President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Friday accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of hijacking COVID-19 economic relief by spurning their offers of urgently-needed stimulus.
Speaking in the Oval Office — just 11 days from the presidential election — Mnuchin, the administration’s point person on negotiations, said the ball was in the California Democrat’s court after months of fruitless discussions.
“We’ve offered compromises. The speaker on a number of issues has still dug in. If she wants to compromise, there will be a deal,” Mnuchin told reporters.
“We’ve made lots of progress in lots of areas but there’s still some significant differences that we’re working on,” he went on.
The Trump administration raised their most recent offer to $1.8 trillion but that is still significantly lower than the Democrat’s $3.3 trillion starting point. Republicans in Congress are unwilling to support anything higher than $2 trillion.
Hope that a fifth wave of relief will pass Congress before the election has essentially faded, prompting a fierce round of finger pointing as Democrats accuse Republicans of penny-pinching during an unprecedented recession caused by the pandemic.
But Trump on Friday said the speaker was trying to secure funding for matters unrelated to the pandemic and claimed she didn’t want to reach a deal before the election.
I missed out on loads of consulting fees as I wasn't aware of all these Kapos before
ReplyDeleteKamala Harris’s husband hits campaign trail with Jewish mayors
JTA — The Biden campaign held an online meeting for Jewish mayors featuring Doug Emhoff, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s husband.
Mayor Rick Kriseman of St. Petersburg, Florida asked Emhoff how his Jewish upbringing had shaped him. According to the pool report on the Thursday virtual event, Emhoff said “standing up to bullies,” and made it clear he thought President Donald Trump was a bully. “We are going up against the biggest bully there is.”
Eric Garcetti, the Jewish mayor of Los Angeles, said he had known Emhoff, an entertainment lawyer based in Los Angeles, longer than he had known Harris, who currently serves as a US senator representing California. “On the campaign trail, he’s our secret weapon,” Garcetti said.
The call attracted 65 people, including the following Jewish Democratic mayors: Garcetti of Los Angeles; Kriseman of St. Petersburg; Steve Adler of Austin, Texas; Andy Berke of Cincinnati; Jacob Frey of Minneapolis; Steven Fulop of Jersey City, New Jersey; Kate Gallego of Phoenix; Libby Schaaf of Oakland; Steve Schewel of Durham, North Carolina; Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento; and Miro Weinberger of Burlington, Vermont.