Pelosi says CARES Act, not Trump, deserves credit for positive economic figures on GDP growth

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, not President Trump, deserves credit for the economic growth reported in the third quarter of the year.

Congress passed the CARES Act, a coronavirus economic stimulus bill, in March and Trump signed it into law.

Pelosi was asked at a news conference whether Trump deserves any credit for the positive economic figures reported on Thursday.

"The CARES Act deserves credit for that," she responded. "We had lost ground in the second quarter. This barely makes up for that and the CARES Act deserves credit for injecting resources into the economy, whether it's then in our subsequent CARES and the subsequent PPP." 

PPP stand for the Paycheck Protection Program, a now-expired federal loan program that was included in the CARES Act to help small businesses keep their workers on the payroll.

"Somebody used an example this morning: As if you lost $100 in the second quarter, and now you are making up $65," Pelosi continued. "Glory, hallelujah, no, and if we don't pass a recovery bill, a COVID-19 bill, we will face dire circumstances as well. Yes, Congress and the administration worked together in a bipartisan way to pass the CARES Act as well as subsequent legislation to inject resources into the economy. The lack of doing that this time is going to take us back down to another path," she added.

Pelosi predicated that fellow Democrat Joe Biden will win the presidential election. She encouraged voters to cast their ballots in-person at this point in the election, rather than by mail.

"I hope that people will not depend on the mail because they have done all they can to dismantle the postal system," she said. "Even the postal service is saying it is too late now to mail."