Legislators say they can’t return home without deal

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Tuesday began to stress that they will need to stay in Washington until a fresh round of pandemic aid is enacted, worried about facing the wrath of voters as the White House and Democrats remained at odds over a deal.

The top negotiators for the administration — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — maintained that President Donald Trump could act unilaterally on coronavirus relief, but such prospects did not appear to be any clearer and White House officials are not clear on what they have the legal authority to do.

That means about 30 million people who have lost federal unemployment benefits in the past week could have to wait much longer for the relief that complements state aid.

The White House and lawmakers are struggling to resolve the significant gulf that remained between the Democrats’ initial $3.4 trillion offer, and a GOP package that did not have unified support of the Senate Republican Conference.

Mnuchin and Meadows, leaving a lunch with GOP senators, said they were preparing to present House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., with a new proposal on a broad-ranging relief package to cope with the economic and public health fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

But at the GOP lunch, the two officials told Senate Republicans that Trump was prepared to enact some sort of executive order on pandemic relief, and no senators raised objections to that plan, according to people briefed on the meeting. Meadows and Mnuchin emphasized to senators what they said publicly: that the two sides were far from an agreement.

White House officials eager to break the logjam have stepped up their talk of Trump acting unilaterally on key administration priorities, including the expiration of unemployment benefits and a moratorium on evictions.

Meadows is looking at taking money already approved by Congress and redirecting it for federal unemployment benefits, according to three people aware of internal administration deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private matter.