Yet, despite the fact that more than 30 million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits, companies are being forced to close their doors at a breakthrough pace and the end of the virus is not in sight, an incentive action is not difficult.
If the last 24 hours have been anything public in these negotiations, it is that no one will reach an agreement again. This is closer to falling apart at this point than coming together.
Congress is gone. McConnell has said the House of Representatives for the month is not in recession, but most members have returned for the August break, promising to return only if McConnell calls them back to vote on a deal.
The shortest way to sum up where we are:
“We may not get a deal,” he said. Richard Shelby, a Republican in Alabama who chairs the House Appeals Committee.
By the figures
Senators have been in session for three weeks. Pelosi, Mnuchin, Meadows Schumer have held 11 meetings in a total of 19 hours, and yet, the projections for getting an actual deal are no better than they were 10 days ago.
In your own words:
- Pelosi: “We are very far apart. It is very sad.”
- Mnuchin: “I think there are a lot of issues where we are close to a compromise position, but I think there are a handful of very big issues that we are still very far apart.”
The dynamics
One thing that members and mentors have been complaining about for weeks is that the urgency to act right now, at this moment, has never really materialized this work period.
The deadline for unemployment benefits came and went, the self-imposed deadline will likely be missed Friday. Democrats continue to believe they have the political levy after Republicans fail to unite behind their own plan, and Schumer and Pelosi have been reluctant to meet White House demands, believing they are holding the tickets for a negotiation where Democrats members themselves must provide the majority of the votes. That dynamic has not shifted.
Schumer held a conversation with his members on Thursday afternoon. The message one member told me was both “gloomy and determined,” and Schumer “did not sugarcoat how far things lay apart.”
When asked by CNN if there was any pushback from Democrats concerned about the lack of progress, the member said “100% united and more than I have ever seen.”
How bad are things actually?
Several employees involved in the talks have told CNN in recent days that they now consider the deadline for government funding to be perhaps the only real remaining trigger for action if things continue to flounder.
That deadline is September 30th. That is more than two months after the expiry of the improved unemployment benefits.
It’s the worst case scenario, but the fact that people are considering this timeline shows just how bad things have gotten.
What is offered?
On Thursday night, Mnuchin and Meadows came to the table with a willingness to discuss rental assistance, not just a federal moratorium on eviction. They have also dealt back and forth with proposals for improved federal unemployment benefits, but big differences remain and goodwill is running low at this point. At one point, Pelosi accused Meadows of hitting her hand on the table during her meeting, which Meadows refused. But it underscores just how thin patience is running at the moment and how the dynamics in the room are not getting better.
Chances of a breakthrough?
It’s true that urgency can shift quickly on Capitol Hill. But that’s much harder to do when members are away and physically keep their distance from each other. What could happen are many members will come face to face with constituencies that need help in the coming weeks. Many members may feel differently about the importance of an agreement when interviews start to shift, but it will probably take the whole of August to get there.
That is not to say that something could not change. It always can. But like sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, told CNN on Thursday, at the moment the decision is not really about what should be in a deal. It’s about whether members actually want to get one.
“I think at some point everyone has to make a decision. Either we will do this or we are not,” Blunt said. “And if we are not, we are not.”
Who can change this stablemate?
The thing that is changing the dynamic is when President Donald Trump says “enough” and demands a deal from his negotiators.
Mnuchin was clear Thursday night that Trump wants a deal. The president called on Mnuchin and Meadows three times during their meeting with Democrats Thursday night to urge them to speak out. Mnuchin and Meadows plan to brief the president on the negotiations late into the evening. But, Trump has also made it clear that he will simply return nothing. A massive amount of money for state and local governments is unacceptable to the president, and that very real sticking point lay his head in Thursday’s meeting, which underscored elsewhere that the two sides are light years apart.
To add a finer point, this was the split screen yesterday in the dueling pressers:
Mnuchin: “The president will not make a deal that has a massive amount to reimburse state and local.”
Pelosi: “We do not unlock the states. We protect the jobs of our heroes. That is why it is called the HEROES Act. Our health workers, our first responders, our transit, transportation, sanitation, our teachers, our teachers, our teachers.”
“They risked their lives to save other lives, and now they could lose their jobs and leave because the Republicans said they would not bail them out.”
What’s next?
The president is driven and takes executive action. Mnuchin and Meadows were clear that the president will act on what if a deal is not reached on Friday. But as Phil Mattingly of CNN has repeatedly emphasized in this note, the legal issues surrounding any executive action or the repayment of remaining funds in a federal unemployment benefit or the suspension of the tax service in court will be challenged.
Schumer said Thursday night. “Trying to carry out these executive duties, which will leave most people out, will not cover the broad expansions of what is necessary, will be straightforward in court and will be cumbersome and difficult to implement. It is not a good choice at all.”
One more dynamic: Moderate Democrats
When moderate Democrats start sounding the alarm that no deal is an acceptable option for them, the negotiation dynamics may shift. Moderate Republicans have been doing this for weeks, but with the GOP divided, it has not moved the needle. Moderate Democrats may put more pressure on their leadership, but at the moment most members seem to believe that Pelosi and Schumer will work this out.
When CNN Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama, the most threatened Senate Democrat in 2020, on the question of whether he blamed his leadership for not getting a deal, he did not say.
“The problem is that we should have been on the brink of unemployment these talks weeks ago. Good sadness,” Jones said. “(The White House) knew this deadline was coming. They knew it was coming and putting it under a threat like this is unintentional. That is not leadership.”
The turning point (s)
When it comes to sticking points, there are many. There are differences in benefits of unemployment insurance, state and local funding, liability protection, providing rental assistance to people who are struggling, funding for the US Post Office, nutrition assistance and how to structure funding for children who return go to school. But it all comes down to a fundamental, philosophical difference between Mnuchin and Meadows and Pelosi and Schumer about how big this problem is right now and what role the government has in tackling it.
“We have always said that Republicans and the President do not understand the seriousness of the situation. And every time we meet with them, it is reinforced,” Pelosi said Thursday night.
That hardly sums up why no movement has materialized at this point.
Democrats have largely blamed Meadows for not being able to get over the first, big difference. For the first time in his career, Meadows – known as a thorn in the side of former GOP House speakers such as Paul Ryan and John Boehner – is being ordered to cut a massive deal on a government incentive package that is bigger as he spent years in Congress. Democrats do not trust that Meadows wants a big deal and that Republicans are divided over the question of whether a big incentive package itself is necessary.
Every other issue of help in unemployment to state and local funding is about the macro-disagreement over what the role of government should now be itself.
CN M Philly Mattingly contributed to this report.
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