So it was time for Mnuchin to head to Capitol Hill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had just decided to forge ahead with a vote on a separate bill, negotiated last week by Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to provide workers with paid sick leave. That legislation itself would cost more than $100 billion.

The assembled Republican senators had largely spent their careers branding themselves as fiscal hawks. Many had criticized bailouts of banks and the auto industry during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Gone from the package was a payroll tax cut that some Republicans had long advocated, replaced by direct payments to Americans -- checks, essentially. Even close Trump allies like Lindsey Graham balked.

The shift was particularly disorienting considering that the president just days ago had downplayed the potential impact of the virus and said that bailouts for the airline and cruise industries might not even be necessary.

One administration official said that Trump’s aides had received alarming information from businesses in recent days, including data from credit card companies that showed purchases falling off a cliff. Americans simply aren’t buying anything, the official said.

The White House is aware that the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a benchmark the president has long treated as a barometer for his own presidency, is hovering near its level on Trump’s inauguration. Trump’s aides are conscious all the stock market gains under his presidency are likely gone, but they’ve given up on defending that calling-card of his re-election campaign and are focused on responding to the growing crisis in the real economy, the official said.

The official said that recent conversations with lawmakers have been laced with fear and concern, and a desire for dramatic action. The White House hopes to pass a stimulus plan through the Senate by Saturday, the official said.

But even Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican who has been one of the loudest voices on Capitol Hill calling for an aggressive response to the outbreak, told his colleagues they should consider hitting the pause button to ensure the legislation is written so that Americans receive relief as soon as possible.

The speed and scale of Trump’s course-correction underscored the growing realization to everyone in the room that the coronavirus now poses an existential threat to the health and security of nearly every American. Fiscal conservatives like Cotton, Utah’s Mitt Romney, and Missouri’s Josh Hawley were signaling support for the president’s plan to paper the nation with direct payments from the U.S. Treasury for the first time since the Bush tax cuts.

Leaving the meeting, Mnuchin told reporters: “I know there’s been some rumors of the number. It’s a big number.”