Aid for airlines back on to-do list

Mnuchin reaches out to Pelosi day after stimulus talks halt

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sought to make a deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to rescue the airline industry Wednesday, just a day after President Donald Trump abruptly cut off talks on a broader stimulus bill.

Pelosi, D-Calif., responded to Mnuchin’s overture by telling him to go read an airline rescue bill that House Democrats tried unsuccessfully to advance last week “so that they could have an informed conversation,” according to Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.

After sinking Tuesday, the stock market rallied sharply Wednesday on the prospect of a partial deal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up more than 500 points, or nearly 2%. Airline stocks fared even better, with American Airlines and United Airlines seeing their share prices rise more than 4%.

Economic relief talks have played out over months, as the White House and Democrats have failed to agree on a broader support package.

President Donald Trump and Pelosi exchanged insults again Wednesday, but both sides did appear interested in trying to work out some sort of immediate aid for the airline industry, which has seen a dramatic drop in traffic since earlier this year. Last week, American and United began furloughing more than 30,000 employees.

Mnuchin’s outreach came amid a growing backlash from Republicans running for reelection who questioned Trump’s decision to end negotiations between Mnuchin and Pelosi on a broader relief package. Trump had announced Tuesday that he was asking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to focus on confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court instead — a decision McConnell said he supported.

Pelosi last week urged airlines to hold off on layoffs, saying she would renew a payroll support program either as a stand-alone bill or part of a broader deal.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., tried Friday to advance a $ 28 billion bill to help airlines keep workers on payrolls, under a procedure that would have required unanimous consent from all lawmakers. Republicans blocked the move.

Senate Republicans have pushed a package of similar size for the airlines that has less stringent requirements on how the aid will be used. It’s unclear if Pelosi and Mnuchin could come up with a deal on airlines that both parties would support, especially after Tuesday’s events that began when Trump suddenly announced on Twitter that “I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election.”

Seven hours after Trump said talks were terminated, he began a new string of tweets.

At 8:54 p.m. Central time, he called on the House and Senate to “IMMEDIATELY” approve $25 billion in new aid for the airline industry, which has already begun laying off thousands of employees after federal aid programs expired last week.

At 9:18 p.m., he called for Congress to direct $ 1,200 payments to millions of Americans and said he wanted immediate aid for small businesses.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told reporters Wednesday morning: “The stimulus negotiations are off.”

“It’s hard to see any clear, sane path on what he’s doing, but the fact is he saw the political downside of his statement of walking away from the negotiations,” Pelosi said about the president Wednesday in an appearance on “The View.” “He’s rebounding from a terrible mistake he made yesterday, and the Republicans in Congress are going down the drain with him on that.”

Pelosi also questioned publicly whether the steroids Trump is taking as he battles coronavirus might be affecting his cognition, a notion she’d floated privately to Democratic lawmakers Tuesday. “Also if you have the coronavirus, it has an impact as well. So the combination is something that should be viewed,” Pelosi said on “The View.”

The House speaker said there should be “an intervention” by people around the president because “something’s wrong.”

Democrats have for months rejected the idea of passing stimulus funding on a piecemeal basis, instead insisting on one comprehensive package to aid the economy, although Pelosi has suggested Congress could act first to help the airline industry.

Meanwhile, lawmakers reacted to the called-off negotiations. The Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group that proposed a $1.5 trillion stimulus package, called for a resumption in negotiations.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S. C., wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that Trump should look at the Problem Solvers proposal. “It has many good things for individuals and businesses,” Graham wrote.