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Trump Criticizes Emerging Coronavirus Relief Compromise Ahead of House Vote House Races to Pass Coronavirus Relief After Democrats Strike Deal With White House
(about 3 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday denounced a sweeping relief package to assist people affected by the outbreak of the coronavirus hours before a scheduled House vote, leaving the fate of an emerging compromise between Democrats and his administration unclear even as top officials continued to negotiate. WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday declared a national emergency to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and announced new steps he said would speed the availability of testing for the virus, as his administration reached a deal with congressional Democrats to provide tens of billions of dollars for sick pay for affected workers and begin to prop up a slumping economy.
“We don’t think they’re giving enough,” Mr. Trump of Democrats said during a news conference in the Rose Garden as he announced he was declaring a national emergency and other measures to respond to the coronavirus crisis. “They’re not doing what’s right for the country.” Markets rallied on Mr. Trump’s emergency declaration, which he said would free up $50 billion for states and localities to cope with the outbreak — separate from the congressional relief measure — and which would allow the Treasury Department to delay tax filing deadlines for some individuals and businesses. During an announcement in the Rose Garden, the president also said he would suspend collections of interest on federal student loans indefinitely and instruct the Energy Department to buy enough oil to fill the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve “to the top.”
His comments came after Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California announced the House would go forward later in the day with its scheduled vote on the bill, effectively daring Republicans to vote against the Democratic package. It includes a sweeping new paid sick leave provision, enhanced unemployment benefits, free virus testing and additional funds for food assistance. The S&P 500 soared during the remarks and closed the day up by more than 9 percent.
But it omits Mr. Trump’s highest priority for an economic response to the rapidly spreading pandemic, a huge payroll tax cut opposed by members of both political parties. After the president’s remarks, a senior administration official said the absence of the tax cut from the plan was what prompted the president to call it insufficient. The president announced a new initiative that he said would speed the ability of Americans to be tested for the virus. It includes new private partnerships to speed tests to the market and a website designed by Google, where Mr. Trump said potential patients could enter their symptoms and be directed to a nearby, drive-through testing center. Mr. Trump said the site would be available starting on Sunday. Later on Friday, Google said on Twitter that the initiative was in its “early stages” and would first be introduced as a prototype in the Bay Area.
Yet even as Mr. Trump criticized the measure and Democrats’ approach, his administration continued to negotiate with Democratic leaders in efforts to salvage it. As the president began to denounce the package, Ms. Pelosi and Steven T. Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, were speaking by phone for the 10th time of the day to try to cement an elusive deal. They spoke again before his Rose Garden appearance, which lasted more than an hour, had concluded. A roller-coaster day of negotiations over a sweeping coronavirus relief package also threatened to veer off track during Mr. Trump’s news conference as the president criticized the plan, telling reporters of Democrats, “We don’t think they’re giving enough.”
Republicans have derided Democrats’ proposal as an expensive and ineffective overreach, and as of Friday afternoon, were pushing to narrow an emergency leave assistance tax credit targeted to businesses who have fewer than 500 workers. They have also objected to a Democratic effort to include permanent entitlements for health conditions unrelated to the coronavirus. He gave little indication of what his specific objections were. Still, by dusk, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California wrote to House Democrats saying, “We are proud to have reached an agreement with the administration to resolve outstanding challenges.” Not long after, even as congressional and administration aides negotiated the final legislative language of the compromise, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, confirmed it would move forward.
But Ms. Pelosi argued on Friday that it was urgently needed. “We have an agreement that reflects what the president talked about in his speech the other night,” Mr. Mnuchin said on Fox News. He said Mr. Trump was focused on making sure “hard-working Americans don’t lose their compensation because they have to be home.”
“The American people expect and deserve a coordinated, science-based and whole-of-government response to keep them and their loved ones safe — a response that puts families first to stimulate the economy,” Ms. Pelosi said at the Capitol before Mr. Trump’s remarks. The announcements came as the ripple effects of the pandemic spread further on Friday, drastically slowing critical sectors of the American economy and daily life.
In a phone call with members of his conference after huddling with the president at the White House, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, conceded that House Republicans had little role in shaping the package, noting that it was being negotiated entirely between Mr. Mnuchin and Ms. Pelosi, according to two people on the phone call, speaking on the condition of anonymity to publicly discuss a private phone call. Schools across the country, including in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest public school district, as well as the entire state of Virginia, shut down. The airline Delta announced it would park 300 aircraft and reduce capacity by 40 percent, the sharpest cutback in its history. Grocery store shelves were picked clean, and restaurants and retail stores braced for fall-offs in customer traffic as more Americans began to follow “social distancing” orders to avoid crowds and possible virus transmission.
Since Democrats first introduced the legislation on Wednesday, an intense round of talks has unfolded between Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Mnuchin, as financial markets swung wildly amid uncertainty about the virus. Staff worked through the night on Thursday to hammer out a deal, and the two traded phone calls throughout the day on Friday to try to cement it. As Congress and the administration struggled to hammer out what all sides agreed was only an incremental step — and not a full stimulus package — to combat the virus, European officials announced a series of aggressive measures to support their economies and try to contain the virus’s spread.
In a letter to colleagues, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat, said that the past 48 hours had been “frustrating,” and that Ms. Pelosi “has literally been working around the clock to achieve a bipartisan agreement.” Mr. Hoyer said those efforts continued, but a vote would be held whether or not there was a compromise. The World Health Organization declared Europe the center of the pandemic. European Union officials announced they would allow member nations to run larger than normal budget deficits to stimulate economic growth during the outbreak. France and Germany announced stimulus plans, a particularly stunning move for the deficit-averse Germans, and Italy was expected to follow suit.
But in the call with Republican lawmakers, Mr. McCarthy outlined multiple concessions he said Republicans had won in the emerging package. Democrats also agreed to drop a provision that would have created a permanent paid sick leave entitlement program in case of a public health emergency, although the two parties continued to haggle over how broadly to provide the help. Get an informed guide to the global outbreak with our daily coronavirus
Mr. McCarthy told his colleagues he did not know just how broad the package would be, or how much it would cost. It will include more than $1 billion to help bolster a variety of food assistance programs. newsletter.
“If Democrats made concessions or Republicans made suggestions, I would hope there’s strong bipartisan support because out there, frankly, in the districts, they don’t care whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat,” said Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee. “They want to see some action.” In the United States, Mr. Trump’s moves and the possibility of Congress sending a compromise bill to the president’s desk next week brought progress in the effort to slow the spread of the virus and minimize its growing damage to the economy.
Catie Edmondson, Nicholas Fandos and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting. But they still fell far short of the steps that a growing chorus of economists say lawmakers must take to confront a crisis with little precedent in American history — one that is likely to require Mr. Trump to transcend his preferred brand of wrestling-ring politics to marshal a rapid, bipartisan response.
Shortly after stock trading closed for the day, the president followed his emergency declaration by introducing new uncertainty about the scope and speed of the government’s fiscal response.
“We don’t think the Democrats are giving enough” in negotiations, he said, on an emerging compromise to provide paid leave, safety net benefits and other measures meant to help consumers and businesses weather the sharp slowdown in economic activity that is threatening to grip the country.
After Mr. Trump’s remarks, a senior administration official said that the president was referring to his interest in securing a nearly $1 trillion temporary cut in payroll taxes, an idea that lawmakers from both parties have viewed with skepticism.
Still, talks continued as the afternoon progressed: At the moment Mr. Trump criticized Democrats, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Mnuchin were speaking for the 10th time of the day about the legislation. Ms. Pelosi announced the deal after the pair concluded their 13th phone call, on Friday the 13th, and shortly after Mr. Mnuchin met privately with the president to urge him to accept it.
The House was planning to vote Friday evening on the proposal, which includes a sweeping new provision for paid sick leave, enhanced unemployment benefits, free virus testing and additional funds for food assistance and Medicaid. The Senate, which left Washington for the weekend on Thursday, is expected to take up the measure and pass it early next week.
Any delay could further imperil an economy that many forecasters are persuaded is entering a recession, caused by the damage the virus has already inflicted on global supply chains and the growing chill from homebound consumers pulling back on their spending.
Some economists say that to contain the spread of the virus, the country must effectively hit pause on entire sectors of commerce, like entertainment and dining, that bring Americans together in large crowds. Those economists say Congress and Mr. Trump must help workers and small-business owners weather that shock — and give them enough cash to help kick-start spending and hiring again once the virus is contained and daily routines begin to return to normal.
“The approach has to be, let’s make this as short and sharp as we can,” said Steven Hamilton, an economist at George Washington University who has recently called for policymakers to rethink traditional government stimulus efforts that focus largely on tax cuts or spending programs, and instead supply hundreds of billions of dollars in direct assistance to workers and small business owners.
“It’s the worst public health crisis in a century,” Mr. Hamilton said. “The world has never faced anything like this. The United States economy is going to need to shut — I mean, shut everything — for two to six weeks.”
That sort of abrupt halt in activity will particularly hurt small-business owners who lack the cash reserves or access to credit that larger companies enjoy. It will also slam lower-income workers, many of whom do not have paid leave, or work in industries like hospitality that are suffering acutely from the pandemic, or both.
By limiting the number of people gathering in common spaces, traveling by public transit systems, and coming into direct contact with one another, it may be possible to substantially slow the spread of the virus, experts say.
Studies of cities and states that have required employers to offer paid sick leave show substantially lower rates of influenza during flu season, a sign that the provision does reduce the spread of illness. Many economists, including conservatives and liberals, applauded the inclusion of a paid leave provision in the House bill.
“Good economic policy starts by ensuring that the humans in the economy stay well — and alive — so they can participate in the economy as both producers and consumers,” said Heather Boushey, the president of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a liberal think tank focused on inequality and growth. “We need to focus on this basic first principle right now.”
The shape of the paid leave benefit — and how many workers could have access to it — proved to be a sticking point in negotiations on Friday between Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Mnuchin. Democrats agreed to drop a provision that would have created a permanent paid sick leave entitlement in case of a public health emergency. Republicans sought to confine it only to people who were sick or caring for ill family or children kept out of school.
The agreed-upon deal would guarantee 14 days of full paid sick leave and up to three months of family and medical leave for those affected by the crisis. It provides tax credits to help small- and medium-size businesses finance the new benefit. It does not include direct cash assistance to families — or Mr. Trump’s desired payroll tax suspension through the end of the year, which could cost more than $800 billion and which would not give any help to workers who lose their jobs and stop drawing salaries in the outbreak.
Ms. Pelosi on Friday evening characterized the bill as an intermediate step.
“As the Senate works to pass this bill,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues, “the House will begin work on a third emergency response package to protect the health, economic security and well-being of the American people.”
Last week, Mr. Trump signed the first emergency coronavirus response measure, a bill to provide $8.3 billion to the federal health agencies dealing with the crisis.
Mr. Trump sent mixed messages in his news conference about the size of the economic impact he was expecting, and about the steps Americans should take to avoid contracting or transmitting the virus.
He called upon Americans to make “short-term sacrifices” like avoiding large gatherings and postponing business travel, and he warned that the next eight weeks would be critical for slowing the spread of the virus.
”This will pass through,” Mr. Trump said, “and we’re going to be even stronger for it.”
But the president defied the greeting conventions that doctors are now recommending to limit virus transmission. Standing at a lectern in the Rose Garden, he called several corporate executives to a shared microphone — which many of them touched in turn — and shook many of their hands, which doctors have instructed Americans to avoid. He played down questions about his exposure to a Brazilian official who visited Mr. Trump last weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort and who has since tested positive for the virus.
The president told reporters that he had not exhibited any symptoms of the virus and swatted aside questions about whether he should be tested. But repeatedly pressed on the matter, Mr. Trump eventually said he was likely to be tested.
“Fairly soon,” he said. “We’re working out a schedule.”
Catie Edmondson, Nicholas Fandos, Maggie Haberman, Margot Sanger-Katz, Jeanna Smialek, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Alan Rappeport contributed reporting.