OK EVERYONE, REPEAT AFTER US: Stimulus talks are in the same place they have been since July.
THE TWO SIDES have not coalesced around a top-line figure, legislative language or any of the component parts of an agreement. The White House is divided on a deal, Hill Republicans are all over the place, and time is running out.
This may be the longest negotiations we’ve seen outside of health care reform in 2009-2010 -- and yet so little has changed over the last 10 or so weeks.
SO, WHILE WASHINGTON’S MOST EAGER DUO -- Speaker NANCY PELOSI of San Francisco and Treasury STEVEN MNUCHIN of NYC, Massachusetts Avenue Heights, LA and the Hamptons -- may be heading back to the negotiating table, that would represent status quo. And status quo here is stasis.
MNUCHIN told PELOSI in a Wednesday night call that he wanted to get back to talking about a big Covid deal. And PELOSI reassured the White House today she was ready to talk.
BUT THERE ARE SO MANY HURDLES RIGHT NOW:
-- THE TWO SIDES are currently trading legislative language, but remain far apart on details
-- THE SENATE GOP is reluctant about a deal
-- SCOTUS CONFIRMATION begins next week
-- THE HOUSE IS OUT
-- 26 DAYS until Election Day.
PELOSI TO AIRLINES: NOT HAPPENING … THE SPEAKER on a stand-alone airline relief bill: “I have been very open to having a stand-alone bill for the airlines or part of a bigger bill. But there is no stand-alone bill without a bigger bill.”
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Playbook: HERE IS A REMARKABLE FACT: @realDonaldTrump and @SpeakerPelosi haven’t spoken in nearly one year. Their last one-on-one conversation was Oct. 16, 2019 -- they had a brief interaction at the State of the Union, before PELOSI ripped the president’s speech up.
In that time period, the nation has been turned upside down, shaken to the core by an unrelenting virus that has killed more 200,000 and hobbled a once vibrant economy.
BUT THROUGH IT ALL, PELOSI and TRUMP have remained distant, unified only in their distaste for one another.
ALL OF THE SUDDEN, though, their incentives are aligned: they both want a massive Covid deal in an unthinkably quick timeframe.
The tension: W.H. now desperate for a deal, led by Washington’s most eager man, @stevenmnuchin1
MCCONNELL said it’s unlikely anything will get done before Election Day.
@stevenmnuchin1 SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS and Hill sources tell us that they plan to work through this weekend, all next week and possibly next weekend to get a deal.
@stevenmnuchin1 WHO KNOWS WHY TRUMP WANTS THIS. He may want noise to fill the silence. Maybe he wants a bump in the stock market. We’re not mood readers or psychiatrists or psychics. This deal could’ve been cut 90 times between May and now.
TRUMP ADMIN HAS PROVEN the 18 acres on which the WH sits are a logic-free zone. Don’t waste your time trying to make sense of anything that comes out of or goes on there, bc it’s a fool’s errand&you’ll just end up with a headache &clenched jaw
TRUMP has spent the last few days vacillating between 2 different, irreconcilable poles: not wanting a Covid relief bill, because it includes a “bailout” of blue states, and wanting a “big deal,” which will definitely include a bailout of blue states. Square that circle. Or dont.
SO, LET’S NOT FOCUS ON WHETHER @stevenmnuchin1 and @SpeakerPelosi will strike some sort of compromise, because it’s ultimately unknowable. We’ve described the hurdles -- a huge money difference, policy differences, etc. -- between the two parties at the moment.
HAVE YOU SEEN “THE BIG LEBOWSKI”? WALTER - played by John Goodman - is not a big fan of DONNY, played by Steve Buscemi. During one of their bowling scenes, WALTER says to DONNY: “You have no frame of reference, Donny. You’re like a child who wanders in in the middle of a movie”
DONNY, in this case, bears more than a passing resemblance to President DONALD TRUMP. HIS TWEETS TUESDAY about the Covid stimulus talks seem like he’s awaking from a monthslong slumber, unbriefed by his advisers and unaware of his surroundings as he enters the fray.
The collapse of the Covid relief talks is not surprising, it is, in fact, very much expected if you have been following the negotiations and talking to people who are involved in the back and forth -- as all of us reporters in the Capitol have.
the dynamics here have always been clear: Mnuchin wanted a deal, McCarthy/McConnell/Meadows were fine with one, but weren't going to do a $2T bill. The sweet spot was somewhere in the $1.3T to $1.5T range — and even THAT would’ve been a stretch for Rs.
As soon as Meadows was gone from the room, Mnuchin had room to run, but had a maze of tripwires. McConnell meanwhile was never going to put a $2T bill on the floor because it didnt have the support of the majority of his majority.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP has tweeted just five times from Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda -- but one of them was pushing Congress to strike a Covid relief bill. “OUR GREAT USA WANTS & NEEDS STIMULUS. WORK TOGETHER AND GET IT DONE. Thank you!”
THIS IS AS FAR AS HE’S LEANED IN to this process, and it would appear that now that Treasury Secretary STEVEN MNUCHIN is heavily incentivized to get a Covid relief deal. TRUMP wants to show that he’s working. And MNUCHIN-- already eager for a deal -- is now on the hook to deliver
IT’S NOT THAT EASY. MNUCHIN and Speaker NANCY PELOSI are still haggling over state and local funding and enhanced unemployment insurance -- the same issues they’ve been haggling over for months. PELOSI wants 2t package, and the WH has indicated $1 trillion range.