Trump: Massive job losses 'fully expected'

As the Labor Department reported Friday that 20.5 million Americans had lost their jobs in April, pushing the nation's unemployment rate to 14.5 percent, the highest level ever recorded since the feds began tracking jobless numbers in 1948.

"It's fully expected - there's no surprise, everybody knows that," President Donald Trump told "Fox and Friends," as the Fox News hosts interrupted their lengthy morning telephone call with the President to inform him of the latest jobs numbers.

"What I can do is bring it back," President Trump said of a rebound from the economic devastation wrought by the outbreak of the Coronavirus, which has shuttered thousands of businesses.

The details from the jobs report were staggering - 20.5 million jobs lost, a 14.7 percent jobless rate, the unemployment rate for blacks soared to 16.7 percent, and the number of people holding multiple jobs plummeted with the job losses as well.

And with the jump in unemployment, the Labor Force Participation Rate also showed a decline, dropping to 60.3 percent, the lowest point since 1973.

"Behind every one of these job losses is a family that could be struggling at this very moment to decide between paying rent, keeping the lights on, or putting food on the table — to say nothing of planning for the future," said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR).

Not since the giant economic downturn known as the Great Recession in 2008-2010 had there been so much economic damage shown in the Labor Department report.

But during that time, the jobless rate hit 10 percent only in October of 2009, the second highest figure since mid-1983, when unemployment went to 10.1 percent.

In GOP circles, the report was evidence that it was time for a major change in how states and the federal government are handling the response to the Coronavirus.

"The cure has been worse than the disease," Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) said of the move to shutdown businesses as part of the effort to stop the spread of the Coronavirus.

"Time to reopen America’s society and economy, while taking precautions to protect our most vulnerable," Biggs said Friday.