Thread by @JakeSherman

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.

This may happen, it may not, but both sides seem to be rowing toward the same goal at the moment. Washington has never negotiated on a package of this magnitude this late into a presidential election year.

TRUMP is unreadable and unplayable for most Washington observers because he, in fact, has no governing theory. But, in recent days, he has apparently decided that it is in his political interest to spend trillions of dollars.

@SpeakerPelosi has always wanted a big deal, but she’s hung on negotiating with Washington’s most eager man, @stevenmnuchin1. She wanted a deal, and MNUCHIN was her only option. (She has no patience for MARK MEADOWS, and the admin has no one else who knows what they’re doing.)

DESPITE WHAT YOU MAY THINK, a deal isn’t all too close at this moment -- meaning as of early Sat morning. PELOSI sent a letter to her Dem colleagues saying that the $1.8 trillion offer from the administration was “one step forward, two steps back.” politico.com/f/?id=00000175…

State and local funding is “sadly inadequate,” she said, and the two are still $200 billion off in unemployment insurance. This could be a negotiating tactic, but even if so, these are real issues that need to be solved.

IT’S IN PELOSI’S INTEREST to hold out for every last thing, given how eager the TRUMP administration is for a deal.

🚨 PELOSI WANTS THIS TOO. On Thursday, during a private phone call with her leadership team, PELOSI revealed another one of her incentives to getting a deal: she thought it would be better to do it now so she didn’t have to do it early in a BIDEN administration.

OF COURSE, STANDING IN THE WAY will be Senate Republicans, who don’t like the size of the bill, have issues with abortion policy and stimulus checks for undocumented immigrants, to name only a sliver of their gripes.