Hickenlooper votes AYE on Young amendment to block stimulus payments to undocumented immigrants Passes 58-42 (although Young and Durbin disagree about what it would actually do)

Thune is pressing Yellen about the nation's "massive amount of debt."
"We seem to have no concern now about borrowing money in the short term" Thune says. "When is it too much?"
"Nobody's talking about it really in either party anymore," he says. Yellen says most important thing we can do to get on a path of fiscal sustainability is defeat the pandemic.

“To avoid doing what we need to do now to address the pandemic .. would likely leave us in a worse place fiscally and with respect to our debt situation.”

Spanberger on the Dem caucus call: We lost races we shouldn’t have lost.
Defund police almost cost me my race bc of an attack ad.
Don’t say socialism ever again.
Need to get back to basics.
(Is yelling.) If we run this race again we will get fucking torn apart again in 2022, Spanberger says

MCCONNELL:
"We need another rescue package. ....
I think we need to do it and I think we need to do it *BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR* .. that's Job One." Also says he and Pelosi have agreed they want to do an omnibus approps package (NOT a CR) ... and confirm some more judges.

Wolf Blitzer grilling Pelosi on why she won't take $1.8T deal. Reads Ro Khanna tweet..
Pelosi: "I don’t know why you’re always an apologist and many of your colleagues are apologists for the Republican position-- Ro Khanna, that’s nice. That isn’t what we’re going to do." Wolf says he's also spoken with Andrew Yang who says take the deal.
Pelosi: "Honest to God, I really can’t get over it. Because Andrew Yang, he’s lovely. Ro Khanna, he’s lovely. They’re not negotiating this situation."

McConnell: “When the full Senate returns on Oct 19 our first order of business will be voting again on targeted relief.”

Trump: “Go big or go home!!!” McConnell talking now in Ky. Says new bill will be roughly $500b in targeted relief.
(The one he put on floor last month was $650b - but only $300b was new spending)

KY Senate debate under way, immediately heated on coronavirus response.

McGrath accuses McConnell of "absolute dereliction of duty" in failing to pass new bill … "Instead of doing that he is trying to ram through a Supreme Court nominee.” McConnell: "We’ve been negotiating trying to put something reasonable together. .. It’s pretty clear to me that her party doesn’t want to get a solution ... The speaker has been totally unreasonable and not interested in getting an outcome as we’ve tried and tried and tried."

New Pelosi letter to colleagues on covid relief talks: "This proposal amounted to one step forward, two steps back. When the President talks about wanting a bigger relief package, his proposal appears to mean that he wants more money at his discretion to grant or withhold..." "At this point, we still have disagreement on many priorities, and Democrats are awaiting language from the Administration on several provisions as the negotiations on the overall funding amount continue. ... the Trump proposal is insufficient in meeting families’ needs."

Pelosi is about to be appearing on The View, where it is Joy's bday! Per the teaser, Joy will be unwrapping a "very special president"! *present
Pelosi has not come on yet but meanwhile I am enjoying the banter with Whoopi announcing we are living in "cuckoo-crazy time"

Pelosi on MSNBC rn -- she is keeping her mask on for the interview, which is not something I've seen her do in many previous tv hits where she pulls her mask down to speak. Pelosi notes she tested negative on Friday (as we knew); says she got tested again today but hasn't gotten the results

Pelosi says she has CR deal with Mnuchin to keep government funded

The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus is releasing a $1.5 trillion proposal this am aimed at restarting covid relief talks. Includes new $1,200 checks to individuals; SNAP plus-up and rental assistance; $500b for cities and states … The UI piece would extend benefits at $600 weekly, up to but not exceeding 100 percent of an individual's previous wage, through January.
States would have an 8-week transition period to get this in place, during which people would get $450 a week.

Some provisions from the new McConnell bill in this thread.

No new state/local $$ or flexibility: Education tax credits (the Cruz provision) and 529 use :

"Secretary Mnuchin I hope you will return to the negotiating table prepared to find common cause" Rep Clyburn tells Mnuchin as select committee hearing gets under way "Mr Jordan I think you may have to unmute yourself"
"I thought I was unmuted I don't know how I got muted"

Went through this same thing earlier today with my second- and third-grade daughters' remote learning !

Mark Meadows says in Politico interview that he has not spoken to Pelosi or Schumer since talks broke down.
Says his staff reached out to Pelosi staff yesterday but, “I don’t anticipate that we’ll actually get a phone call.” Meadows tells @JakeSherman that he anticipates Pelosi will hold out and get what she can in connection with Sept 30 government shutdown deadline

Yikes this exchange between Rep Cooper and DeJoy.

Cooper: "Is your backup plan to be pardoned like Roger Stone?"

DeJoy shakes his head, kind of laughs, and says he has no comment. Jim Jordan: "We all know what this is about. This about these guys wanting chaos and confusion... they know on election night President Trump’s gonna win … and they want to keep counting."

"These are illusions" Pelosi says on Fox News Sunday of Trump's executive actions Chris Wallace: "You’re known as a master negotiator but didn’t you mess this one up?"

Pelosi: "Clearly you don’t have an understanding of what is happening here."

Pelosi says on MSNBC they're calling on WH to resume negotiations but haven't gotten a response yet Asked by @kwelkernbc if they've overplayed their hand Pelosi says:
"No we didn’t. ... No. We haven’t overplayed our hand. We aren’t overplaying our hand when we are factually presenting what the needs are."

McConnell leaving lunch: “Well, we’ll certainly be in next week. We’ll see what happens after that.”
h/t Hill pool Mike Braun, after leaving lunch with Meadows & Mnuchin: "Really there was very little difference between yesterday's lunch and today's."
h/t Hill pool

Pelosi says on ABC that as unemployment rate goes down, $600 weekly enhanced benefit could reduce ... "But in this agreement it’s the $600." Pelosi: "We will be close to an agreement when we have an agreement."

The FBI building that the Trump admin did not want moved from downtown DC (across from the Trump hotel) has once again somehow become a factor in these talks, per people familiar. There was language on it that got killed off but is now potentially back in. Unclear what exactly it says or what it has to do with coronavirus.