Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that he hopes an overdue coronavirus relief bill will be able to reach the House in the next “two to three weeks.”
“Hopefully in the next two to three weeks we’ll be able to come together and pass something that we can send over to the House and down to the President for signature,” McConnell told WKTY, a CNN- affiliate station in Kentucky, in an interview published Friday evening.
McConnell told WKTY that he will begin talking to Democrats as early as next week, following a delay earlier this week when many Congress members, including some GOP members expected a draft of the bill to be unveiled.
The comments come after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) issued a statement Friday ripping GOP members of Congress and the White House for “disarray” and “delay” of a coronavirus relief bill that is urgently needed to help millions of Americans who are suffering under severe economic duress amid fallout from unemployment and other financial strain brought on by the pandemic.
On Thursday, McConnell said the delay was because the Trump administration “has requested additional time to review the fine details,” while assuring that “we will be laying down the proposal early next week.”
The pushed deadline and waffling comes as millions of jobless Americans anxiously await a decision from Congress about whether an enhanced payment of $600 — which was provided in an earlier coronavirus relief package — would be continued following its scheduled expiration at the end of July.
McConnell has said he does not support an extension of the enhanced federal unemployment benefits which have been funneling an additional $600 a week to unemployed workers amid the pandemic.
