Pelosi Doubles Down On $2.2 Trillion Stimulus Compromise: ‘It’s Hard To See How We Can Go Any Lower’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday doubled down on her insistence on a comprehensive stimulus package worth at least $2.2 trillion, telling reporters that “it’s hard to see how we can go any lower.”

 

Her comments came the day after her first conversation with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has been leading stimulus negotiations on behalf of the White House, in more than two weeks, the Washington Post reported.

 

President Trump also jumped back into the stimulus fray on Wednesday, unexpectedly and publicly pushing Republicans to accept a more expensive bill—including another round of stimulus checks—because he “want[s] to see people get money,” he said at a press briefing. 

 

That would be a major reversal for the Senate GOP, which has spent the last six months insisting on a smaller, targeted package worth no more than $1 trillion, which Senate Majority Whip John Thune has said was already too pricey for some Republicans.

 

The most recent GOP offering (which failed in the Senate last week) included just $300 billion in new spending, while House Democrats led by Pelosi have continued to advocate for the $3.4 trillion Heroes Act, which passed the House in May but was never taken up by the Senate.

 

Trump said Wednesday that he supports “a lot” of a $1.5 trillion new framework released this week from the Problem Solvers Caucus in a bid for compromise, though the White House said it didn’t support a provision in that proposal that would allocate another $500 billion in aid to state and local government.

 

"When we go into negotiation, it's about the allocation of the resources,” Pelosi said Thursday in response to a question about her $2.2 trillion floor in negotiations, “but it's hard to see how we can go any lower when you only have greater needs." The Speaker acknowledged that because of the way the pandemic has changed over the last several months, the money in the $2.2 trillion compromise may now need to be distributed differently.