Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia refused direct comment Tuesday on a pair of memos written by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro warning of the dangers of the impending coronavirus, instead pointing out that President Donald Trump "acted very quickly, buying us time" by enacting travel restrictions on China.
Trump's travel order on China came on Jan. 31, two days after Navarro's first memo warning that a pandemic would cost the United States hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars was circulated.
"It was proven that those steps slowed the advent of the virus here in the states," Scalia reiterated to Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-host Ed Henry after he pressed the secretary about if he'd heard about the memos in "real time," as the economy would be "part of his purview."
"It gave us more time to respond, including the time that we need to respond to the economic challenges that we face and obviously, we are seeing those now but those are the things we've been preparing for," Scalia instead responded, still talking about Trump.
He added that there are "real signs for optimism" about the pandemic, but that care must still be taken.
"One of the reasons that there is a sense that we may be close to turning the corner are the steps that had been put in place and have been in place for weeks or even months now," said Scalia.
Meanwhile, the timeline for restarting the nation's economy will depend on how effective "we are right now today, tomorrow, this week in disciplining ourselves and defeating the virus," said Scalia.
"We've got to get the virus under control as the first step towards fully reopening the economy. That said, last month, the president signed three really major pieces of legislation including that $2.2 trillion relief package which is now being implemented so swiftly."
But once the health challenge is handled, "we have the pieces in place to reopen the economy quickly," said Scalia. "You have this new program for small businesses, for example, giving them loans. The small business loans are, in my view, very important."
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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