Deadline looms, but COVID relief deal may still be far off

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reported some progress in advance of a Tuesday deadline for reaching a pre-election deal with President Donald Trump on a new coronavirus relief package, but the same core problems bedeviling the effort remain in place despite optimistic talk from the president and his team.

Pelosi negotiated for nearly an hour Monday with Trump’s top emissary, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and a top aide called it productive. Pelosi hopes further work will offer “clarity on whether we will be able to pass a bill before the election,” said spokesman Drew Hammill.

But with time nearly up for Congress and the White House to deliver aid to Americans before the election, the question remains: If not now, when?

It’s a key consideration for Trump, who has talked up the prospect of another package as he asks voters for a second term, and for Democrats hopeful that their nominee, Joe Biden, is on the cusp of winning the White House in November.

The dynamic has created a tricky position for Pelosi, whose tough approach to the talks amid durable GOP opposition to a potential deal of almost $2 trillion has left all sides staring at the very real potential of the negotiations failing. Pelosi is angling for the best deal she can get — maybe that’s now, maybe it’s later. It’s a risk she’s willing to take.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, is pushing ahead with votes this week on GOP measures that stand little chance of advancing.

Trump has upped his offer to $1.8 trillion or more and insisted Monday that “the Republicans will come along” if a deal is reached. But Republicans have spent months talking about a smaller aid package and the top GOP vote-counter, Sen. John Thune, said Monday that “it would be hard” to find the necessary Republican support for passage of any agreement in that range.

Without an agreement at least in principle by Tuesday, Pelosi says it’ll be too late to enact anything by Election Day. And if history is any guide, prospects for a deal in the lame-duck session after the election could be dim.

If Trump loses, Congress is likely to stagger through a nonproductive session comparable to the abbreviated session after the decisive 2008 Obama- Biden victory or the 2016 session that punted most of its leftovers to the Trump administration. That scenario would push virus aid into 2021.

“If we delay this until the Biden administration we’re talking about three, four, five months. The American people cannot wait,” Rep. Max Rose, D-N.Y.