JOURNALIST: Are those checks right into direct deposit? IRS now saying it will take 4-5 months- you're saying two weeks? Can you give us a solid…
TREASURY SECRETARY STEVE MNUCHIN: Let me be clear. I don't know where you're hearing these things. I told you this would be three weeks. I'm now committing to two weeks. We're delivering on our commitments. The irs, which I oversee, within two weeks the first money will be in people's accounts.
JOURNALIST: The question is not about the first checks for folks who have direct deposit, sounds those will go up pretty quickly, the question is then for folks who don't have direct deposit. And there was a staff memo that was released by the House Ways and Means Committee today saying that that process could take up to five weeks.That takes you to mid-August. Is that how long it’s going to take? Five months, I’m sorry.
MNUCHIN: That is not going to take five weeks. Again, let me just say when Obama sent out these checks it took months and months and months. I am assuring the American public- they need the money now. What we're going to do is again, if we have your information, you get it in- within two weeks.
Social security, you'll get it very quickly after that. If we don't have your information, you'll have a simple web portal, you’ll upload it. If we don't have that, we'll send you checks in the mail.
JOURNALIST: How many checks can you process a week though? How many checks can you...
MNUCHIN: Again, we can produce a lot of checks but we don’t want to send checks. In this environment, we don’t want people to get checks, we want to put money directly into their account.
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PABLO GATO, UNIVISION: Tens of millions of people anxiously wait for their economic stimulus checks. The money will start being deposited into accounts, said the Secretary of the Treasury. But Democrats say that the Internal Revenue Service told them that the checks could take up to 20 weeks before arriving to recipients. The White House denied that.