Trump invokes emergency powers
Resources would boost virus testing, efforts to protect employees
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Friday declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency in order to free up more money and resources.
He said the action would make available as much as $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the outbreak. Trump also announced a range of executive actions to bolster energy markets, ease the financial burden for Americans with student loans and give medical professionals additional “flexibility” in treating patients during the public health crisis.
He also announced a new publicprivate partnership to expand coronavirus testing capabilities, as his administration has come under fire for being too slow in making the test available. Trump said “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the slow rollout of testing.
The partnership will include drivethrough testing in some locations and an online portal to screen those seeking to get tested.
Trump waived interest on federally held student loans and moved to prop up energy markets by directing the Department of Energy to buy oil to fill the strategic petroleum reserve “right up to the top.” He said he was giving Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar emergency authorities to waive federal regulations and laws as needed, for instance, to allow doctors to practice tele-medicine across state lines.
“Through a very collective action and shared sacrifice, national determination, we will overcome the threat of the virus,” Trump said.
Late Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a deal with the Trump administration for an aid package from Congress that aims at direct relief to Americans – free testing, two weeks of sick pay for workers, enhanced unemployment benefits and bolstered food programs.
“We are proud to have reached an agreement with the Administration to resolve outstanding challenges, and now will soon pass the Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” Pelosi announced in a letter to colleagues after days of negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The House was poised to vote.
Central to the aid package from Congress, which builds on an emergency $8.3 billion measure approved last week, is the free testing and sick pay provisions.
Providing sick pay for workers is a crucial element of federal efforts to stop the rapid spread of the infection. Officials warn that the nation’s healthcare system could quickly become
overwhelmed with gravely sick patients, as suddenly happened in Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the virus.
The ability to ensure paychecks will keep flowing – for people self-quarantining or caring for others – can help assure Americans they will not fall into financial hardship. Small and midsized employers will be reimbursed through tax credits. There is also three months of paid family and medical leave.
“We have an agreement that reflects what the president talked about,” Mnuchin said late Friday on Fox Business.
Throughout the day, hopes for swift passage of the bill stalled as talks dragged and Trump dismissed it during as “not doing enough.” Republicans were reluctant to come on board without his backing, according to a person unauthorized to discuss the talks and granted anonymity.
The White House is under enormous pressure, dealing with the crisis on multiple fronts as it encroached ever closer on the president.
The virus has swept in alarming ways across American life, sending the financial markets into a dangerous slide and shuttering schools and sporting events and limiting everyday interactions in communities across the country.
The administration’s federal task force managing the crisis was working furiously to break a bottleneck in the nation’s ability to test for the new virus, and weighing what sort of emergency powers Trump would need to invoke to provide needed aid to overwhelmed state and local governments.
And a personal health scare intensified as White House officials worked to determine the level of exposure by the president and senior aides to several foreign officials who have since tested positive for the virus.
Trump said he was gratified that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested negative for the virus, after the pair sat next to each other for an extended period of time last weekend. A senior aide to Bolsonaro tested positive. “We have no symptoms whatsoever,” said Trump, who has not gotten tested for the virus or taken steps to self-isolate.
In one welcome announcement, the administration said Friday it was awarding $1.3 million to two companies trying to develop rapid COVID-19 tests that could detect within an hour whether a person is positive for the new coronavirus.
Earlier Friday, Mnuchin sounded an optimistic note. “I think we’re very close to getting this done,” he said in an appearance on CNBC.
On the COVID-19 illness, Mnuchin cautioned that “people should understand the numbers are going to go up before they go down.”
Pelosi and Mnuchin continued their constant crosstown phone calls throughout a tense morning of negotiations to firm up and salvage the emerging deal that has widespread support from Democrats and some in the business community seeking certainty.
Providing sick pay for workers is a crucial element of federal efforts to stop the rapid spread of the infection. Officials warn that the nation’s health care system could quickly become overwhelmed with gravely sick patients, as suddenly happened in Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the virus.
The ability to ensure paychecks will keep flowing – for people who stay home as a preventive measure or because they’re feeling ill or caring for others – can help assure Americans they will not fall into financial hardship.
“We’re in an emergency, and we’re trying to respond as fast as we can,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., as lawmakers filed in and out of Pelosi’s office Friday.
Hospitals welcomed Trump’s emergency declaration, which they and lawmakers in Congress had been requesting. It allows the Health and Human Services Department to temporarily waive certain federal rules that can make it harder for hospitals and other health care facilities to respond to an emergency.
Such rules include a Medicare requirement that a patient spend three days in the hospital before the program will pay for care in a nursing facility. Waiving the rule would make more inpatient beds available. Another rule requires doctors and other clinicians to be licensed in the state in which they are providing services. It can be waived if the physician is licensed in another state.
The American Medical Association said the emergency declaration would help ensure America’s health care system has sufficient resources to properly respond to the ongoing outbreak.
Trump’s actions were also viewed favorably on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average’s gains doubled in the last half-hour of trading Friday to nearly 2,000 points, its biggest point gain ever, as Trump outlined steps to expand testing, buy more oil to boost U.S. reserves, ease the economic impact on students and free up billions for states and cities to fight the virus outbreak.
The House aid package builds on an emergency $8.3 billion measure approved last week.
Pelosi promised a third coronavirus package will follow soon, though the House is leaving Washington on Friday for a previously scheduled recess. That measure was to include more aggressive steps to boost the U.S. economy, which economists fear has slipped into recession.
But there’s little appetite within either party for Trump’s proposal to suspend collection of the 6.2% Social Security payroll tax. States are already clamoring for fiscal relief from Washington as the virus threatens their budgets.
The coronavirus crisis also got personal for Trump and some members of Congress.
The president, his daughter Ivanka, Attorney General William Barr and lawmakers are among those who have been in contact with others who have now tested positive for the coronavirus.
Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, now in isolation at a hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus, had returned to Sydney from Washington, where he met Barr and Ivanka Trump last week.
Barr stayed home Friday, though he “felt great and wasn’t showing any symptoms,” according to his spokeswoman Kerri Kupec. She said the CDC did not recommend testing at this point.
In addition, just days after meeting Trump and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the communications chief for Brazil’s president, Fábio Wajngarten, tested positive for coronavirus. Scott said he was isolating himself. Trump, 73, said he was not concerned.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was also at Trump’s club over the weekend, joined a growing list of lawmakers who have chosen to isolate themselves as a precaution. He announced Friday that he also met with the Australian official who has now tested positive. And GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who had previously isolated himself after a potential exposure at a conservative conference in Washington, said Friday he met with a Spanish official and is now self-quarantining.
Lawmakers from both parties expressed alarm at the U.S. response, and especially over how few patients have been tested.
“We’re basically, in my opinion, flying blind,” said Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, in several television interviews Friday, said more tests would be available over the next week, but that officials should not wait before trying to mitigate the virus’s effects.
“We will have considerably more testing in the future, but you don’t wait for testing,” Fauci said on “CBS This Morning.” He said school closings and similar measures are “generally an appropriate approach.”
“We’re at a critical point now as we seek to blunt the rise in cases to make sure it’s a hill, not a mountain,” Fauci said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
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