Pelosi, Schumer ‘encouraged’ by Trump call for bigger coronavirus relief package

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday they were “encouraged” by President Trump’s tweet urging Republicans to go for a larger coronavirus relief package after months of stalled negotiations. 

Trump’s Wednesday tweet undercut Republicans’ long-held position on the coronavirus relief package. 

“We are encouraged that after months of the Senate Republicans insisting on shortchanging the massive needs of the American people, President Trump is now calling on Republicans to ‘go for the much higher numbers’ in the next coronavirus relief package,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement after Trump’s tweet. 

“We look forward to hearing from the President’s negotiators that they will finally meet us halfway with a bill that is equal to the massive health and economic crises gripping our nation,” the top Democrats added. 

Congress has not been able to reach a negotiation on another coronavirus relief package, with Democrats slamming a Republican proposal as an “emaciated” offer and Republicans unwilling to take up the Democrats’ $3.4 trillion relief package the House passed in May. 

But on Wednesday the president encouraged his party to back a more expensive bill. 

“Go for the much higher numbers, Republicans, it all comes back to the USA anyway (one way or another!),” Trump tweeted. 

Democrats are “heartless”. They don’t want to give STIMULUS PAYMENTS to people who desperately need the money, and whose fault it was NOT that the plague came in from China. Go for the much higher numbers, Republicans, it all comes back to the USA anyway (one way or another!).

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2020

He also slammed Democrats as “heartless,” and falsely accused them of not wanting to give stimulus payments to “people who desperately need the money.”