6 0 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2020Tracking an OutbreakFederal Response
Trump has repeatedly undercut
their position.
White House officials say it is
Ms. Pelosi who has hamstrung
the talks.
“It’s interesting just to hear
the comments from Senator
Schumer and Speaker Pelosi
saying that they want a deal,”
Mr. Meadows declared Friday,
after negotiations broke up with
no resolution and Ms. Pelosi
addressed the news media.
“Their actions do not indicate the
same thing.”
Senator Marco Rubio, Republi-
can of Florida, said Ms. Pelosi
and Democrats were motivated
not by substantive policy differ-
ences, but by politics. They “still
think it’s politically beneficial for
nothing to happen,” he said.
It is not the first time that Ms.
Pelosi has found herself with
considerable leverage in a high-
stakes negotiation with Republi-
cans at a time of crisis. During
the financial meltdown of 2008,
as Republicans balked at a $
billion bailout package that
George W. Bush’s administration
had requested to stave off fur-
ther financial ruin, Henry M.
Paulson Jr., then the Treasury
secretary, famously went down
on one knee at the White House
to beg Ms. Pelosi not to pull her
support from the plan.ability to forge a compromise.
“You’ve never done a deal,” she
has reminded Mark Meadows,
the White House chief of staff
and former congressman, ac-
cording to a person familiar with
the talks who described them on
the condition of anonymity.
Ms. Pelosi’s strategy carries
substantial political risk and real
collateral damage, at least in the
short term. In holding out for a
sweeping relief package, Demo-
crats have swatted away Repub-
lican pleas to pass weeklong
extensions of the expired $600-
per-week in extra federal jobless
pay that millions of Americans
have relied upon, drawing Re-
publican charges of obstruction.
The impasse prompted Mr.
Trump to take unilateral action
on Saturday to provide relief on
his own with a series of execu-
tive actions — though it remains
unclear if he has the legal au-
thority to do so. And it has sown
uneasiness even among some
rank-and-file Democrats, particu-
larly those who represent politi-
cally competitive districts and
are eager to show voters their
party is capable of bipartisan
compromise on pressing issues.
“We cannot let desperate
Americans and small businesses
be used as pawns — even in the
face of a president and Senatemajority leader who appear
incapable of empathy,” said Rep-
resentative Dean Phillips, a
first-term Democrat from Minne-
sota.
On a private conference call on
Saturday, Representative Tom
Malinowski of New Jersey, an-
other first-term Democrat,
warned that a lack of an agree-
ment would prompt his voters to
declare “a pox on all our Houses.
Congress is broken. Washington
is broken.”
“And that is great for challeng-
ers,” he added, according to a
person familiar with the re-
marks, who spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity.
Republicans have been far
sharper in their criticism of her
tactics, blaming Ms. Pelosi for
the lapse in jobless aid even
though she included a full exten-
sion of the payments in her May
legislation, which Republicans
are trying to make deep cuts to.
“Speaker Pelosi has refused,
again and again and again, to do
what’s right for the country, to
work together in a bipartisan
way to come up with a package
to help provide relief in terms of
Covid and the economic crisis,”
Representative Liz Cheney, the
No. 3 Republican, told Fox News
Radio last week.
But Ms. Pelosi, in her secondround as speaker and arguably
as powerful as she has ever
been, has seen little reason to
change course. Instead, with
public opinion she says is in
favor of expansive government
intervention and polls showing
Republicans up and down the
ballot sagging under the weight
of Mr. Trump’s coronavirus re-
sponse, the speaker and Demo-
crats have been emboldened to
press their advantage.
“At the core of her negotiations
are values, and that steers her
right,” said Senator Chuck Schu-
mer, Democrat of New York and
the minority leader. “It’s real.
What she says out there, she
says inside.”
Ms. Pelosi’s hand has been
strengthened by the divisions
among Republicans, many of
whom do not want to provide
additional aid, meaning the
White House will need broad
support from Democrats to push
through any stimulus plan.
Ms. Pelosi set the stage for the
dynamic in May, when — quick
on the heels of the enactment of
nearly $3 trillion in pandemic aid
bills — she corralled the Demo-
cratic votes needed to approve
an additional $3.4 trillion in relief.
Senate Republicans waited until
late last month to unveil their
own $1 trillion plan, and Mr.WASHINGTON — As the
clock ticked down Thursday on a
self-imposed deadline for a
breakthrough in coronavirus
relief talks with no deal in sight,
Jim Cramer, the brash CNBC
host, had an on-air proposal for
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Califor-
nia.
Why not try invoking the
memory of the late civil rights
icon John Lewis to try to per-
suade Republicans to agree to
help the most vulnerable Ameri-
cans, including “minorities”
struggling to weather a pan-
demic and a recession?
Ms. Pelosi flashed a forced
smile. “Perhaps,” she dead-
panned, “you mistook them for
somebody who gives a damn for
what you just described.”
The comment — unusually
coarse for Ms. Pelosi, 80, who
was educated by nuns — was
part insult, part dare and part
slogan for a woman who believes
she has the upper hand in crisis
negotiations and does not intend
to lose it. And it reflected how,
two weeks into talks over an-
other round of federal assistance
to prop up the economy, and less
than three months before Elec-
tion Day, the speaker of the
House is going for the jugular.
She has publicly heaped dis-
dain on her White House negoti-
ating partners as she plays hard-
ball in daily private meetings in
her Capitol office suite, con-
vinced that she has political
leverage to force Republicans to
agree to far more generous aid
than they have offered. She has
been unwilling to bow to the
Trump administration’s demands
for a much narrower bill or a
stopgap solution.
“We’re not doing short-term
action, because if we do short-
term action, they’re not going to
do anything else,” she said of
Republicans Friday afternoon
during an interview, after negoti-
ators blew past their own dead-
line without a deal. “That’s it —
like a sucker punch, you know?
— ‘Let us just do this little bit,’
and then you know what? We’ll
never see them again.”
Instead, Ms. Pelosi is pushing
for a package that includes bil-
lions of dollars for state and local
governments and schools, food
and rental assistance, and more
aid for election security and the
Postal Service.
All the while, Ms. Pelosi has
made it clear that she does not
much trust President Trump’s
advisers — she has taken to
asking negotiators to turn over
their electronic devices before
entering sessions in her office —
nor does she think highly of their
“It’s not me blowing this up.
It’s the Republicans,” Ms. Pelosi
told him then, adding bitingly, “I
didn’t know you were Catholic.”
This time, though, it has be-
come progressively less clear
whether Mr. Trump — who has
been more an irritant than an
active participant in the negotia-
tions — even wants the deal that
he needs Ms. Pelosi to deliver.
“Up and until now, she has
rationally assumed there was
some self-interest on the part of
Trump that would lead to a deal,”
said former Representative
Barney Frank, Democrat of
Massachusetts, who joined Ms.
Pelosi that day at the White
House in 2008. “If, in fact, that
turns out not to be the case, you
have a whole new ballgame to
think about.”
Though she acknowledges
political differences with Mr.
Bush, Ms. Pelosi is far more
blunt about her disdain for Mr.
Trump, with whom she has de-
veloped a toxic relationship.
“This president is the biggest
failure in our history,” she said on
Friday. “I can’t think of anybody
worse.”
He appears to return the senti-
ment, referring again to Ms.
Pelosi this week as “Crazy
Nancy.”
While she said she has had
productive negotiations with
Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury
secretary — so much so that Mr.
Mnuchin has felt compelled to
privately answer complaints
from Republicans that he has
given too much — she is more
skeptical of Mr. Meadows, who
made his name in Congress
blowing up bipartisan deals from
the right, not constructing them.
Talks have been “less efficient”
than the discussions that led to
the first phases of pandemic
relief, she said.
“Mark Meadows is in the room
as an enforcer," she said, adding
that she was not sure whether
“he’s a clone for the president, or
the president’s a clone for him.”
Ms. Pelosi said she also ques-
tioned the overall approach of
the administration, comparing
their negotiating tactics to “So-
phie’s Choice,” a film in which a
mother must choose which of her
children to send to their death.
At one point during one of the
negotiations, Mr. Mnuchin had
inquired what WIC, a nutritional
program specifically for women,
infants and children, was, ac-
cording to a person familiar with
the talks.
“On any given day, you might
say, why am I even talking to
these people? They don’t care,”
Ms. Pelosi said.
“But the fact is, we’re there —
we have an opportunity to do
something.”NEWS ANALYSIS
Certain of Victory, Pelosi Refuses to Budge on Expansive New Relief
By EMILY COCHRANE
and NICHOLAS FANDOSSpeaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer have held multiple negotiating sessions in her office with top officials.ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMESment benefits, it could already be
too late to prevent lasting finan-
cial harm. Without a federal sup-
plement, they will need to get by
on regular state unemployment
benefits, which often total a few
hundred dollars a week or less.
For many families, that will not be
enough to pay the rent, stave off
hunger or avoid mounting debt
that will make it harder to climb
out of the hole.
Households and the broader
economy are particularly vulner-
able at this moment. Eviction mor-
atoriums are expiring or have ex-
pired in much of the country. The
Paycheck Protection Program,
which helped thousands of small
businesses to retain workers,
ended Saturday.
There are already signs that the
economy has slowed down this
summer as virus cases have
surged in much of the country. On
Friday, the Labor Department re-
ported a net gain of 1.8 million jobs
in July, a smaller increase than in
May or June. Many economists
warn that layoffs could begin ris-
ing again without more govern-
ment support. Food banks say
they are bracing for a new wave of
demand.
Before the pandemic, Ms. Os-
eko and her family were making
ends meet, albeit with little mar-
gin for error. She earned $15 an
hour as a contractor doing data
entry. Her boyfriend earned a bit
less cleaning dormitories at the
University of Delaware. They
were able to rent a two-bedroom
house near a park where their
daughter could play.
When the pandemic hit, Ms. Os-
eko’s hours were cut and her boy-
friend was furloughed. Then, in
May, she lost her job altogether. In
the midst of that crisis, another
one appeared: Their landlord sold
her building and gave them 60
days to leave. They moved out at
the end of July and are burning
through their meager savings at a
rate of $76 a night at a Delaware
motel that is filling up with fam-
ilies in the same predicament.
Without a job, Ms. Oseko hasn’t
been able to find a new apart-
ment; without an apartment, it
has been hard to find a job.
“The jobs that I am qualified for
want me to work from home, but I
have no home,” she said.
The economic crisis caused by
the pandemic has disproportion-
ately affected low-wage workers
like Ms. Oseko who have little in
savings. Research from the last
recession found that when unem-
ployment benefits ran out, people
cut their spending on food, medi-
cine and other necessities, sug-
gesting they were able to do little
to prepare for the drop in income.
The more generous benefits of-
fered during this recession may
have allowed families to save
some money, but those savings
won’t last long, particularly when
food prices are rising at the fastest
pace in years.
As a result, families are being
forced to make decisions with last-
ing consequences.
When Jason Depretis and his fi-
ancée lost their Florida restaurantjobs in early March, they started
falling behind on their rent and
their car payment. The $600 un-
employment supplement was a
lifeline, allowing them to hold on
to their home and their car. But on
July 28, that lifeline snapped: The
repo man showed up for the car on
the day that their landlord deliv-
ered a three-day notice of eviction.
With the extra $600 a week, Mr.
Depretis, 42, would probably have
been able to pay enough to hold off
both creditors. Without it, he had
to choose. He paid his landlord
$650 to stave off eviction, and
watched the car be towed away.
But it was a terrible time to lose
the car. He had found a job start-
ing in September at a restaurant,
but it is 45 minutes away, and
there is no bus service that corre-
sponds with his hours. The closest
food bank is 30 minutes away, and
he can’t get there without a vehi-
cle. He said he didn’t know how he
and his fiancée would put food on
the table for themselves and their
two children.
“Without the $600, there’s abso-
lutely no way that my family’s go-ing to make it,” he said.
For families like Mr. Depretis’s,
even a temporary loss of income
can be the start of a downward spi-
ral, said Elizabeth Ananat, a
Barnard College economist who
has been studying the pandemic’s
impact on low-wage workers.
Wealthier families may be able to
draw on savings to get through
until Congress reaches a deal. But
for lower-income households,
even a temporary lapse in bene-
fits can have lasting conse-
quences. An eviction can make it
hard to rent in the future. Having a
car repossessed can make it hard
to find another job. And for chil-
dren, periods of hunger, homeless-
ness and stress can have long-
term effects on development and
learning.
“Children cannot smooth their
eating over the year,” Ms. Ananat
said. “Families that do not have
access to credit cannot smooth
their food, their electricity, any of
their necessities.”
Many Republicans argue that
the extra benefits were keeping
recipients from looking for work,especially because many were
getting more on unemployment
than they had made on the job.
Business owners have com-
plained that they are struggling to
fill positions.
But several studies have found
no evidence that the supplement
was discouraging job hunting, and
many workers appear to be ac-
cepting jobs even when the pay is
less than their unemployment
benefits. And by injecting billions
of dollars into the economy each
week, the benefits almost cer-
tainly prevented even more lay-
offs.
The lapse in benefits will push
some people to return to work. But
that decision, too, can carry costs.
When the pandemic hit, En-
rique Guzman, a fleet service
clerk at Los Angeles International
Airport, was given the choice: to
keep working or to stay home and
receive a portion of his income,
the equivalent of 10 hours a week.
Mr. Guzman, 27, decided to stay
home. He has asthma, which puts
him at a higher risk of complica-
tions if he were to catch the coro-navirus, and he lives with his girl-
friend and her mother, whose age,
51, makes her vulnerable to the vi-
rus. Between unemployment
benefits and the partial paychecks
from the airline, he was able to
bring in $1,050 a week — less than
he earned working full time, but
enough to support his girlfriend
and her mother.
But without the extra money,
Mr. Guzman can no longer afford
the $1,875 rent for their two-bed-
room apartment in Montebello,
Calif., plus the cost of utilities,
food, and his student and car loan
payments.
On Monday, with a sinking feel-
ing in his stomach, he put on his
uniform and returned to the air-
port for his first shift since the
pandemic started. Mr. Guzman
said he had no other choice.
“It wasn’t something that I
wanted to do, but I’m the only in-
come in my household now and I
needed to go back to work so we
can afford to pay our rent, afford
to pay our bills,” he said. “I’m
putting myself at risk so that we
can afford to stay afloat.”WEEKLY SUPPLEMENT
Buy Food or Keep Car? Decisions Ripple as $600 Unemployment Benefit Ends
From Page 1Latrish Oseko and her daughter, above left, have been staying at a Delaware hotel since being evicted last month. Enrique Guzman, above right, supports his girl-
friend, Scarlet Peralta, and her mother. Despite health risks, he returned to his airport job in Los Angeles after losing the federal unemployment benefit supplement.HANNAH YOON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES PHILIP CHEUNG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES