WASHINGTON -- Washington negotiations on a covid-19 relief bill took a modest step forward Tuesday, though time is running out, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, President Donald Trump's most powerful Senate ally, is pressing the White House against going forward.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office said talks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday were productive, but other veteran lawmakers said there is still too much work to do and not enough time to do it to enact a relief bill by Election Day.
In remarks at a closed Senate GOP lunch, McConnell, R-Ky., told his colleagues that Pelosi, D-Calif., is not negotiating in good faith with Mnuchin, and that any deal they reach could disrupt the Senate's plans to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court next week. Republicans have voiced concerns that a stimulus deal could splinter the party and exacerbate divisions at a time when they are trying to rally behind the nominee.
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The comments were confirmed by three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss them.
McConnell's attempted intervention came as Pelosi and Mnuchin continued negotiating over the roughly $2 trillion economic relief package. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said the "conversation provided more clarity and common ground as they move closer to an agreement." But no deal can become law without McConnell's blessing, and his direct warning to the White House is seen as imperiling the chances of any bill becoming law in the next two weeks.
McConnell said if such a bill passed in the Democratic-controlled House with Trump's blessing "we would put it on the floor of the Senate." Those public remarks came after the private session with fellow Republicans.
McConnell has not been part of the Pelosi-Mnuchin talks and had already made his opposition to a large new bill clear. Republicans could lose control of the Senate in November's elections, and senators have made clear to the White House that voting on a large stimulus deal could mean the end of their majority if it scares away fiscally conservative voters.
Mnuchin and Pelosi have been working on a deal for weeks, particularly as signs surface that the economic recovery is weakening.
The deal under discussion would provide another round of $1,200 stimulus payments, more unemployment benefits, aid for small businesses, money for coronavirus testing, and support for airlines and hospitals, among other things.
In a Bloomberg interview Tuesday, Pelosi denied that she was stringing the White House along and said she wouldn't be negotiating if she didn't want a deal. But McConnell's remarks show the political calculations that both parties are dealing with two weeks before the Nov. 3 election.
The comments emerged amid escalating tensions between some Republican members of Congress and Trump over stimulus negotiations. Trump has in recent days downplayed or dismissed conservative opposition to spending trillions more on a stimulus, saying he wants to spend even more money than Pelosi's latest $2.2 trillion proposal.
Many Republicans have balked at spending more than $1 trillion on this round of relief. Asked about McConnell's reluctance to the stimulus bill, Trump said Tuesday morning: "He'll be on board if something comes. ... Not every Republican agrees with me, but they will."
Pelosi and Mnuchin continued their negotiations Tuesday, talking for 45 minutes as they wrangled over sticking points, including liability protections for businesses, and state and local aid. Pelosi had said that if they are going to vote on a deal by the end of next week, they need to agree on specific language by the end of this week.
Asked after her conversation with Mnuchin whether that could happen, Pelosi replied: "I hope so. That's the plan. That's what I would hope. That's the hope, let me say that."
Hammill, her spokesman, laid out the next steps.
"On several open questions, the speaker and the secretary called for the committee chairs to work to resolve differences about funding levels and language," he said. "With this guidance, the two principals will continue their discussions [this] afternoon upon the secretary's return." Mnuchin has been traveling in the Middle East as part of a trip to formalize parts of the Trump administration's policies there.
'A WAYS TO GO'
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told CNBC on Tuesday afternoon that Mnuchin and Pelosi have made "good progress" and that negotiations would continue today. Still, he said, hurdles remain, with the negotiators "several hundred billion" dollars apart, and at odds over the extent of state and local money.
Meadows also said he had several conversations with Trump about stimulus negotiations Tuesday, and the president is "very bullish" about not letting a difference in dollar amounts stand in the way of a deal.
"I want to stress: We're not just down to a difference of language and a few dollars. We still have a ways to go," Meadows said. "But I would say the conversations today [Tuesday] were productive enough to have conversations tomorrow."
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McConnell declined to tell reporters whether he'd spoken with Trump about the issue or whether Republicans would support what Trump wanted.
"We'd have to see what it was first," McConnell told reporters after the Senate GOP lunch.
The scrambling comes after numerous concerns about the economy. The unemployment rate remains high, the travel industry is in rough shape, and there are growing concerns about problems in the commercial real estate sector. Many restaurants are still struggling, and some continue to go out of business seven months after the pandemic floored the American economy.
On the Senate floor Tuesday, Republicans and Democrats battled over competing views of what should happen with stimulus legislation, trying to score political points with a series of procedural maneuvers. McConnell called a vote on a bill to inject $260 billion into the small business Paycheck Protection Program. A vote to effectively kill the legislation failed, 40-57, with five Democrats crossing over to vote with Republicans.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., bristled at the move, accusing McConnell of holding "show votes on coronavirus relief," and countered with several procedural moves of his own that Republicans defeated.
McCONNELL STANCE
In a rejection of Trump's desire for a big new bill, McConnell is expected to try to advance an approximately $500 billion bill today that will include jobless benefits for the unemployed, funding for schools and the health care system, and new small-business assistance. But that bill will exclude many provisions sought by Democrats and Trump, including a new round of $1,200 stimulus payments.
Senate Democrats have lambasted McConnell for trying to advance what they describe as "emaciated" bills that would provide political cover to Republicans without really solving any problems. The approximately $500 billion bill is nearly identical to a piece of legislation McConnell tried to advance last month, which Democrats opposed.
McConnell's Tuesday remarks indicate that even if Pelosi and Mnuchin manage to reach a deal, any vote in the Senate would wait until after the election. If Democrats win a number of seats in the November election, they could take control of the Senate beginning in January.
Earlier this year, Congress approved roughly $3 trillion in aid to help contain the economic fallout. Some of the funds appeared to help numerous sectors of the economy, but problems remain, particularly as certain programs expired.
"The recovery has slowed, and without more help it is at risk of backsliding. Neither the virus nor the economic damages it has wrought are gone, and policymakers would be making a serious mistake to act as if they were," said Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork.
"It's not a question of 'if.' It's a question of 'when,'" said Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota. "We have to do more. We know that."
Information for this article was contributed by Jeff Stein and Erica Werner of The Washington Post; and by Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press.