Trump and Democrats not talking about next aid bill.

Washington — Confronted with the worst jobs report since the Great Depression, the White House and congressional Democrats aren’t even talking to each other about what — if anything — to do about it.

President Donald Trump says he’s “in no rush” to take additional action given nearly $3 trillion already approved to respond to the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus. House Democrats are taking the opposite tack, pressing forward to vote as soon as this coming week on a massive new relief bill that’s unlikely to win any GOP support.

The disconnect shows how the bipartisan consensus that emerged in the early days of the pandemic, allowing Congress

to produce four relief bills in rapid succession, has largely disappeared. In its place there is partisan finger-pointing and blame-shifting. Trump on Friday dismissed Democrats as “stone cold crazy” and said he couldn’t work with them. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that Republicans who failed to act would be “taking the same misguided path as Herbert Hoover,” who failed to pull the nation out of the Great Depression.

With no bipartisan discussions happening, the result is that Congress and the White House are unlikely to act anytime soon to offer additional relief to failing businesses, battered state budgets and the newly unemployed, despite the devastating news from Friday’s jobs report, which found that more than 20 million Americans lost their jobs in April and the unemployment rate soared to 14.7%. Instead, more pressure will build on the Federal Reserve to act.

As some states move to reopen, a deep philosophical divide has emerged between the two parties about the proper role for the federal government in producing an economic recovery. Many Republicans say they should focus on creating the best conditions possible for people to go back to work. That would include steps such as limiting liability protections for businesses and reducing regulations, issues that a group of House Republicans discussed with Trump Friday at the White House, participants said.

“I think the American people are expecting to bounce back, so what we have to do from a congressional standpoint, an administration standpoint, is create the conditions” for that to happen, said Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee in the House, who participated in Friday’s meeting with Trump.

Democrats, by contrast, believe they need to keep pumping money into the economy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is working to assemble another enormous relief bill with a price tag likely to top $2 trillion that she could bring up for a vote as soon as this week.

Building on the $2 trillion Cares Act that Congress passed in late March, the new bill is likely to include hundreds of billions of dollars for state and local governments along with an array of other provisions.