Trump Urges GOP to Go for ‘Much Higher Numbers’ on Covid Relief

By Yuval Rosenberg

Trump Urges Republicans to Go for ‘Much Higher Numbers’ on
Covid Relief

Maybe a coronavirus relief deal isn’t dead yet. While talks
haven’t resumed, pressure is building — and now it’s coming from
the White House, too.

After months of stalemate, President Trump on Wednesday urged
his fellow Republicans to go for “much higher numbers” in a
coronavirus bill and sought to blame Democrats for blocking
additional stimulus checks, mischaracterizing their position.
Seeming to suddenly realize that another aid package could boost
his reelection chances, 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!).”

Republicans have thus far resisted “much bigger numbers,”
refusing to take up a $3.5 trillion bill passed by the House and
failing to coalesce around a $1 trillion package put together by
their own party. Senate Republicans came together last week in
support of a smaller $300 billion package. But that legislation was
blocked by Democrats, who said it was woefully insufficient. That
legislation did not include the additional round of direct payments
that Trump said he wants.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany reportedly said
Wednesday that Trump was pressing for a bigger package than the one
the Senate GOP proposed, with another round of stimulus checks
added.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows
told CNBC Wednesday that he is “probably more
optimistic about the potential for a deal in the last 72 hours than
I have been in the last 72 days.” Meadows also said that a $1.5
trillion proposal released Tuesday by the Problem Solvers Caucus, a
bipartisan group of House members, “at least provides a foundation
for us to come back to the table.”

Meadows added that a deal would have to happen within a week to
10 days and that he opposed the $500 billion provided for state and
local government in the Problem Solvers’ proposal, saying he hoped
the number would be closer to $250 billion to $300 billion.

Democrats seize on Trump’s tweet: Democratic leaders said
they were encouraged by Trump’s tweet and hoped the administration
would resume talks. “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,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

But a group of House Democratic Committee leaders on Tuesday
called the Problem Solvers proposal inadequate, meaning that
Democrats will likely still press for more than $1.5 trillion in
the next package.

Republicans cautious in their response: “I’m not sure
what higher numbers, what that means. That probably needs to get
translated for us,” Sen. John Thune of South Dakota told
The Washington Post. “But I know kind of what the
threshold is for what we can get Republican votes for in the
Senate, and I think if the number gets too high anything that got
passed in the Senate would be passed mostly with Democrat votes and
a handful of Republicans, so it’s going to have to stay in sort of
a realistic range.”

Another Republican, Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, reportedly said
that the Problem Solvers’ proposal could provide a workable model
since it included provisions that would raise or lower the total
cost depending on the path of the pandemic.

Under the plan, spending could total about $1.3 trillion if the
pandemic lets up more than expected or $2 trillion if it
worsens.

“Maybe the escalator clause concept gives everybody a little
something to brag about,” Blunt said, according to the Post.
“There’s a deal there. I think it would be really a shame if we
don’t figure out how to grab hold of it.”

Blunt reportedly acknowledged that any deal would have to come
with a price tag higher than $1 trillion, a level that many
Republicans say is unacceptably high. “I don’t think you’d get
hardly any Republicans,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN)
said. “And you’d lose a bunch of fiscal
conservatives, if you did anything other than what we voted on for
last week.”

What it all means: Trump’s tweet could open the door for
more talks, but they also put renewed focus on GOP senators,
raising the question of whether a larger plan can garner
substantial support among Republicans. “Several Senate Republicans
said their recent $300 billion offer was about the right amount,
signaling doubt they could go higher,” the Post reports. And with
Democrats still aiming for $2 trillion or so, the path to a
bipartisan deal still isn’t all that much clearer today than it was
last week.

The bottom line: Time is growing
short. More intense pressure from Trump could change the dynamics,
but that doesn’t seem likely, and some Republicans indicated
Wednesday they aren’t likely to follow Trump’s advice. “So the
president has his opinion, we have ours,” Sen. Ron Johnson of
Wisconsin said.

Quote of the Day: 'The Most Important, Powerful Public Health
Tool We Have'

“These face masks are the most important,
powerful public health tool we have. And I will continue to appeal
for all Americans, all individuals in our country, to embrace these
face coverings. … We have clear scientific evidence they work and
they are our best defense. I might even go so far as to say that
this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against Covid than
when I take a Covid vaccine because the immunogenicity may be 70%
and if I don’t get an immune response the vaccine is not going to
protect me. This face mask will.”

– Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, in testimony at a Senate
Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday on the coronavirus
response. At an ABC News town hall Tuesday night, President Trump

said “there are a lot of people think that masks
are not good."

Trump Says Health Care Plan Is Ready, but White House Has No
Details

President Trump said Tuesday that his long-promised replacement
for the Affordable Care Act is ready to go. “I have it all ready,
and it’s a much better plan for you,” Trump told an audience member
at a town hall meeting hosted by ABC News.

Trump has been claiming for more than a year that a "phenomenal"
new health care plan is just weeks away from being revealed, with
the delivery date forever slipping into the future. (Kaiser Health
News has a rundown on the “health care plan that never comes”

here.)

Asked about the plan Wednesday, White House Press Secretary
Kayleigh McEnany
told reporters that the details are not available
for public review. “It’s going to be a very comprehensive strategy
— one where we’re saving health care while Democrats are trying to
take health care away,” McEnany said. "I’m not going to give you a
readout of what our health care plan looks like and who’s working
on it. If you want to know, come work here at the White House."

Earlier in the day, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also
said that Trump’s health care plan is ready and will be unveiled
sometime before the election. The plan will focus on executive
action, Meadows said, “with a legislative component that is more
visionary.”

A review of Trump’s health care record so far. Avoiding
the problematic issue of Trump’s alleged plan, analysts at the
nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation released a report this week
that examines President Trump’s record on health care over the last
three and half years. Some highlights from the
overview and the
full analysis:

  • On the Affordable Care Act: “From the start of his
    presidential term, President Trump took aim at the Affordable Care
    Act, consistent with his campaign pledge leading up to the 2016
    election. He supported many efforts in Congress to repeal the law
    and replace it with an alternative that would have weakened
    protections for people with pre-existing conditions, eliminated the
    Medicaid expansion, and reduced premium assistance for people
    seeking marketplace coverage. While the ACA remains in force,
    President Trump’s Administration is supporting the case pending
    before the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ACA in its entirety
    that is scheduled for oral arguments one week after the
    election.”
  • On Medicare and Medicaid: “The
    Administration has proposed spending reductions for both Medicaid
    and Medicare, along with proposals that would promote flexibility
    for states but limit eligibility for coverage under Medicaid (e.g.,
    work requirements).”
  • On drug prices: “The President has made
    prescription drug prices a top health policy priority and has
    issued several executive orders and other proposals that aim to
    lower drug prices; most of these proposals, however, have not been
    implemented, other than one change that would lower the cost of
    insulin for some Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes, and another
    that allows pharmacists to tell consumers if they could save money
    on their prescriptions. The Trump Administration has also moved
    forward with an initiative to improve price transparency in an
    effort to lower costs, though it is held up in the
    courts.”
  • On the response to the coronavirus: “The Trump
    administration has not established a coordinated, national plan to
    scale-up and implement public health measures to control the spread
    of coronavirus, instead choosing to have states assume primary
    responsibility for the COVID-19 response, with the federal
    government acting as back-up and ‘supplier of last resort.’ The
    President has downplayed the threat of COVID-19, given conflicting
    messages and misinformation, and often been at odds with public
    health officials and scientific evidence.”

Federal Officials Release Plan to Distribute Coronavirus
Vaccine

The federal government plans to being distributing a vaccine
within 24 hours of approval by the Food and Drug administration,
Trump administration health officials said Wednesday.

In an 11-page
briefing from the departments of Health and Human
Services and Defense and a 57-page “playbook”
from the Center for Disease Control, federal officials outlined a
plan to deploy an eventual vaccine, relying in part on the
pharmaceutical distribution company McKesson. The vaccine, which is
expected to require two shots delivered two or three weeks apart,
would be free or very low cost, officials said.

Conflicting timelines. There is no approved vaccine as
yet, and health officials provided different estimates for when to
expect one.

Paul Mango, deputy chief of staff for policy at the Department
of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday that he believed that
a vaccine would be approved by the end of the year, enabling all
Americans to be vaccinated by the end of March 2021.

CDC Director Robert Redfield said the process would likely take
longer. "I think there will be vaccine that will initially be
available some time between November and December, but very limited
supply, and it will have to be prioritized," Redfield
said at the Senate hearing. “If you're asking me
when is it going to be generally available to the American public
so we can begin to take advantage of vaccine to get back to our
regular life, I think we're probably looking at late second
quarter, third quarter 2021.”

President Trump said Tuesday that a vaccine may be ready

“within weeks,” and he claimed Wednesday that
Redfield’s timeline
was mistaken. "Under no circumstances will it be
as late as the doctor said," Trump said.

Distribution plan draws criticism.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said the federal plan was
incomplete. “It’s clear that this is still not the kind of
comprehensive, end-to-end national plan I’ve called for and that we
desperately need," she said. “We are still missing important
details on research and review, like what standards FDA will use to
authorize a vaccine for emergency use … how we make sure
disparities are addressed in clinical trials, and manufacturing,
like how we address supply chain issues and avoid bottlenecks. And
we still need more details on addressing disparities.”

Florida to End Trump’s Unemployment Aid Program

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is ending the temporary
aid program authorized by President Trump that provides $300 per
week in federal benefits for the unemployed. DeSantis provided no
explanation for the move, which brings the program to an end two
weeks early, but his administration said that concerns about the
costs of the program were behind the decision.

Politico’s Gary Fineout
reported late Tuesday that Florida’s unemployment
benefits are so low that many beneficiaries collect too little
money to qualify for the extra federal payments. Because the
benefits are drawn from a disaster relief fund, states must provide
$100 per week to match the $300 from the federal government, but
many unemployed Floridians fall below that level. Some states are
providing that minimum amount from their own unemployment systems,
but Florida is opting not to raise its benefits to meet that
requirement.

Florida appears to be the first state to end the program
early due to costs, Fineout reported.

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