An effort to restart stalled coronavirus negotiations between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House went nowhere Thursday, with the top House Democrat saying the talks are fruitless until GOP negotiators agree to a massive $1 trillion concession.
Pelosi had little new to say after a 25-minute phone conversation with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Thursday afternoon, the first communication between the two since the coronavirus relief talks collapsed in early August.
“We have said again and again that we are willing to come down, meet them in the middle — that would be $2.2 trillion. When they’re ready to do that, we’ll be ready to discuss and negotiate,” Pelosi told reporters afterward. “I did not get that impression on that call.”
Pelosi was not optimistic that much would change ahead of the call as negotiators on both sides refuse to move from their price tag demands for the next bill — Democrats are pushing for a relief package around $2 trillion while Republican insist they won’t support anything more than $1 trillion.
“That could be a very short conversation if they’re not willing to meet in the middle,” Pelosi told reporters earlier in the day during her weekly press conference. “We’re not budging. Understand this … they have to move.”
Pelosi even dismissively described Meadows as “what’s his name?” to reporters and declared that he was only “staffing” the lead GOP negotiator, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
“They aren’t trying anything,” Pelosi said of Republicans.
“If they are willing to meet us in the middle, then we can sit down and talk. So this is, ‘You called me? I’m returning your call. Are you ready to bring much more money to the table?’”
Talks between the two sides have been essentially nonexistent since negotiations fell apart earlier this month, with a trillion-dollar gulf separating the two parties and messy rounds of finger pointing about who is to blame. Democrats have offered to negotiate a massive relief package around $2 trillion, far less than the $3.4 trillion bill the House passed in May. But Republicans have balked at that price tag, refusing to move beyond a $1 trillion target.
The resulting impasse has lingered for weeks, even as tens of millions of Americans face economic disaster, after Congress allowed increased federal unemployment benefits and an eviction moratorium to lapse at the end of July.
Senate Republicans have been preparing a pared-down coronavirus relief bill over the August recess, which could be attached to any short-term funding bill to keep the government open beyond Sept. 30.
But Democrats have rejected the GOP “skinny” bill, saying it falls far short of what’s needed to help Americans recover both personally and economically from the ongoing devastating toll of the pandemic.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reiterated Thursday at an event in Kentucky that talks are “at a stalemate” and said he couldn’t predict whether there would be a breakthrough.
“I can’t tell you today we’re going to reach an agreement on another rescue package, but here’s what I do think, I think we need another one,” McConnell said. “I’m hoping that we can come together once again because the coronavirus is not involved in the American election. It does not care who wins.”
Although Meadows has made an overture to Pelosi to restart talks, he wasn’t optimistic that a deal would actually be reached before the government funding deadline next month.
“It’s really been Speaker Pelosi really driving this train as a conductor more so than really anybody,” Meadows said in a POLITICO Playbook interview on Wednesday. “And I think privately she says she wants a deal and publicly she says she wants a deal, but when it comes to dealing with Republicans and the administration, we haven’t seen a lot of action.”
The resulting coronavirus relief standoff could result in high-stakes negotiations starting in mid-September, when both chambers are scheduled to return from August recess. If that’s the case, leaders in both parties would be trying to wrangle a potentially multitrillion-dollar relief package along with a massive short-term deal to keep the government open, all just weeks before the presidential election.
Some senior Democrats pitched Pelosi on passing some piecemeal economic relief legislation last weekend when the House returned for an emergency session to consider a $25 billion rescue bill for the U.S. Postal Service. Pelosi and her leadership team ultimately decided against the idea.
Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.