WASHINGTON – Prospects for a swift deal between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats on a new round of aid to the struggling economy faded on Wednesday, when President Trump undermined his own party’s efforts to negotiate a deal and a Senior White House official stated that a life line of unemployed workers would be exhausted as scheduled at the end of the week.
With negotiations just beginning to find a middle ground between the Republicans ‘$ 1 trillion plan and the Democrats’ $ 3 trillion package, Trump poured cold water throughout the company, saying he would prefer a basic package that would send “payments people “and protect them from being evicted.
“The rest of us are so far apart that we don’t care,” Trump said before leaving the White House for an event in Texas. “We really don’t care.”
The comments raised questions about whether the president, whose prospects for reelection and his party’s control in the Senate could affect the health of the economy, was willing or able to find a compromise to inject a final dose of stimulus before facing voters in November.
“We are not close to a deal,” Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, told reporters after leaving talks with top Democrats in the office of California spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi. He predicted that an improved unemployment benefit of $ 600 per week would expire as scheduled on July 31 without any action to restore it.
Republicans have proposed cutting payments to $ 200 a week, while Democrats want to keep it until the end of the year. It was just one of the countless problems that divided the two sides.
The breakdown reflects a difficult situation for Republicans that has put Trump in a difficult negotiating position. After the enactment of nearly $ 3 trillion in pandemic-related stimuli in the spring, many Senate Republicans oppose additional deficit spending to fuel the economy, meaning any deal would need to attract significant support from Democrats to clear The congress.
But with the two sides strongly disagreeing on how to structure the package and how large it should be, the administration’s outreach to Democratic leaders has failed to move toward an agreement.
As time runs out, White House officials renewed their calls on Wednesday for a temporary extension of expired unemployment insurance benefits and a moratorium on evictions. But Democrats quickly rejected that idea, which they said would only dampen the push for other critical aid, including for states and cities, schools and health care, that must be approved quickly as Americans continue to suffer.
Senate Republicans did not include an extension of the eviction moratorium in their $ 1.1 billion aid package, which Trump has dismissed as “semi-irrelevant,” despite the fact that it was the product of lengthy negotiations between Republican leaders in Congress and their own advisers. But the president said he did not think they had reached a tough enough deal with the Democrats.
“The payments are not enough,” Trump said Wednesday, although it was not clear what payments he was referring to. “They are not making them high enough. Democrats are not taking care of people. “
The Democratic measure includes direct payments of $ 1,200 to Americans, the same level that Republicans proposed. The unemployment benefits that Democrats have proposed are three times greater than those offered by Republicans.
Trump also chided Republicans for their reluctance to provide $ 1.75 billion for the construction of a new FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, a priority of his for a long time, and one that could increase the value of his own nearby hotel.
“Republicans should go back to school and learn,” said the president. “They need a new building. It’s a bad building. “
Trump’s insistence on including money, unrelated to the coronavirus or recession, in the aid package has irritated Republicans in the Senate and has left many wondering how serious the administration is in closing a deal with Democrats.
Democrats were equally pessimistic Wednesday about reaching a compromise, and directly blamed Republicans for choosing to wait until the end of July, just when unemployment aid was about to expire, to start negotiations on an aid package.
“What short-term extension?” Ms. Pelosi asked after meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Mr. Meadows and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader. “There is no short-term extension. They have nothing. “
Several Republicans also seemed reluctant to accept the prospect when asked on Wednesday. A Republican aide compared the idea of a short-term bill to paying a ransom twice.
“Our Republican friends don’t seem to be close to meeting right now,” Schumer said.
Analysts in Washington said they saw an increasing risk that lawmakers would not reach a comprehensive agreement before a recess scheduled early next month.
“These negotiations are in a bad, a bad place,” said Jon Lieber, managing director of the United States at the Eurasia Group and a former adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader.
“There is no progress at this time, reflecting the strong hand Democrats think they have, the ineptitude of the administration and the lack of consensus within the Senate Republican Party,” Lieber said.
Republican lawmakers acknowledged that the road to the deal seemed daunting, although some insisted that a consensus deal could emerge.
“There is no agreement on anything, I would call it an exchange of views, part of the catharsis you have to go through before you get to a job,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “People are frustrated, some people are afraid, some people are concerned, I mean, we are in the middle of a pandemic.”
“And then you have an upcoming election, and almost everything is being seen through that lens, which makes it difficult to find common ground,” he added. “We’re going to test everything else that doesn’t work until we finally get to what works. It is a process “.
This week’s process has revealed deep divisions in the Republican Senate committee. For example, Cornyn said he opposed a short-term deal like the one Trump launched on Wednesday.
Senator John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, said a provisional bill “makes sense to me.”
“I asked the powers that be to remove pornographic spending from the bills,” Kennedy said, echoing complaints about Trump’s FBI bill and other proposals in the Republican plan.
“I think it will be difficult in the short term to come to an agreement on a bigger package,” he said, “and people need help.”
