The NPR Politics Podcast - Tempers Flare In Coronavirus Aid Negotiations

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

As financial markets fall and case numbers soar, Congress has (so far) been unable to reach a deal on a major coronavirus aid package with an expected price tag of more than a trillion dollars. Also, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has become the first senator to test positive for the coronavirus. Close contact with Paul has led at least two other senators to self-quarantine. This episode: political correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Devin, Raya, Lily, and Kershal. And we are currently quarantined in Paris, France. This timestamp was recorded at... Bonjour, it is 2.06 Eastern on Monday, March 23rd. Things may have changed by the time that you hear this.

We will still be quarantined, but I wanted to tell Scott Detro, we also have a gallon of bubble solution. Take care and stay healthy, everybody. It sounds at least like her quarantine partners are happy. That's true. No bubble solution being used today because Kelsey and Tam, you both have small kids too. And it's raining here in Washington, D.C.,

which makes it that much more fun. Means we are trapped. Yeah, blowing bubbles indoors is a bad idea. Yes. I know from experience. But so far, the bubble strategic supply is holding up well. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Scott Detrow.

I cover politics. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. And Kelsey, the action is in your building today, even though, of course, you're not there. But the Senate is trying to craft and pass a trillion dollar aid package. And like many things right now, it's something unprecedented, but it's trying to be done on a very fast timeline. And right now,

things are kind of stuck. What has happened to break down these talks? Well, it's been a whirlwind couple of days. Over the weekend, there were these bipartisan negotiating groups that were convened by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. They were breaking down this broader bill that Republicans had already introduced in an attempt to try to get some sort of bipartisan agreement that could speed its way through the Senate. But as you mentioned, that didn't work. And almost predictably didn't work because Democrats walked away from that saying that they weren't happy with some major parts of what Republicans were proposing. You know, the two main things that people I talk to keep going back to are the unemployment

provisions. Democrats want to provide full unemployment benefits for several months for people. So 100% of salary would be made up by the federal government. That is a very expensive proposal and one that has been, you know, they've been having a hard time getting agreement on. The other thing that seems to be holding things up is Democrats say that they want to have more protections on these corporate loans. They want to make sure that the companies can't use the loans to give executives bonuses or allow them to do stock buybacks. They say the money has to be used for payroll and keeping people employed.

Now, Republicans have a different view on things. They say that Democrats are asking for extraneous things to be added, like tax credits for wind and solar that were never part of this and aren't related to the coronavirus. So we're hearing two different sides of the story, but it all amounts to things are not done. So, Kelsey, over the weekend, there was for a time talk about this big $500 billion to help large companies having a provision in it that would allow the Treasury Secretary to dole out these funds without reporting it for some period of time. Has that changed? That is also one of the things that Democrats have said that they want to remove. I don't know what the status of that is right now, because frankly, we haven't seen a bill in a really long

time. We've been waiting for them to get closer to an agreement. I should say that Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is still actively negotiating with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in and out of his office all day long today. They've been in and out of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office. I mean, this is a very active negotiation that could potentially, you know, reach an agreement sometime soon. I think we should give people a little bit of a kind of a reminder and a wayback machine for the Senate. They're not good at getting big things done in short amount of time, and it is not a surprise that this is difficult.

And again, trillion dollars. This is bigger than what we were talking about in 2008 and 2009 with the financial meltdown and TARP and the stimulus, right? Right. And the thing to remember here is that Mnuchin himself has said that this is probably not the last time they're going to have to vote on something. So think about that. They're having all of this trouble right now on what may just be the third out of four or five, six passes at this. We don't know how many times Congress is going to have to vote on legislation to keep the economy stable. Wow. Now, Tam, does President Trump have any key priorities here or things that he says he

absolutely will not sign? Or is he just happy to sign whatever gets through Congress at this point in time? So the history of President Trump being involved in congressional negotiations is that when he gets very involved, it can at times become problematic. You know, there, this was an issue when Republicans were trying to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, where President Trump got involved and everything fell apart, and they ultimately didn't pass anything. Same thing with the government shutdown a couple of years ago. So President Trump, at least on the surface, is not deeply involved. He has expressed opinions about things. He has at times said that he wants to make sure that Americans get money and get help and he wants it to go big. He has said

that he thinks various industries should get help. And he has been asked about the idea of sort of limiting what big businesses can use this money for, restricting stock buybacks or executive bonuses or things like that. And he has been supportive of the idea of those restrictions. But he hasn't laid any lines in the sand. He hasn't really taken a hard line on anything. And he has, at least with the last package, proven to be willing to accept what the Secretary of the Treasury, Mnuchin, and also the Legislative Affairs Director, Eric Uland, what they are able to get in negotiations. He's been willing to just sort of go along with it, obviously telling them what he wants as part of those negotiations. All right, let's take a moment here and listen to what some of the leaders are saying, starting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Here are some of the items on the Democratic wish list over which they choose, over which they choose to block this legislation last night. Tax credits for solar energy and wind energy. Provisions to force employers to give special new treatment to big labor. And listen to this.

New emission standards for the airlines. Are you kidding me? And here's Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate. The bill still includes something that most Americans don't want to see. Large corporate bailouts with no strings attached. Maybe the majority leader thinks it's unfair to ask protections for workers and labor to companies that are getting hundreds of billions of dollars. We think it's very fair to ask for those. Those are not extraneous issues. That is a wish list for workers, nobody else. Now, Kelsey, I don't know if that was particularly spicy to me, but generally,

it is getting heated on the Senate floor. Yeah, that's actually some of the tamer parts of this. But, you know, there is something to what they're all saying here, right, is that Democrats are risking something by continuing to push for negotiations. They're essentially risking that voters may blame them for delays and further losses in the stock market. But they're balancing that against the potential that they might sign off on a deal that could have longer term consequences. So when it comes like the airlines or to hotels or any of these other companies that might get these, what Democrats are calling bailouts, what Republicans say are loans, if one of those companies gives their CEO a raise after laying off workers, or if we find out down the road that there was some restriction that wasn't put in place that could have protected more jobs, Democrats basically are trying to fend off a world where that happens. Now, one more question on this, and this is something that we were talking about last night.

You know, often we talk about these congressional debates and how they're kind of theoretical, and even though they affect, you know, big chunks of the American public, it might take a little while for people to fully realize that. Probably millions of people at this point in time have lost their job, you know, even more are working at far less than they typically do because of these restrictions. Do you feel like, and on top of that, we're getting toward the end of the month, rent and mortgages are due soon. Do senators seem to get that urgency from what you can tell? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was primarily the reason they were fighting so aggressively on the Senate floor before the vote happened, is there is a real fear that the Senate is going to be

blamed for not doing enough to save the economy, to help people. Beyond it being a political question, there is a serious fear that people are in desperate need and Washington is not meeting that need right now. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the fact that the coronavirus, as Mitch McConnell put it, has made its way to the U.S. Senate. Support for this podcast and the following message come from UStudio. Enterprises need to be prepared for whatever comes their way. That's why companies

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the public health fight against it, and how the world is coping. I'm your host, Kelly McEvers. Listen and subscribe to Coronavirus Daily from NPR. All right, we're back. And Kelsey, one other dynamic in all of this is that as negotiations were taking place, we found out that the first U.S. senator has tested positive. That's Kentucky Republican Rand Paul. Yeah, he tested positive. He said he was not having any symptoms and that he was tested out of an abundance of caution because of his travel and event schedule.

But then it started coming out that Rand Paul was continuing to be around in the Senate after he was tested and before his results came back. including Senators Mitt Romney and Mike Lee, both of Utah, who are now themselves in quarantine because they have over concerns that, you know, they they have not been tested yet. Mitt Romney has a family member, his wife, who has health issues that put her in an at risk population. And that's something that he told reporters a week or two ago he was worried about. So this is really starting to hit home for the lawmakers who are attempting to get this bill through, too. And right now we're at the point of trying to pass a bill where 60 votes is what matters. But given the slim majority that Republicans have, the fact that so many Republicans are in self-quarantine, I imagine will play a role in all of this, huh? Yeah. I mean, there are five Senate Republicans who are currently in self-quarantine.

So that does bring their numbers down a bit. We should remember that Rand Paul and Mike Lee do not like spending bills most of the time, let alone when they are multiple trillions of dollars. And we're not expected to vote along with Republicans on this. But it does mean that Democrats have more leverage than they did going into this. If we're operating under the belief that the president, you know, will want to sign just about anything Congress can pass, Democrats think that they can, you know, use this opportunity to change the bill in their direction before it comes to the floor. And Tam, this doesn't affect voting, but it really hit home. Amy Klobuchar, a presidential candidate now back in the U.S. Senate, she announced that her husband is tested positive and is in the hospital.

Yeah, she put out a statement this morning saying that they got the results at 7 a.m. She says that she doesn't need to quarantine because due to travel and other things, they haven't actually been in the same place at the same time for the last 14 days, and she has no symptoms. She also just hasn't been able to visit him in the hospital, and he has pneumonia and is on oxygen but not a ventilator. She says in the statement, I love my husband so very much and not being able to be there at the hospital by his side is one of the hardest things about this disease. And she's a U.S. senator, but there are lots of people who aren't U.S. senators who are going through the very same thing. I can't even imagine that. So, Kelsey,

the last question I had for you, eventually some sort of bill is going to pass the Senate, I presume. Then, of course, it goes back to the House. We now have multiple House members who have tested positive. The House floor during a voting session is a very crowded place. Is there any sort of sense of how they are going to show up and vote given these circumstances? No, we really don't know. And that's why there are a lot of lawmakers who are pushing for remote voting. But the thing about remote voting is they would have to vote to allow remote voting. So they would either have to show up in person and do that, or they would have to, you know, do some sort of unanimous agreement, which seems very difficult to reach at this point. So that is a very good and very open question.

I guess they could do unanimous consent or something. Yeah. And just another big life moment here as we sit here and tape this podcast. It doesn't directly affect politics, but the International Olympic Committee is now likely going to postpone the Summer Olympics, which makes a lot of sense, but it's yet another really weird thing that's happening.

All right, we will see how out of date this podcast is by the time people listen to it this evening, but we will be back tomorrow with the details on these negotiations and what happens next in this trillion dollar spending bill. In the meantime, there is a brand new NPR podcast called Coronavirus Daily that you can check out. It takes all the reporting that NPR is doing on every single platform and brings it to you in one place each afternoon. It's a really good listen. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover politics.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.