Mnuchin: No Recession Coming

The US economy will slow during the pandemic, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday, but it won't tank. "The real issue is not the economic situation today," he said on ABC's This Week. Mnuchin, a member of the Trump administration's coronavirus task force, added: "This is a unique situation. We are going to have a slowdown. Later in the year economic activity will pick up as we confront this virus." He cautioned against making too much of the outbreak's effect on the stock market. "The stock market is gonna go up, it's gonna go down," Mnuchin said. "We can't focus on every day." In an appearance Sunday on Fox News, he predicted that if the US makes the right moves to contain the virus, "I expect we’ll have a big rebound later in the year."

Last week, Mnuchin negotiated a coronavirus relief bill that the House approved. "We will use whatever tools we have," he said Sunday, "and whatever tools we don’t have we will go to Congress on a bipartisan basis to get more tools." He said he's talking to Speaker Nancy Pelosi about measures to help airlines, hotels, cruise ships and small businesses. "The president wants to get economic relief to the right people," Mnuchin said, per the Hill. (More coronavirus stories.)