Labor Secretary Scalia on June jobs report, economic recovery amid COVID-19 pandemic
June's better-than-expected employment report showed the U.S. economy added 4.8 million jobs, reducing the unemployment rate to 11.1 percent; insight from Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia.
Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia touted the June jobs report numbers as "good news all around" on "Your World" Thursday before vowing, "we're not done."
"The job growth that we saw for June was just so strong, Neil, and so much better than was being predicted," Scalia told host Neil Cavuto. "You know, I think the projection was gonna be three million jobs added. We added nearly five ... it was a terrific number, one we should be very happy about."
TRUMP TOUTS 'HISTORIC' JUNE JOBS REPORT
Earlier Thursday, Trump lauded the “historic numbers” in the report, which saw the nation’s unemployment level drop to 11.1 percent as employers added 4.8 million jobs in June. Nearly eight million jobs have been restored to the economy since the beginning of May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Biden responded Thursday, by saying that a million more Americans “would still have their job if Donald Trump had done his job. Many of the jobs that have now come back should have never been lost in the first place."
Scalia answered that criticism by defending Trump's coronavirus response.
"The president's response was quick," he said. "You remember, when he moved to stop people coming in from China, he was criticized for having moved so swiftly and strongly to address that. And then we had this extraordinary series of bills passed in March, including the CARES Act, which created the Paycheck Protection Program to help small businesses keep workers on payroll.
"I think that the president's swift response and the bipartisan way in which he got things done are in fact, part of the reason that we're coming back quickly."
Scalia also responded to a call by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., to disband the White House coronavirus task force on th grounds that Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx are undermining the president's economic recovery.
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"Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx continue to contradict many of President Trump’s stated goals and actions for returning to normalcy as we know more about the COVID-19 outbreak," Biggs said in a statement Thursday. "This is causing panic that compromises our economic recovery. We can protect our most vulnerable from the COVID-19 outbreak while still protecting lives and livelihoods of the rest of the population. It’s time for the COVID-19 task force to be disbanded so that President Trump’s message is not mitigated or distorted.”
"I think that there are valuable discussions in the task force," Scalia said in response to Biggs' statement. "You know, I joined the task force a few weeks ago as we began to focus more on the reopening, but we do see hot spots that the vice president has been visiting the last couple of days that the task force is focused on. And there is an ongoing role for the expertise the task force is bringing to bear."
Fox News' Paul Steinhause and Allie Raffa contributed to this report.
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