Stimulus unlikely despite Don’s flip-flop, says Mitch

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pouring cold water on President Trump’s on-again, off-again push for more stimulus.

The president’s top ally in the Senate told an audience in his home state of Kentucky on Friday that he does not expect Congress to pass another economic rescue package before next month’s election despite continued financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think it’s unlikely in the next three weeks,” McConnell said.

The Republican leader’s stimulus poo-pooing came even as Trump relaunched his head-spinning crusade for a COVID-19 relief package before the Nov. 3 election.

“Covid Relief Negotiations are moving along. Go Big!” the coronavirus-infected president tweeted from quarantine at the White House.

McConnell, who spoke before Trump’s tweet, acknowledged that the U.S. needs “another rescue package,” with millions of workers still unemployed, the economy in a recession and Americans bracing for a tough winter.

“But the proximity to the election and the differences about what is needed at this particular juncture are pretty vast,” McConnell said, as the

U.S. coronavirus death toll surged above 213,000.

On Tuesday, Trump told his team to freeze all stimulus talks with Democrats until after the Nov. 3 election so that Senate Republicans could focus full time on confirming his controversial Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. But that same night Trump backflipped, taking to Twitter to call for more stimulus negotiations, leaving both Democrats and Republicans confused about where to go next.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s point person on the mercurial stimulus talks, was resuming phone calls Friday afternoon with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), though it remained to be seen if any breakthrough could happen after months of gridlock over how much money to allocate.

“Clearly and sadly, the administration does not share this priority of crushing the virus,” Pelosi said in a letter to her Democratic colleagues on Friday morning. “The president does not have the capacity, leadership or plan for the testing, tracing and isolation that is needed. Instead, Trump’s delay, denial, distortion of reality and disdain for science has exacted a deadly and preventable human toll.”