Stephanie Ruhle, Andrew Sorkin, and Trump adviser Gary Cohn talked about the need for specific help aimed at pulling the U.S.economy out of the coronavirus tailspin.
"We'll get into this bailout conversation and what that looks like," Sorkin said.
"And I also think in this political climate we'll get into a very interesting situation, not just about how we deal with employees and whether there's unemployment insurance and the like but if we get into bailing out an airline, are we going to be having conversation about corporate socialism? A conversation about what we're going to get back from those airlines given how much anger there was about what was given to banks and what was given to the auto -- all of this is going to become an interesting conversation, unfortunately, and I imagine it's going to happen soon but it's a little too soon before we get there."
Ruhle asked Cohn if it wouldn't be different this time. "In the financial crisis, the public was furious with banks or the auto industry because it was human made. In this case, doesn't this get looked at like a natural disaster? Nobody is blaming the airline industry or the cruise industry," she said.
"I do hope that people look at this a little bit differently. But again, it's hard to predict people's behavior and how they're going to look on this with the whole socialism that we've looked at and the way that people think about corporate America today," Cohn said.
"They think differently than they did even ten years ago. and they definitely think differently than they did during the financial crisis. I do believe that we are going to need the government to step in and help certain industries. and there is a certain part of this country that doesn't believe the government should come in and help certain industries, and the industries should stand on their own two feet. But we're not having -- we are not having totally rational consumer behavior right now."
"We're not getting honest information, Gary. Or enough information," Ruhle said.
"I don't know if we're getting honest or enough. I don't know who knows what," Cohn replied.
"I know we're out of time but can you actually say you don't know if we're getting honest information? Two weeks ago the president said 'the number is 15. It's going to zero.' The number is over 500. So you can't say you don't know if we're not getting honest information. We're not," Ruhle snapped.
"I'm not here to argue the numbers. I do agree with the experts on this, though. When Tom Bossert says certain things, I know they've spent a lot of time studying this. So I respect their opinion," Cohn said.
