Coronavirus, coronavirus, and more coronavirus. President Trump, the economy, and the entire world react to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s everything that happened this past week at the Trump White House.
At the White House Rose Garden on Friday, March 13th, President Trump declared a national emergency to combat the coronavirus.
“To unleash the full power of the federal government under this effort today,” President Trump said, “I’m officially declaring a national emergency. Two very big words.”
Those two very big words frees up $50 billion to accelerate a response plan to COVID-19, which includes more testing, allows HHS to waive certain laws to provide more flexibility to doctors and healthcare professionals, and also brings FEMA into the fold to provide support like transport of residents and setting up temporary medical facilities.
Meanwhile, the president is hitting back against the Chinese Communist propaganda machine.
Trump rebuked Chinese government officials for suggesting that the U.S. military is to blame for the start of the coronavirus outbreak.
“Why do you keep calling this the Chinese virus, there are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese Americans in this country. Your own aide, Secretary Azar says he does not use this term. He says ethnicity does not cause the virus. Why do you keep using this? A lot of people think it’s racist,” asked ABC News reporter Cecilia Vega.
“Because it comes from China,” Trump responded. “It’s not racist at all. No, not at all. It comes from China, that’s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate. I have great love for all of the people from our country but, as you know China tried to say at one point, maybe they stopped now, that it was caused by American soldiers. That can’t happen. That’s not gonna happen, not as long as I’m president. It comes from China”
Finally, the Trump administration is looking to save the economy from collapsing.
On Sunday, March 15th, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced that interest rates would be slashed to 0% to 0.25% and that the Fed would provide a quantitative easing package of purchasing $700 billion of government bonds and mortage-backed securities. President Trump welcomed the news and on Wednesday, March 18th, signed a coronavirus stimulus package into law to provide Americans some financial relief as well as free testing.
