Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia touted the June employment report numbers as “good news” in “Your World” on Thursday before promising “we’re not done.”
“The job growth we saw in June was so strong, Neil, and much better than predicted,” Scalia told host Neil Cavuto. “You know, I think the projection would be three million jobs added. We added almost five … it was an excellent number, one that we should be very happy about.”
TRUMP TOUTS ‘HISTORIC’ JUNE JOB REPORT
Earlier Thursday, Trump praised 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. About 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 returned should never have been lost. “
Scalia responded to that criticism by defending Trump’s coronavirus response.
“The president’s response was quick,” he said. Remember, when you moved to prevent people from coming from China, you were criticized for having moved so quickly and strongly to address that. And then we had this extraordinary series of bills passed in March, including the CARES Act, which created the Payroll protection program to help small businesses keep workers on payroll.
“I think the quick response from the president and the bipartisan way he did things are, in fact, part of the reason why we returned quickly.”
Scalia also responded to a call by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Arizona, to dissolve the White House coronavirus task force, alleging 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 to return to normalcy as we learn more about the COVID-19 outbreak,” Biggs said in a statement. Thursday. “This is causing panic that jeopardizes our economic recovery. We can protect our most vulnerable from the COVID-19 outbreak and at the same time protect the lives and livelihoods of the rest of the population. It is time for the COVID-19 is dissolved so that President Trump’s message is not mitigated or distorted. ”
“I think there are valuable discussions in the working group,” Scalia said in response to Biggs’ statement. “You know, I joined the task force a few weeks ago when we started to focus more on the reopening, but we do see critical points that the vice president has been visiting in the past few days that the task force is focused on.” There is a continuous role for the experience that the work team is providing. “
Paul Steinhause and Allie Raffa of Fox News contributed to this report.
