2 years ago
After two top Biden administration health officials pleaded with Democrats on Thursday to approve more coronavirus aid funding, Speaker Nancy Pelosi apologized to them in front of her caucus for having to ask at all.
Pelosi told Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and top infectious disease adviser Anthony Fauci she was sorry they needed to come before House members from the president's own party to call for $15 billion to continue the U.S. fight against Covid, domestically and abroad.
Speaking to her own caucus afterwards, a week after an intra-Democratic revolt over funding sources took down a virus aid package, Pelosi then said: “You want to tell me about what you didn’t get? Don’t tell Noah about the flood." The speaker was repeating a line she used with reporters just an hour after some of her own members forced party leaders to strip the Covid money out of a bipartisan government funding bill.
Pelosi's remarks in the closed-door Democratic meeting, relayed by multiple people in the room, reflect a growing frustration among party leaders about the difficult path forward for the $15 billion pandemic assistance measure. Pelosi, along with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden, are searching for a way to approve that funding after members of her caucus rebelled over how the package would be paid for — specifically, clawing back hundreds of millions in unspent state government aid.
Walking out of the Thursday morning meeting, Pelosi was confident the legislation could soon pass both chambers of Congress and land on Biden’s desk.
“We're just going to have to pass it, and we'll pass it when we have the votes to pass it,” Pelosi said in a brief interview. “In order to have bipartisan votes, we want it to be paid for, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Amid intensifying White House pleas for a new strategy to pay for the Covid aid, Pelosi and her leadership team are ditching the controversial state offsets and trying to find a Plan B. But that brings up a bigger problem for the party: Now that the cash has been detached from the giant bipartisan spending deal that leaders had assumed would guarantee its passage, how do they get it through the 50-50 Senate?
Several Senate Republican swing votes have sounded skeptical about delivering any more Covid cash, insisting that the White House needs to be clearer about exactly what it needs.
“Believe it or not, the administration has not provided the information that we Republicans asked for,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). “Nevertheless, Leader Schumer did agree with our leadership [on] a $15 billion package with money repurposed with prior Covid funds. It was stopped, as you know, by House progressives. But the money was there.”
“They have demonstrated that there’s money that’s not been spent, that can be used to meet the needs," Romney added. "And we fully agree that they should do that.”
In fact, the House Democratic pushback ranged beyond progressives; it was dominated by members from states whose unspent pandemic aid would have gotten redirected to the new assistance package. That complicated stalemate has frustrated White House officials who say many lawmakers still don’t fully understand the consequences of failing to fund the Covid response — and who fear those members won’t get it until it’s too late.
In talks with the Hill, the administration has emphasized the urgency of its $22.5 billion request, sending lawmakers lists of pandemic programs that are low on cash, and circulating internal projections for when supplies of specific treatments and vaccines will be exhausted.
Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.
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