US: Donald Trump signs PPP bill, ignores racism questions

President Donald Trump signed the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020 in the Rose Garden Friday, taking a victory lap after the government reported surprising job gains for last month, seizing on the data to predict that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic and its economic disruption was in the rear-view mirror.

The unemployment rate dropped to a better-than-expected 13.3%, but that is still on par with what the nation witnessed during the Great Depression.

Trump spoke hours after the Labor Department said that U.S. employers added 2.5 million workers to their payrolls last month.

Economists had been expecting them instead to slash another 8 million jobs amid the ongoing fallout from the response to the pandemic.

During the signing, reporters asked the president his plan to address systemic racism.

He defended his economic record with African American, Asia American, Hispanic American and women unemployment figures.

When pressed what his plan was he said "the country is so strong and we have one of the strongest economies in the world... we're gonna have an economy that's even stronger."

In the PPP Flexibility Act Congress patched several issues in the original act - including increasing the amount of loan proceeds able to be spent on non-payroll costs and extending the covered period to 24 weeks.