Pelosi says she’d support smaller COVID package, citing Biden win and vaccine progress
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a press conference Friday that she’d be willing to support a smaller coronavirus relief package, citing President-elect Joe Biden’s win and COVID-19 vaccine progress.
Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both Democrats, support the $908 billion coronavirus plan introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers earlier this week, CNBC reported. The package includes enhanced $300 weekly unemployment benefits for Americans but not another round of $1,200 stimulus checks.
The package is smaller than the relief bill Democrats have previously pushed for — leading Pelosi to address why she supports the legislation.
Pelosi said that Biden’s win and the development of coronavirus vaccines is “a total game-changer” during her weekly press conference.
“It’s what we had on our bills. It’s for a shorter period of time but that’s OK now because we have a new president,” she said. “A president that recognizes that we need to depend on science to stop the virus.”
Pelosi also said that the package is “a path forward” and that Democrats previously pushing for a larger relief package “was not a mistake.”
“That was a decision that has taken us to a place where we can do the right things without should we say ‘other considerations’ in the legislation that we don’t want,” Pelosi continued. “I’m very proud of where we are.”
But Pelosi said she hopes this $900 billion package, if passed, would not be the end of relief for Americans during the pandemic.
“President-elect Biden has said this package would be at best just a start,” she said, according to The New York Times. “That’s how we see it, as well.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to meet Dec. 10 to review clinical trial data for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine candidate, which was sent to the FDA on Nov. 20, McClatchy News reported. Moderna said an FDA meeting for its vaccine candidate is expected to take place on Dec. 17.
About 40 million doses of a vaccine are expected to be available by the end of the year — enough to vaccine about 20 million people, according to the CDC.
Biden told CNN on Thursday that he also backed the coronavirus relief measure, calling it a “good start” but also “not enough.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, shut down the bipartisan proposal, having previously insisted on $500 billion in spending in relief, according to CNBC.
On Thursday, Pelosi and McConnell also spoke for the first time since the 2020 election as Congress races to send aid to Americans during the pandemic and pass an omnibus spending bill to stop a government shutdown at the end of the year, CNBC reported.
The lawmakers “shared commitment to completing an omnibus [spending bill] and COVID relief as soon as possible,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said in a tweet.
“Yeah, well we had a good conversation,” McConnell told reporters about the conversation, according to CNBC. “I think we’re both interested in getting an outcome, both on the omnibus and on a coronavirus package.”
Negotiations on a Relief Package So Far
Democrats, Republicans and the White House have tried but failed to negotiate a follow-up package to the CARES Act, which was passed in March and provided most Americans with $1,200 stimulus checks and temporarily expanded unemployment benefits during the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden’s advisers are preparing for the possibility of a recession next year and are pushing for lawmakers to agree on a stimulus package, even if it doesn’t live up to the deal that Democrats were hoping to pass, The New York Times reported.
Earlier, Biden had said he would support legislation similar to the HEROES Act, a $3 trillion coronavirus aid bill passed by House Democrats in May that never received a vote in the Senate, according to CNBC. A $2.2 trillion updated version of the aid package was unveiled in September but similarly stalled.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans introduced their own version of a $1 trillion second stimulus package, called the Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act, in July.
After talks between lawmakers hit another impasse, Pelosi and Schumer sent McConnell a letter in November, asking him to “join us at the negotiating table,” The Hill reported.
“We write to request that you join us at the negotiating table this week so that we can work towards a bipartisan, bicameral COVID-19 relief agreement to crush the virus and save American lives,” Schumer and Pelosi wrote.
McConnell said that Biden appears to support a ”$2.5 trillion or nothing” relief bill, adding that he and his fellow Republicans are open to legislation valued at $500 billion, “narrowly targeted at schools, at health care providers, at PPP, and of course liability reform,” CNBC reported.
This story was originally published December 4, 2020 at 10:59 AM with the headline "Pelosi says she’d support smaller COVID package, citing Biden win and vaccine progress."