12:32 P.M. EST
MS. PSAKI: Happy Monday. I just have a couple of things for all of you at the top. First, over the weekend, the President’s Homeland Security Advisor, Dr. Liz Sherwood-Randall, convened a coordination call with the Acting FEMA Administrator and the Director of the National Weather Service on the storm system moving toward the Mid-Atlantic region — it’s not just moving toward, I think it’s clear it’s here, if you look outside of our window — and up the Eastern Seaboard.
Liz and her team joined the FEMA daily operations briefing yesterday, and remain in regular contact with the FEMA response team about changes in the storm forecasts and any need for federal assistance. The White House wanted to assess the potential impact and determine any early action that the federal government could take to support communities across many states likely to be affected.
Liz also proactively called governors of states in the storm’s path overnight and into today, and she will remain in close touch; those include Governor Cuomo, Governor Murphy, Governor Wolf, Governor Carney, as well as New York City Mayor de Blasio. She expressed the President’s intent to ensure close coordination going forward among federal, state, and local officials in preparing for and responding to weather emergencies.
Also, as you — many of you have noted, the President spoke with Senator Collins yesterday. As you all know, invited her and other Senate Republicans to the White House later this afternoon. This meeting is part of the President and his administration’s — our administration’s close and ongoing engagement with members of both parties in — on Capitol Hill and on the American Rescue package.
Throughout these conversations, we’ve underscored the economic and health challenges that our country faces — issues he will, of course, be reiterating today — and the need to move swiftly to address them with a package that is big enough to get schools safely reopened, give financially struggling families and communities a bridge, and deliver on his promise to speed up vaccine delivery and defeat the virus.
It’s important to remember that the size of the package was designed with the size of the crisis — dual crises, as we’ve said. And I wanted to just call out a couple of economists and some economic data that we’ve seen over the last several days.
A new report by the Brookings Institution estimates that with the American Rescue Plan, we could boost GDP by 4 percent and return our economy to pre-COVID levels by the end of 2021. A separate analysis by Moody’s Analytics found that the President’s plan would create 7.5 million jobs this year and double our economic growth, and return our economy back to full employment one year faster. The IMF’s chief economist said their preliminary analysis found that the plan could boost U.S. economic growth by 5 percent over three years.
A couple of other, just, updates for you: Just today, the U.S. Conference of Mayors sent a letter to congressional leadership, urging them to take immediate action on the American Rescue Plan. This letter was signed by over 400 mayors. I know there’s a lot going on, so I just wanted to highlight it for all of you. And West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, also a Republican, said in interviews today that he agrees that going big in this moment is critical.
And last thing I just want to do before we get to your questions — I often note I’m going to “circle back.” I hate to disappoint conservative Twitter, but I am going to circle back on a number of things, as we often do directly. But Hurricane Maria funds, which was a question that was asked last week: The President has made clear — the status of them, I should say — that it is a priority for his administration to release this funding. We are working to do so. So that is in process.
On the White House fence, which a couple of people asked about, I believe it was on Friday: Our goal, the President and the Vice President’s goal, is for the Secret Service to adjust the perimeter as soon as it makes sense from an overall security standpoint. So we’re working closely with them on that, and they are — of course, would be in the lead on that front.