白宫办公厅主任马克·梅多斯试图在周日驳回2500万失业美国人可能面临大范围失业保险的猜测援助方面的差距由于传递新的冠状病毒救济包。他进一步描述了共和党人反对延长每周600美元的联邦福利作为鼓励人们重返工作岗位的动机。
梅多斯在美国广播公司(ABC)的《本周》(This Week)节目中说:“最初的失业救济金实际上是让人们呆在家里，实际上很多人呆在家里的钱比他们回去工作的钱还多，所以总统非常清楚，我们的共和党参议员也非常清楚，我们不会延长这一规定。”
即将到来的共和党人冠状病毒梅多斯解释说，救济方案将把失业保险定为大流行前工资的70%。但是，由于共和党核心小组内部的分歧和民主党反对派的逼近，该法案在过去一周被推迟，美国广播公司首席新闻主播乔治·斯特凡诺普洛斯向白宫办公厅主任施压，要求他考虑在最初的福利于7月底到期后，那些接受援助的人是否将面临暂停支付。
史蒂芬诺普洛斯说:“管理人员说，这将是几乎不可能管理，人们将面临真正的差距之前，他们得到钱。”
正如梅多斯所描述的，一种变通办法是让国会先通过一揽子计划中对时间敏感的部分，然后再就其余部分进行谈判——尽管民主党已经表示反对零敲碎打的过程。
“老实说，我认为我们能够提供失业保险，也许是一种保留信贷，以防止人们被取代或被带回到工作场所;帮助我们的学校。”“如果我们能做到这一点，再加上责任保护，或许我们可以提出这一点，让它获得通过，然后我们可以在未来几周内就法案的其余部分进行谈判。”
梅多斯和财政部长史蒂文·姆努钦是特朗普政府即将举行的冠状病毒救助法案预计将在下周初公布。Mnuchin周四向记者预览了立法细节，其中包括对美国人的第二轮直接付款，但共和党核心小组之间的持续讨论将该方案推迟到了周末。白宫办公厅主任说，两人周日将再次在国会大厦花一天的时间研究立法。
2020年5月14日，华盛顿白宫南草坪，马克·梅多斯在海军一号出口。
随着美国大部分地区的艾滋病阳性病例继续激增，唐纳德·特朗普总统面临呼吁，要求他放慢努力，让学校在今年秋季重新开放，并发布一项全国性的口罩授权。几个月来，特朗普和白宫官员一直拒绝就口罩问题发布更直接的指导意见，也拒绝自己戴口罩。最近，他们在这个问题上加大了沟通力度，总统在本周的一次吹风会上承认，“口罩有影响。”
周日，梅多斯告诉斯特凡诺普洛斯，像面部遮盖授权或重新开放计划的回滚这样的步骤——虽然可能有帮助——不会是结束大流行的努力。
“这不是面具。这不是关闭经济，”梅多斯说。“希望是美国人的聪明才智将允许疗法和疫苗最终战胜这一点。”
梅多斯坚持认为，政府的注意力集中在长期解决方案上，他说，他“希望”政府可能会有“在治疗和疫苗方面非常好的消息”...在接下来的几天。”
但是在全国范围内，各州都在为病毒的影响持续到秋季做准备。在这场大流行中，超过30个国家或者正在扩大其居民在11月选举中的投票能力邮寄选举或者推广无借口缺席投票。
因此，在上周接受福克斯新闻采访时，特朗普不会抢先承诺接受他与前副总统乔·拜登竞争的最终结果。
斯特凡诺普洛斯在周日的《本周》节目中说:“总统继续警告说(选举)将会被操纵——这是他的话——通过邮寄选票，尽管没有令人信服的证据表明邮寄选票与广泛的选民欺诈有关。”“为什么总统一直质疑选举，为什么他不像以前的每一位总统那样明确表示他会接受选举结果?”
梅多斯说:“你刚才谈到任何选民欺诈的‘令人信服的证据’，因为它涉及邮寄选票，我不得不反对这一点。”
斯特凡诺普洛斯回答说:“我说的是‘广泛的’选民欺诈。”
尽管科罗拉多州、俄勒冈州、犹他州和华盛顿州等州在2020年之前已经成功地使用了该系统，但梅多斯说:“我们还没有进行广泛的邮寄投票。”
“你知道，民主党人认为这是他们的灵丹妙药，可以把选票投到每个邮箱里，并抱最好的希望。听着，这不是一个选民诚信程序需要运行的方式，你给每个人发送一张选票，”他继续说，承认，“我不是说有广泛的欺诈。”但肯定存在欺诈。”
斯特凡诺普洛斯还就美国情报部门本周发出的警告向白宫办公厅主任提出了质疑。美国情报部门警告称，包括俄罗斯在内的外国可能会干预选举，而且这是否是特朗普和俄罗斯总统普京之间的一个话题。梅多斯没有回答后一个问题，但指出在情报和选举安全方面投资了“数亿美元”，并试图区分影响竞选的努力和成功的努力。
他说:“现在外国干涉和外国影响有了很大的区别。”“他们继续努力施加影响，全球每个人都在这样做，但就实际影响投票总数和互动而言，我认为我们处于有利地位。”
White House chief of staff details plan for unemployment benefits; pins recovery on therapeutics and vaccine
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows attempted to push back Sunday against speculation that the 25 million out-of-work Americans receiving expanded pandemic unemployment insurance could facegaps in the assistancethey receive due to the delay in passing a newcoronavirusrelief package. He further characterized Republicans' opposition to extending the $600 per week federal benefit as an incentive to encourage people to return to the workforce.
"The original unemployment benefit actually paid people to stay home, and actually a lot of people got more money staying at home than they were going back to work, and so the president was very clear, our Republican senators have been very clear, we're not going to extend that provision," Meadows said on ABC's "This Week."
The forthcoming Republicancoronavirusrelief package will set unemployment insurance at 70% of one's pre-pandemic wages, Meadows explained. But with that bill delayed this past week by disagreements within the GOP caucus and Democratic opposition looming, the chief of staff was pressed by ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos about whether those receiving assistance will face a pause in payments after the initial benefits expire at the end of July.
"Administrators have said that that's going to be almost impossible to administer and people are going to face real gaps before they get money," Stephanopoulos said.
One workaround, as described by Meadows, could be for Congress to pass time-sensitive components of the package first, then negotiate the rest later -- despite Democrats having already voiced opposition to a piecemeal process.
"Honestly, I see us being able to provide unemployment insurance, maybe a retention credit to keep people from being displaced or brought back into the workplace; helping with our schools," Meadows said. "If we can do that, along with liability protection, perhaps we put that forward, get that passed and we can negotiate on the rest of the bill in the weeks to come."
Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are serving as the Trump administration's lead negotiators on the forthcomingcoronavirusrelief bill, which is expected to be unveiled early in the coming week. Mnuchin previewed details of the legislation for reporters Thursday, which includes a second round of direct payments to Americans, but continued discussion among the GOP caucus delayed the package through the weekend. The chief of staff said that the pair will again spend part of the day at the Capitol on Sunday working on the legislation.
With positive COVID-19 cases continuing to surge across much of the United States, President Donald Trump faces calls to slow down his push for schools to reopen this fall and issue a nationwide facemask mandate. After resisting appeals for months to issue more direct guidance on masks and to wear one himself, both Trump and White House officials have recently stepped up their messaging on the topic, with the president acknowledging "they have an impact," at a briefing this week.
On Sunday, Meadows told Stephanopoulos that steps like facial covering mandates or the rollback of reopening plans -- while potentially helpful -- would not be the efforts that end the pandemic.
"It's not masks. It's not shutting down the economy," Meadows said. "Hopefully it is American ingenuity that will allow for therapies and vaccines to ultimately conquer this."
Meadows maintained that the administration's attention is fixed on long-term solutions, saying that he was "hopeful" the administration may have "very good news on the therapeutic and vaccine front ... in the next couple of days."
But across the country, states are preparing for the virus' impact to last well into the fall. Amid the pandemic, over 30 either are expanding the ability of their residents to vote in November'selection by mailor promoting no-excuse absentee voting.
For that reason, in an interview with Fox News last week, Trump would not preemptively commit to accepting the ultimate result of his contest with former Vice President Joe Biden.
"The president continues to warn that (the election) is going to be rigged -- that's his word -- by mail-in ballots, even though there's no compelling evidence that mail in ballots are tied to widespread voter fraud," Stephanopoulos said on "This Week" Sunday. "Why does the president keep questioning the election, and why won't he say clearly, as every president has done before, that he'll accept the results?"
"You talked earlier about 'compelling evidence' of any voter fraud as it relates to mail-in ballots, I would have to disagree with that," Meadows said.
"I said 'widespread' voter fraud," responded Stephanopoulos.
"We haven't had widespread mail-in-ballots," Meadows said, despite the fact that states such as Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington have successfully used the system prior to 2020.
"You know, the Democrats see this as their panacea of being able to put a ballot in every mailbox and hope for the best. Listen, that's not the way that a voter integrity process needs to run, where you send a ballot to everybody," he continued, conceding, "I'm not suggesting that there is widespread fraud. But there certainly is fraud."
Stephanopoulos also challenged the chief of staff on warnings issued by the U.S. intelligence community this week of potential foreign interference in the election, including by Russia, and whether it was a topic of conversation between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meadows did not answer the latter question, but pointed to the "hundreds of millions of dollars" invested in intelligence and election security and attempted to differentiate between attempts to impact the campaign and successful efforts.
"Now there's a big difference between foreign interference in foreign influence," he said. "They continue to try to influence, as everyone does across the globe, but in terms of actually affecting the vote total and interacting, I think we're in a good place."
