Venturing into the province of celebrity news and cooking demonstrations, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday told Americans that the economy would recover and the central bank would be there to assist.

Asked at the end of a 15 minute interview on NBC’s “Today Show,” what his message was to Americans during this difficult time, Powell replied: “The Federal Reserve is working hard to support you now and our policies will be very important when the recovery does come to make that recovery as strong as possible.”

He said the economy may already be in a recession, but said this was not a typical downturn because the government has asked people to step back for the public good. At a certain point, the spread of the virus will be controlled and the economy will recover.

“There can also be a good rebound,” he said, sometime in the second half of the year.

“Very hard to say precisely when that will be,” Powell added.

The $2 trillion stimulus package passed by the Senate last night will provide relief to people hurt by the shutdown, he said. The House plans to vote on the measure Friday.

The measure contains $425 billion for the Fed to leverage for loans to help distressed companies.

Powell said one dollar provided to the Fed “is enough to support $10 worth of loans.”

This estimate dovetails with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s estimate that Fed lending could total as much as $4 trillion to the economy.

Related:Bank of England keeps rates at nearly zero and says could expand asset purchases if necessary

Powell said the Fed would continue to monitor the capital markets and step in wherever credit is not flowing.

“We will keep doing that as aggressively and forthrightly as we have been,” Powell said.

As investors sought safety, credit markets froze up and the Fed has moved quickly using all available channels to generate liquidity in Treasury bond, commercial paper, corporate bond and municipal bond markets.

Fed said he didn’t expect a spike in inflation as a result of the stimulus.

“We’re trying to create a bridge,” he said, from the strong economy prior to the pandemic to “another place of economic strength.”

Dow futures US:YMM20 headed lower early Thursday ahead of a key jobless claims report.