Senate Leaves Capitol Hill Without Coronavirus Relief Deal
The Senate left Washington, D.C. on Thursday, stalling talks on emergency coronavirus relief until next month.
In a last attempt to create space for the White House and congressional Democrats to agree on a virus relief bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had kept the chamber in session for the past week.
But the talks still ended up in a stalemate. Members of the Senate said there was little reason for them to keep holding hour-long sessions.
No talks on virus relief are scheduled, and 2020 political conventions will keep major parties busy for the next two weeks, according to CNBC.
The House has already left town. They aren't expected to come back until September 14, reported The Hill.
"We will have our regular pro forma meetings through the end of the state work period," McConnell said. He added that, if the virus aid negotiators finally agree to move forward with the package, it would need bipartisan consent for legislative business to return sooner than scheduled.
McConnell also said he hoped that Senate members would be able to "act sometime soon" on the relief deal.
Senators will be given at least 24 hours notice to return to Capitol Hill once congressional Democrats and White House negotiators are able to break the impasse. Votes will be scheduled by then.
As per Senate calendar, they will formally go back to work on September 8.
Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa predicted on Tuesday that if negotiators on the bill don't restart by Thursday, executive orders will be the only actions to take place until early September.
"If it doesn't happen in the next 48 hours, I think this is all you're going to see until Congress gets back into session after Labor Day," Grassley said in a conference call with reported.
No Deal in Sight
There is little reason to think that a deal will come to be before the September return.
The virus relief's four key negotiators have not met in person since Friday, when the talks on virus aid collapsed.
The only contact that took place between them this week was Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday. That call only showed how stalemated the negotiations are on the coronavirus relief.
As Pelosi said, both parties are just "miles apart" in their values.
Democrats want the package to be priced at around $3.4 trillion to $3.7 trillion. They are only thinking of slashing the price tag by $1 trillion.
But the Republicans and the White House refuse to move their price from roughly $1 trillion.
Pelosi said she still doesn't know when her next talk with Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will be. "I don't know. When they come in with $2 trillion," she said.
Playing the Blame Game
With talks on the virus relief stalled, the Associated Press noted that both sides had played the blame game on Thursday. The report noted that no serious moves were made to try and break the stalemate.
At her weekly press event, Pelosi pressed for funding to go to the U.S. Postal Service, rental assistance efforts, food aid and rapid testing for the virus. She added that "people will die" if the delay goes on until September.
Top Congressional Democrat and Pelosi issued a joint statement saying, "The White House is not budging," reported the Voice of America.
On the other end, President Donald Trump said the Democrats are "holding the American people hostage."
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