No Relief....

Mark Meadows predicts no Covid-19 relief bill until after September

The hold up, Meadows said he suspects, is that Pelosi is holding back her party's rank and file in order to secure more Democratic priorities in any legislation.

By MATTHEW CHOI

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Wednesday he is not optimistic about reaching a new coronavirus relief deal before the end of September, predicting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will use the government funding cliff at the end of next month as leverage to strike a deal on pandemic aid.

Speaking with POLITICO's Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer, Meadows said his staff had reached out to Pelosi's office Tuesday but added that he does not anticipate a response. The White House chief of staff said lawmakers from both parties have privately expressed to him a desire to make progress on coronavirus relief. The hold up, Meadows said he suspects, is that Pelosi is holding back her party's rank and file in order to secure more Democratic priorities in any legislation.

"It's really been Speaker Pelosi really driving this train as a conductor more so than really anybody," Meadows said. "And I think privately she says she wants a deal and publicly she says she wants a deal, but when it comes to dealing with Republicans and the administration, we haven't seen a lot of action."

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told POLITICO that a member of Meadows' staff texted the speaker's staff to confirm they had the correct number for the chief of staff, but did not mention resuming talks. Meadows also said he would call Pelosi during an interview on ABC News on Sunday, but Hammill said he never did.

"Democrats have compromised in these negotiations," Hammill said in a statement to POLITICO. "We offered to come down $1 trillion if the White House would come up $1 trillion. We welcome the White House back to the negotiating table but they must meet us halfway."

Senate Republicans floated a "skinny" coronavirus relief bill earlier this month that could be tacked onto a continuing resolution to keep the government funded beyond the end of next month. That proposal also included $10 billion for the U.S. Postal Service, which has faced economic precarity during the pandemic even as millions of Americans are expected to cast ballots in November's presidential election by mail. But Democrats rejected that measure as a piecemeal solution

Senate Democrats, for their part, have placed blame on Republicans for being unwilling to negotiate a comprehensive coronavirus relief package. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) predicted Republicans would turn a more amenable leaf after the Republican National Convention ends this week.

"It was clear the White House, for some reason, they wanted to go into their convention blaming Democrats," Kaine said last week.