President Donald Trump continues to want to reopen the nation's economy as soon as possible, and is working "hand-in-glove" with the private sector to make that happen, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said Tuesday.
"This is not a total government-run operation,” Kudlow told Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "We're cooperating with the private sector. They're pretty smart folks and they are helping us every step of the way.
"We are doing what we can to keep people going, to just get them through this period until we can come back on the other side and America can return to business and prosperity and the blue-collar boom," Kudlow added.
Meanwhile, small businesses have been taking advantage of the loan program being funded through the CARES act, with about $50 billion being borrowed already.
"We've got about 178,000 loans from 300 lenders," said Kudlow. "I just put that out there to show you how popular it is."
Still, as the pandemic continues and mitigation efforts continue to be necessary, "regrettably, we're going to have a couple more weeks undoubtedly, perhaps, of very bad economic numbers," said Kudlow.
"We are in the midst of a contraction, everybody knows that," said Kudlow. "We are (also) providing direct assistance to roughly 175 million people. 175 million people in the form of direct payments, or unemployment insurance...we've been deferring taxes and deferring student loans."
Also, the Federal Reserve has "enormous lending programs and facilities financed by Treasury emergency funds," said Kudlow. "All that is what we're trying to do to keep folks going."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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