treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin
Steven Terner MnuchinMcConnell Opens Door to Smaller Coronavirus Relief Deal Republican Party Seeks ‘Plan B’ As Coronavirus Talks Hit Wall On The Money: Meadows Says Benefits Will Expire As Negotiators Strive To Reach A agreement | Trump launches short-term pact | Fed keeps rates close to zero as the economy faces a coronavirus hit MORE and chief of staff of the White House Mark Meadows
Mark Randall MeadowsMcConnell Opens Door To Smaller Coronavirus Relief Deal Republican Party Seeks ‘Plan B’ As Coronavirus Talks Hit Wall In Money: Meadows says benefits will expire as negotiators scramble to reach a agreement | Trump launches short-term pact | Fed keeps rates close to zero as the economy faces a coronavirus hit MORE He said Thursday night that Democrats rejected a short-term deal as negotiators continue to disagree on the upcoming coronavirus relief bill.
“We made a proposal for a short-term agreement. And so far they have repeated that they do not want to do that,” Mnuchin told reporters after a nearly two-hour meeting with the speaker of the House of Representatives. Nancy Pelosi
Nancy PelosiHouse The Republican Party Steering Committee selects four members for new committee positions. Pelosi Meets Presidents for Surprising Billing, But Tries to Dodge Hillicon Valley: House Panel Questions Tech CEOs During Long-Antitrust Hearing | TikTok will make the code public as it rejects ‘disinformation’ | Intel home panel expands access to foreign disinformation evidence MORE (D-Calif.), Democratic Leader of the Senate Charles Schumer
Chuck SchumerLincoln Project Targets Senate Races In Alaska, Maine, Montana With M ad Buying Pelosi, Schumer Says Republican Senate Coronavirus Bill Is ‘Selling To Working Families’ 12:30 Report From The Hill – Presented by Facebook – Barr Showdown with House Democrats MORE (NY) and Meadows.
Mnuchin declined to say what the administration offered during the meeting, which was the fourth time the group had met in so many days. But Meadows later tweeted that they offered a “temporary extension of the unemployment assistance needed.”
“The proposals we made were not received with pleasure,” Meadows told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Trump and his chief of staff indicated, a few hours before the meeting, that they expected Democrats to accept a smaller deal on just two issues: unemployment benefits and eviction prevention.
“I think he will probably try to solve the problem of improved unemployment, obviously,” Meadows said, when asked about the purpose of the meeting. “And so we want to go ahead and … address eviction provisions that will hopefully prevent people from being evicted from their homes, at least until the end of the year, on both counts.”
Trump focused on the evictions as he spoke from the White House saying that “we are asking Democrats to work with us to find a solution that will temporarily stop the evictions.”
However, Pelosi and Schumer, who have remained close during the long talks, rejected any attempt to obtain a short-term or reduced bill.
Democrats have repeatedly said they don’t want a short-term deal or a smaller bill.
The stalemate comes when the federal unemployment benefit of $ 600 per week will expire on Friday. With the Senate leaving town until Thursday, and negotiators were not close to a deal, they were guaranteed they would not meet the deadline.
Democrats, who left the meeting behind closed doors, accused the White House of trying to reach an unsystematic deal that did not resolve the crisis caused by the spread of the coronavirus, which has devastated the economy and killed more than 152,000 Americans. , according to data. from Johns Hopkins University.
“We had a long discussion. And we just don’t think they understand the seriousness of the problem. The bottom line is this is the most serious health and economic problem we’ve had in a century and 75 years and it really takes, good, strong action bold, and they don’t understand it, “Schumer told reporters.
When asked if they had made any progress at the meeting, Schumer noted that they discussed “parameters.” And Pelosi specified that she thought Meadows and Mnuchin “understand that we have to have an account.”
“They just don’t realize how big it has to be,” added Pelosi.
The four are expected to speak again on Friday, probably on the phone, and then meet on Saturday.
The meeting came after the Senate blocked dueling coronavirus relief proposals on Thursday.
Sens. Ron Johnson
Ronald (Ron) Harold Johnson The timeline for the Republican Party’s Obama investigation report slips when the president looks at the subpoenas The House Committee of Representatives votes to give all members access to evidence of foreign disinformation The Democrat-aligned group targets Republican Party president at center of Obama-era investigation MORE (R-Wis.) And Mike Braun
Michael BraunGOP Seeks ‘Plan B’ As Coronavirus Talks Hit The Wall Republican Senators Rebel Over Coronavirus Proposal Healthcare Price Transparency Act May Reduce Costs And Drive National Economic Recovery MORE (R-Ind.) He tried to pass a bill that would have provided, when combining state and federal assistance, a match of two-thirds of a person’s previous salary. The federal benefit would have been limited to $ 500 per week. If a state couldn’t implement salary equalization, it would have been a fixed federal benefit of $ 200 per week.
But Schumer blocked the account. Democrats then tried to pass the roughly $ 3 billion House bill, but it was blocked by Republicans.
Democrats also blocked a one-week extension of the $ 600 per week benefit.
Meadows told reporters that Trump would have supported extending the current federal benefit to its current level for a week. Under the CARES Act, the original legislation that included increasing unemployment, benefits are slated to formally expire on Friday.
However, due to the schedule and the number of states sending benefits, they began to expire on July 25. And with the Senate out of town until Monday, even if the four negotiators had reached an agreement, the additional deadline would still have failed. Unemployment benefit.
When asked on Thursday night about the offer of a one-week extension, Pelosi asked “what use is a one-week extension?”
“A weeklong extension is good if you have a bill and you’re solving it, the details, the wording of it, the legislative council, the Congressional Budget Office, the Rules Committee,” he said.
“That’s what a weeklong extension is all about. I mean, it’s worth nothing. It’s worth nothing unless you’re using it for this purpose,” he added.
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