WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused Democrats of Congress of not negotiating a US coronavirus aid package for refusing to engage in “ridiculous” unrelated spending requests the pandemic.
Trump’s remarks came after top Republican and Democratic negotiators blamed a five-day patch deal in relief legislation talks.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s chief negotiator, disputed a statement by the two top Democrats in Congress that Republicans sought more talks, but denied any move on their initial offer of $ 1 trillion, which is less than a third of what the Democratic controlled House of Representatives passed a measure in May.
“An overture was made by Secretary Mnuchin to comply and he made it clear that … the White House does not smell of its position regarding the size and scope of a legislative package,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Leader of the Minority Senate Chuck Schumer in a joint statement.
“We have once again made it clear to the administration that we are ready to resume negotiations once they begin to take this process seriously,” they said in the statement.
Mnuchin responded that Pelosi “was not ready to go ahead with the negotiations unless we agreed in advance with their proposal, and cost at least $ 2 trillion.”
Speaking to White House reporters, Trump zeroed in on Democratic requests to support post-vote support for the November election and the U.S. Postal Service. Trump has often said that voting via mail-in would lead to widespread fraud, a notion that is not supported by data.
“Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are holding the American people hostage over money for their radical leftist agenda that the country does not want and will not accept,” he said.
“The bill will not happen because they do not even want to talk about it, because we can not give them the kind of ridiculous things they want that have nothing to do with the China virus,” Trump said.
Schumer said last week that Democrats suggested the White House negotiators meet halfway. The $ 1 trillion proposal by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell met with direct opposition from both Democrats and some of his fellow Republicans, who are against an additional spending.
The pandemic has taken a particularly heavy toll on the United States, where more than 164,000 people have been killed, more than any other country. Millions of U.S. workers have lost their jobs, and last month’s drop of $ 600 in weekly additional federal unemployment benefits is expected to take a further toll.
Talks about a new package broke last Friday. Focus points include the size of an expanded unemployment benefit, support to state and local governments, and money for schools to reopen.
A Reuters / Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found that Americans shared the blame fairly equally between Democrats and Republicans.
(This story has been re-recorded to correct typographical errors)
Report by Steve Holland and Susan Heavey in Washington; Additional report by David Lawder and Susan Cornwell in Washington; Written by David Morgan and Tim Ahmann; Edited by Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler
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