House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed Senate GOP leaders for their plan to move later this week on a scaled-down coronavirus stimulus package.
“What they have is so meager that it insults the intelligence of the American people,” Pelosi said Tuesday during an interview with Bloomberg TV.
What is this about: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is proposing a $500 billion measure, about half the size of Republicans’ initial offer. The bill is not expected to receive the 60 votes needed to pass, as Democrats are likely to oppose it. Democratic leaders have called instead for a $2 trillion relief package.
Pelosi alleged the bill is an attempt to give vulnerable GOP senators some political cover.
“It’s only to check the box so some of his endangered Republican senators can go home and say, ‘Well, see I tried.’ But it isn’t trying. It’s not even an attempt to do the right thing, and Mitch McConnell knows that because he has to satisfy those Republicans in his caucus who don’t want to spend one more dollar,” said Pelosi.
“Get serious. Get real, Mitch McConnell,” she added.
She said Republicans should negotiate among themselves to come to some consensus on how to move forward, noting that the new GOP plan differs from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s proposal to Democratic leaders. “They are in disarray,” Pelosi said.
She also claimed Republicans “don’t believe in science, and they don’t believe in governance.”
But Pelosi projected confidence on a separate front that Republicans and Democrats will move to keep the government funded ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline.
“We’ll come to agreement on that, I feel quite certain,” she said.
She said she believes it would be hard for President Trump to veto a clean continuing resolution.
“It’s not in anybody’s interest for the government to be shut down. It is to be avoided at all costs,” Pelosi said.
