Stimulus Update: Pelosi And Mnuchin Negotiations Back On, As White House Raises Offer To $1.8 Trillion

Plus: Top Stocks To Buy Today Amid Renewed Stimulus Optimism

President Trump now agrees to a $1.8 trillion stimulus package. This is where things stand today for a new stimulus deal.

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TOPLINE

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin resumed stimulus negotiations on Friday afternoon, just three days after President Donald Trump abruptly halted the talks in a set of Tuesday afternoon tweets and then reversed course. After a more than 30-minute conversation between negotiators, however, an agreement still appears to be far off.

KEY FACTS

Pelosi and Mnuchin, who's heading up negotiations on behalf of the White House, spoke on the phone for just over 30 minutes beginning at 1:40p.m. on Friday, Pelosi's deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, tweeted out shortly after the conversation took place.

During a Friday morning interview on MSNBC, Pelosi confirmed the renewed negotiations and repeated her position that Democrats are prioritizing putting money in the pockets of American people (meaning federal unemployment supplements and $1,200 stimulus checks); "crushing the virus" (a $75 billion package for Covid testing, tracing and vaccine distribution); and providing additional aid for first-responders, teachers and frontline workers (which translates into aid for state and local governments and schools).

Within minutes, President Trump sent out a tweet saying, "Covid Relief Negotiations are moving along. Go Big!" And in a later radio interview with conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, he doubled-down on that, saying, “I would like to see a bigger stimulus package frankly than either the Democrats or Republicans are offering.”

CNN Congressional Correspondent Phil Mattingly tweeted Friday before the call between Pelosi and Mnuchin that Trump had signed off on a $1.8 trillion offer—up $200 billion from the White House’s last $1.6 trillion offer, but still below Democrat’s revised $2.2 trillion Heroes Act, which passed the House with no Republican support on Oct 1. 

CRITICAL QUOTE

"We thought we were on a path, and then the President with no notice to Congress… even bewildering some of his own people then [tweeted] saying the talks are over," Pelosi told MSNBC on Friday. "He got a terrible backlash from it, including in the stock market, which is what he cares about. And so then he started to come back little by little, and now [onto] a bigger package, so we'll see what they have to offer today."

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

The response from more conservative Senate Republicans, since McConnell has not been willing to bring a bill to a Senate vote without the support of a majority of his caucus. In a late Friday morning appearance on MSNBC, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) reiterated that a deal was unlikely to happen before the election, adding that, "When [Trump] made that announcement he was reflecting the reality that Pelosi and Schumer don't want to negotiate… They're counting on the media to blame everything on the President."