2020 candidates, our coverage based on the candidates, the topics, the locations, and events on the campaign trail. state by state results broken down by candidate, county, and districts, not only presidential results but also for senate, house, and governor race. free, easily accessible, and all there at c-span.org. the federal reserve cut its benchmark rate by half a percentage point today. as part of the government's response to the economic effects of the coronavirus. fed chair jerome powell spoke to reporters about the rate cut soon after it was announced.

>> good morning, everyone. earlier today the federal open market committee announced a one-half percentage point reduction in the target range for the federal funds rate, bringing that range to 1 to 1 1/4 percent. my colleagues and i took this action to help the u.s. economy keep strong in the face of new risks to the economic outlook. the fundamentals of the u.s. economy remain strong. the unemployment race has been near half century lows. the pace of job gains have been solid and wages have been rising, underpinning solid household spending which has been the key driver of economic growth over the last year. at the time of our meeting in january, prospects for continued economic growth remained favorable and we judged that monetary policy was well-positioned to support that outlook.

since then, the spread of the coronavirus has brought new challenges and risks. the virus has afflicted many communities around the world and our thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been harmed. the outbreak has also disrupted economic activity in many countries and has prompted significant movements in financial markets. the virus and the measures that are being taken to contain it will surely weigh on economic activity both here and abroad for some time. we are beginning to see the effects on the tourism and travel industries and we are hearing concerns from industries that rely on global supply chains. the magazineny attitu magnitude and the situation remains a fluid one. against this background, the committee judged that the risks to the u.s. outlook have changed materially. in response we have eased the stance of monetary policy to provide some more support to the economy. of course the ultimate solutions

to this challenge will come from others, particularly health professionals. we can and will do our part, however, to keep the u.s. economy strong as we meet this challenge. as always, our actions are guided by our congressional mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability. in the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to closely monitor developments and their implications for the economic outlook and we will use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy. thank you and i'll be happy to take a few questions. >> reporter: thank you. nick timoro of "the wall street journal." last week many of your colleagues seemed to indicate it was still too soon to tell how this might influence the outlook. what changed between last week and today? and then, how much confidence do you have that there will be a

quick and relatively complete recovery of economic activity after the peak of this virus has passed? >> so what changed, of course we've been carefully monitoring the situation since it first became known, and waiting to see how it would evolve. and i think we've come to the view now that it is time for us to act in support of the economy. and once you reach that decision, we decided to go ahead. so what changed really was, i would say, over the course of the last couple of weeks we've seen a broader spread of the virus. we've seen it begin to spread a bit here in the united states. but for us, what really matters of course is not the epidemiology but the risk to the economy. so we saw a risk to the outlook for the economy and chose to act. in terms of my confidence that we'll return to -- what was your question, the second question? >> reporter: how do you expect this, the economy to recover from this? do you see it as a persistent

decline in activity or something that will be relatively short-lived? >> i don't think anybody knows how long it will be. the u.s. economy is strong and we will get to the other side of this, i fully expect we'll return to solid growth and a solid labor market as well. >> reporter: hi, jim tankersly, "new york times." you said the solutions will ultimately come from others. i have two questions. first, is this part of a coordinated action with other central banks and should we be expecting to see more as part of that? second, what would you like to see from american fiscal policymakers in response to these new threats? >> okay. so first question, we're in active discussions with banks around the world on an ongoing basis, as you might guess. i've been in touch with central banks around the world, that

will continue. central banks are doing what makes sense in their particular institutional context, but we're all talking to each other on an ongoing basis and our action represents what we think is the right policy for us in our particular institutional context under our mandate. you saw this morning's g-7 statement, that reflects a commitment to use all available tools including health care policy, fiscal policy, and monetary policy as appropriate. so in terms of fiscal policy, again, not our role. we have a full plate with monetary policy. not our role to give advice to fiscal policymakers. but you saw the mention of the g-7 statement as appropriate as well. >> reporter: heather scott with

afp. the g-7 statement seemed to indicate that policymakers would use tools but were not going to do anything imminent. does this contradict that or is that in keeping with the statement by the g7 this morning? and can i ask, what would cause you to take another step, what would you be looking for in terms of the economic outlook or data? >> so the sense of the g7, you know, we have seven countries, obviously, and different policies, different situations, different mandates, a lot of overlap. and the sense of that is to get together as a group and say, at a high level, these are the things we're going to do, we're going to use our tools, all of our tools, in a strong way to try to support the economy. so that's a statement of general support. i think within that, you will see actions, you've seen our action, and i think it's up to individual countries, individual

fiscal policies and individual central banks to do what they're going to do. i would think it's possible there will be some more formal coordination as we move forward. in terms of moving forward, i would say that we do like our current policy stance. we think it's appropriate to support our mandate goals. but as i said in my statement, we're prepared to use our tools and act appropriately, depending on the flow of events. >> reporter: anything in particular you're watching that would change that? >> i can't point to any one thing, it's always a range of things. >> reporter: heather long from "the washington post." there's been some rising concern about credit markets and possible insolvencies and defaults, either from businesses or individuals from the coronavirus. can you speak to, is the fmoc

talking about this, are we likely to see any emergency provisions from the cra activated or things that you normally do during a hurricane or that type of disruption to the economy? >> so we don't see any of that happening yet. of course we are thinking about what we can do should those things happen. there's no evidence yet, the economy continues to perform well. as i mentioned, we do hear concerns, particularly from those most directly exposed. but there's nothing in that nature. financial markets are functioning in an orderly manner and all that sort of thing. i think when it comes to those sorts of issues, though, we will be -- the supervisors will be working with banks to assure they work with their borrowers and that sort of thing. so i can imagine us doing those sort of things. but those things are not upon us at the moment. >> reporter: thank you, brendan greeley, "financial times." has the committee discussed any other monetary policy tools in

addition to rate cuts and the pacing and timing of when they might be appropriate. >> as you know, we're in the middle of a review of all our tools. if you go back a few meetings, we talked about what the toolkit is and we put that in the minutes. in the current context, no, we came to the view it was appropriate to make a change and went ahead and did that today. >> reporter: rich miller with bloomberg, thank you very much for having a press conference. can you take us through the reasoning behind the rate cut a little more in depth? was there -- some say this is a supply side shock, rate cuts are not particularly suitable for this, others say, well, the supply side shock may morph into a demand shock. i wonder if you can give us more depth around the reasoning behind the rate cut. thank you. >> sure, i would be glad to. so the virus outbreak is something that will require a

multifaceted response, and that response will come in the first instance from health care experts and policy experts. it will also come from fiscal policymakers as appropriate. it will come from private and public sector actors, businesses, schools, governments. monetary policy can be a tool to support overall economic activity. we do realize a rate cut won't reduce the rate of infection, it won't fix a broken supply chain, we get that. we do believe our action will provide a meaningful boost to the economy. specifically, it will support acome owe dative financial conditions which will weigh on activity and boost household and business confidence. you're seeing central banks around the world responding as they see appropriate in their particular institutional context.

>> reporter: elan mui from cnbc. would you envision the fed raising rates in short after if economic damage doesn't occur in the way you potentially fear? i have a second question which is, president trump was just tweeting about you this morning and talking about the fed's need to cut rates. did you feel any political pressure to make this move? >> so on your first question, we're always going to set monetary policy at a given time in a way that we think best serves our dual mandate goals. it's as simple as that. if we get to a place where we think it's an appropriate time to change the stance of monetary policy, we won't hesitate to do that. i would also say that it's very important that people understand that we will always make our

decisions based on best thinking we have, based on what we learn from our outreach to businesses, nonprofits, educational institutions that we get every cycle through the reserve banks. we'll always make our decisions in the interests of the american people to carry forward and try to achieve the mandates that congress has given us. we're never going to consider any political considerations whatsoever. we will not do that, and it's very important that the public understand that. >> reporter: chris regge, associated press. you mentioned the bank presidents last week, how much they're going to listen to their contacts. have you gotten reports from the ground, from your business contacts, nonprofits and so forth, that have affected your decisionmaking? what are you hearing from those folks? >> thank you. so we're -- we are hearing -- i

would just say the effects are at a very early stage. but you are hearing concerns from people, for example, in the travel business or the hotel business and things like that, that that's what you're hearing. but you don't see things showing up in actual data. you do see them showing up in sort of sentiment forecast indicators and things like that. we expect that will continue. it will probably grow. and that's one of the reasons why we've come to the view that it would be appropriate for us today to move to support the economy. that's what we've done. thanks very much. the fed made a pretty dramatic decision before their next regularly scheduled meeting to pursue and make effective a 50 basis point cut.

now, anyone who is an investor or involved in wall street will look at that generally as welcome news. it obviously has a stimulative effect, especially 50 basis points. while that might be the reaction on first blush, i have to say i find it concerning, because this does have echoes of the 2008 great recession. while the fed is, understandably and appropriately, independent and should remain independent from any potential interference from any political actor, whether congress or the president, i do wonder if there is data the administration might have showing that perhaps we already know that the effect on the worldwide economy is much more severe than is currently being let on. so i would urge transparency and

if there's anything that you could add to this and also just basically your reaction to the decision from the fed today. >> i very much support the fed's position. i think they did the right thing getting ahead of this. obviously there's limited data because this is something that's literally occurred over the last several weeks. but, you know, i would say this is no different than any other severe situation. this is going to have an impact in the short term on the economy. now, i would say it's very different than the financial crisis because the good news here is, there will be an end in sight. so this will have an impact on the economy. but i have confidence in our health professionals that they will develop both viral medical treatments and vaccines. so this will have a time period. but i think the fed, we had a coordinated call, as i said, with the g7 finance ministers and central bank governors and even in the last week, i was

literally last week at the g20 in saudi arabia. the difference in one week on people's reaction to what's going on is enormous. >> treasury secretary steve mnuchin was asked about the trump administration's coronavirus response during today's house ways and means committee hearing on the president's 2021 budget request. we'll show you the entire hearing tonight starting at 8:00 eastern on c-span3. congressional committees are holding hearings on the trump administration response to the coronavirus. tomorrow the senate commerce, science, and transportation subcommittee will look at mitigating the spread of infectious diseases such as