Larry Kudlow, who directs the National Economic Council for President Donald Trump, told Tennessee residents Thursday that America will transition from a COVID-19 economic shutdown to a reopened economy during the month of May.
Kudlow said this during a telephone town hall for U.S. Senate candidate Bill Hagerty, a Republican who wants to replace the retiring U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN).
“We are going to move from the so-called rescue stage to help people get through this pandemic. We will transition into a re-opening phase based on the medical guidelines, and you will see, I think next week and the week after, a lot of states reopen. The president himself, as an aspirational target, has been talking about May 1. I think May is a transition month from the shutdown to the reopening,” Kudlow said.
“I think there will be a lot of good news, because these numbers are coming down beautifully. That’s the key. America will change. We will have to maintain distancing. We will have to maintain our best hospitals. We will have to maintain our best gear, putting in some cases masks. We will have to maintain ventilators. We want to keep folks healthy and safe and secure.”
Kudlow said that America will have new policies to expand upon Trump’s original economic policies as the country transitions from the economic shut-in to the reopening. Those policies, he went on to say, include lower taxes, fewer business regulations, energy independence, and better trade deals.
“These are free enterprise policies that rebuilt and reinvigorated the economy under Trump,” Kudlow said.
“They worked once. As we move forward, as the rescue phase ends, and the reopening occurs, we will move with additional tax cuts, regulatory relief, and better trade deals for American exporters to help farmers and manufacturers, and auto workers and technology people.”
Kudlow said the COVID-19 infection rate has now dropped all the way down to 3 percent growth. He said that it peaked at about 45 percent growth in mid-March.
“You will see unemployment numbers continue to rise. We will have a few rough weeks, but it will not last. I have been saying all along in my own capacity that I believe this is about weeks and months, not years,” Kudlow said.
“I would just say I believe this is about weeks now. Judging from the new numbers, I think this long difficult journey will come to an end. It’s a journey full of hardship and grief and loss. We will grow exponentially in ways nobody thought possible. But it is what it is and we are about to come through this.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
