Tens of millions of Americans have lost work amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, and the official unemployment rate has skyrocketed to the highest point since the Great Depression. Yet, Republicans have been dragging their feet on the development and implementation of Coronavirus relief, although the House has already passed a new Coronavirus relief funding bill, “which would provide another round of stimulus checks to millions of eligible Americans and extend expanded unemployment benefits, among other provisions,” CNBC explains. During an appearance on Face The Nation this weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) publicly shamed the Republicans who are acting like Americans’ needs can wait for their political agenda.
Asked to respond to the Republican argument that waiting a few weeks or so before developing potential further Coronavirus relief legislation could be prudent, Pelosi commented, first referring to the process of collaborative development of some of the other most recent Coronavirus relief funding:
‘Time is of the essence. We passed our proffer, what we put forth, and the past bills that they put forth there — a proposal, and then we worked in a bipartisan way. That’s what we will anticipate now. Across the country, Republican and Democratic mayors, governors, and the rest all want this bill to happen in terms of the investments in state and local, tribal and territorial governments, and also in terms of the testing to be done across the country, largely at the state level.’
Previously, Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan, who also chairs the National Governors Association, has called for half a trillion dollars in federal financial support for struggling state governments across the country. In recent weeks, Republican leaders were reported to be holding out hope that they could use holding back the requested money as leverage to extort states into lifting social distancing restrictions and thereby reopening their economies. But the needs remain.
This weekend, Pelosi continued:
‘Time is very important here. We have lost time — but again, setting aside how we got here, we can not take a pause. They may think it’s okay to take a pause, but people are hungry across America. Hunger doesn’t take a pause. People are jobless across America — that doesn’t take a pause. People don’t know how they’re going to pay their rent across the country. We have to address this with humanity.’
Watch below:
“Time is of the essence,” @SpeakerPelosi tells @margbrennan of action on the next #coronavirus relief bill as unemployment skyrockets nationwide.
"They may think it's OK to take a pause, but people are hungry across America. Hunger doesn't take a pause," she says of GOP approach pic.twitter.com/zN87AyOgfQ
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) May 17, 2020
Pelosi’s commentary stands in stark contrast to the president’s own behavior over the weekend.
Rather than concern himself with the pandemic that is killing an average of over 1,000 Americans each and every day, Trump focused on threatening his political opponents. He tweeted:
‘Mitch, I love you, but this is 100% true. Time is running out. Get tough and move quickly, or it will be too late. The Dems are vicious, but got caught. They MUST pay a big price for what they have done to our Country. Don’t let them get away with this!’
This kind of paranoia is just outrageous. And Americans are suffering while Trump just devolves further and further into his brazenly outrageous nonsense.
Mitch, I love you, but this is 100% true. Time is running out. Get tough and move quickly, or it will be too late. The Dems are vicious, but got caught. They MUST pay a big price for what they have done to our Country. Don’t let them get away with this! @LindseyGrahamSC https://t.co/PplfqTJdHc
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2020
