Name: Federal Reserve slashes interest rates amid coronavirus outbreak
Uploaded: 2020-03-13T04:12:15.000Z
Duration: 5 min 53 s
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Paul is a CBS News White House correspondent.

Francesca's a White House correspondent for McClatchy.

So, Paula, you know, we mentioned the Fed slashed interest rates by half a percentage point.

We know President Trump has been a big fan.

Has not been a big fan of Fed chair drone power.

Does the White House believe that this can help re stabilize the economy during this outbreak arena?

This is clearly a preemptive move to try to protect the economy from Corona virus.

It's a single biggest Constance 2008 now, As you noted, President Trump, who does not control US monetary policy, has been pressuring the Fed for months, arguably years, to make these cuts.

But following this announcement today, he tweeted, saying he still doesn't believe it's enough.

He wants us to have the lowest borrowing rates.

He wants further easing, and he is not fully satisfied with this move today by the Fed.

He was asked about the president's tweets, the president's repeated attacks on the Fed and whether that influence their decision today.

He said that This decision is based on the interests of the American people, and for now, other White House officials don't seem to think it's necessary to take other measures.

The Treasury said that right now they do not have plans.

Thio cut our suspended he tariffs on Chinese imports to mitigate the economic effects of Corona virus.

At a rally last night in Charlotte, the president said that he thought his meeting with pharmaceutical companies yesterday was productive.

He seemed encouraged at the possibility of vaccine.

Here's what he said, and they're really working hard and they're working smart on.

We had a great meeting today with a lot of the great companies, and they could have vaccines.

I think relatively soon, and they're gonna have something that makes you better on that's gonna actually take place.

So it's a lot of good things are happening.

So are the president's comments on the vaccine at odds with what his top health officials are saying.

When he met with those pharmaceutical companies at the White House, his top felt health officials were also in the room, and there seemed to be a disconnect between what they were saying and what the president was saying about when a vaccine could be ready to go, and that's the difference.

There are vaccines that are currently in development and in testing phases, and the president has repeatedly referred to those testing phases.

But that is quite different from something that would be available and ready to be on the market, which even Vice President Mike Pence's said could take a year and order a year and 1/2.

Paula Do health officials like Health and Human Services Secretary Alex A.

Czar do they have the trust of the president and handling this case who arena?

On the one hand, the secretary he's still the head of health and human service is He was seated next to the president during this big meeting yesterday with pharmaceutical executives.

He's one of the principles that has put out to answer questions on Corona virus, but we also see where the president has tapped Vice President Mike Pence to really oversee the entire response.

And behind the scenes, the president has been frustrated with a czar and other top health officials for being too in his mind, alarmists for spooking the markets.

Now there's gonna be another wave of criticism and critiques here, as we look at the CDC is response.

And there has been scrutiny about delays at the CDC about potential contamination off test kits and how that May of several factors may have caused hundreds of Americans and not to be tested or delays in their testing.

Now, many folks within the White House they're frustrated because they believe that the secretary has taken on too much, that he wants to be responsible for everything.

But when you're responsible for everything, you're responsible for everything and when things go wrong, you could potentially be the person to take the fall.

So as the scrutiny continues on the overall response on how well this was coordinated and these problems and delays out of the CDC, we will be watching to see how is our standing in the administration could be adversely impacted.

You know, lawmakers are still working on a Corona virus spending package.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has invited the Senate and House party leaders to a joint operational briefing on the Corona virus response.

What do we know about the conversations that have been going on between the White House and lawmakers.

Well, the White House and President Trump again today said that they expect this to be done soon, And it would have to be because the Congress is going to be out of session on a spring break, so to speak, a legislative district session coming up in the next week and 1/2.

And so, whether something gets done or not, in the next week, it would have to wait after that if they can't get this across the finish line until the very end of March and follow.

The president had asked for $2.5 billion last week.

Is the White House willing to spend more to combat the outbreak?

It's been interesting, greeted the president publicly, has expressed some flexibility in terms of how much money could come from Congress all initially White House officials who are working behind the scenes that to negotiate this they were pretty fixed on that 2.5 billion number.

Initially, they believe that was a snapshot of the immediate needs they wanted that put on an accelerated track as the days have gone by.

It seems that there has been some willingness to give on the part of the White House, and right now, reportedly other closing in on a $7.5 billion emergency spending bill on the House side to fight Corona virus.

So it'll be interesting to see we're expecting more details about that today.

What comes out of the house and then what gets approved by the Senate?

But the president does appear pretty flexible.

As Francesca noted yesterday at the meeting, the president just said, Look, I want it done and I want it done fast.

 I wanna thank you, Paula Read and Francesca Chambers, Thank you both for joining us. 