned by the family of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson. Las Vegas Sands operates The Venetian and Palazzo. Adelson is on the board of directors of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or at 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.