Sen. Sherrod Brown DESTROYS Steven Mnuchin: ‘How many workers should give their lives to increase the GDP or the Dow Jones by a thousand points?’

Despite top doctors warning that it is too soon to reopen the country, Trump and his ilk are rushing it along — American lives be damned — in hopes of bolstering the economy and Trump’s reelection chances. And this does NOT sit well with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio (the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee), who had an understandably testy exchange with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during today’s hearing when Brown asked whether people were being pushed to go back to work amid a pandemic just to boost stock markets.

Brown argued that people were being pushed “back into the workplace” with “no national program to provide worker safety.”

“How many workers should give their lives to increase the [gross domestic product] or the Dow Jones by 1,000 points?” Brown asked Mnuchin during a virtual hearing with the secretary and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Mnuchin cried that the question was “unfair.” LOL. Like this guy knows the meaning of “unfair.”

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and wife Louise Linton cause internet sensation posing with sheets of money. https://t.co/iHmAq05sEW pic.twitter.com/dkzFBjIi0K

— ABC News (@ABC) November 16, 2017

Now, sending Americans to their deaths to feed capital — THAT is unfair.

And Sherrod Brown isn’t done with Mnuchin yet.

The first word out of Sec. Mnuchin’s mouth at today's Banking Hearing?

Not workers, not families – liquidity.

Families don’t want to hear about liquidity and financial double-speak, they want to hear how this administration will keep them safe when they go to work.

— Sherrod Brown (@SenSherrodBrown) May 19, 2020

Yes. More of this, please.

Senator Sherrod Brown destroyed Mnuchin today. We need more of this. pic.twitter.com/2b0xvdiJiP

— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) May 19, 2020

Mnuchin certainly bugs us.

Sherrod Brown's grilling of icky Steven Mnuchin is a thing of beauty….he's squirming like a roach stuck in one of those sticky boxes….😁

— Kim ☮️ (@Blacklace40) May 19, 2020

Of course they don’t. They don’t care about working-class Americans.

Sherrod Brown trying to pin down on whether it's fair that our "essential" workers are paid less than the bumped up unemployment insurance $$.

Neither Mnuchin nor Powell want to agree that essential workers should get paid more. https://t.co/sDMwoKI271

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 19, 2020

There are reasonable measures the Federal Government can take to help Americans. They just won’t do it.

Mnuchin warning “permanent” damage to economy if states continue lockdowns, protecting from virus.

This is pure bullshit.

Give unemployed workers full play, help small businesses. You bailed out rich with tax cut, you can help workers now. Nothing is “permanent” or need be.

— Michelangelo Signorile, subscribe to my newsletter (@MSignorile) May 19, 2020

Mnuchin never stood a chance.

Sherrod Brown of Ohio dismantled Trump tool Mnuchin today by asking how many meatpacking workers must be sacrificed for the sake of the Dow? The blood sucking ghoul, who made his money by repossessing homes during the last GOP raid on the US Treasury, was reduced to incoherence.

— (((Jesper Weigner))) (@jespernweigner) May 19, 2020