奥巴马政府和民主党领导人之间的会谈新冠肺炎救援法案在周五失败，双方都退出了谈判，理由是没有达成协议的具体进展，也没有未来会议的计划。
财政部长Steve Mnuchin白宫办公厅主任马克·梅多斯每天都在与众议院议长南希·佩洛西和参议院少数党领袖查克·舒默讨论可能的救助方案，但由于没有达成现场协议，两党现在似乎分道扬镳了。
当被问及下一步谈判的内容时，佩洛西说:“也许你没有听清楚我说的话。”“我说等你准备好了再给我一个更高的号码。”
特朗普总统美国顾问星期四离开国会山，告诉记者，他们现在将建议他在下周末采取行政行动，单干。
姆努钦说:“基于我们今天缺乏活动，参谋长和我将向总统建议执行一些行政命令。”
周五晚上，特朗普在新泽西州贝德明斯特的一次演讲中阐述了他的行政命令计划。他指责民主党人将冠状病毒刺激谈判作为“人质”，并表示该命令将把工资税推迟到年底，并追溯到7月1日;提高失业救济金直到2020年底，尽管他没有说总数是多少;推迟学生贷款并无限期免除利息;和延长驱逐暂停期。
梅多斯当天早些时候告诉记者，行政命令将于本周末出台。
姆努钦在特朗普的新闻发布会之前表示，领取失业保险的个人不会像以前的冠状病毒救助计划那样，每周获得600美元的失业救济金。周五，姆努钦似乎指向了参议院共和党的议案，即他帮助协商将联邦失业保险福利削减至每周200美元，直到大约9月份，然后这些福利将被设定为工人损失工资的70%。
两个星期以来，两党一直在努力寻找他们的两个提案的共同点，这两个提案的价格相差很大。民主党最初的提案于5月在众议院获得通过，价值3.4万亿美元。共和党的提案获得了大约1万亿美元。
佩洛西和舒默在周五的新闻发布会上说，他们试图在周四的会谈中就该法案的价格进行谈判。他们提出，如果共和党人提高要价以满足他们的要求，他们将把要价降低到2万亿美元。
上周五，当被问及这笔交易时，姆努钦表示:“这不可能。”
民主党本可以通过缩短某些福利的期限来降低该法案的价格，但不能通过从他们的提案中削减这些福利来实现，梅多斯认为这种策略并不可取。
梅多斯说:“即使他们的华盛顿特区万亿美元，神奇的方式说，他们正在下降一万亿，他们不能提出任何重大削减他们的法案。”
本周早些时候，姆努钦和梅多斯为周五达成协议设定了最后期限。随着达成协议的希望越来越渺茫，双方都指责对方太死板，不愿意妥协。
两位政府官员都对今天返回国会山表示失望，但在会谈中却遇到了更多同样的情况。
梅多斯说:“我非常失望，我们今天来到这里只是为了听到同样的事情重复一遍又一遍，这是同样的事情，我们听到重复了过去两个星期。”
在整个谈判过程中，共和党人一直主张通过一项针对特定领域的精简法案，而民主党人则认为有必要通过一项强有力的法案来解决广泛的健康和经济问题。
佩洛西说:“我们代表了美国人民对餐桌的需求。”“他们代表董事会会议室的桌子，这是一个不同的视角。这就是为什么需要很长时间。”
COVID relief bill: Negotiations reach breaking point, Trump plans executive order
Talks between the administration and Democratic leadership on a path forward for aCOVID-19relief bill collapsed Friday, with both parties leaving negotiations citing no measured progress toward an agreement and no plans for a future meeting.
Treasury SecretarySteve Mnuchinand Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have been in daily discussion with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over a possible relief package, but with no agreement in site, the parties appear to have now gone their separate ways.
"Perhaps you missed what I said," Pelosi said when asked what would come next for negotiations. "I said come back when you're ready to give a higher number."
President Trump's advisers left Capitol Hill Thursday telling reporters that they will now advise him to go at it alone by taking executive action over the coming weekend.
"The Chief of Staff and I will recommend to the president, based upon our lack of activity today, to move forward with some executive orders," Mnuchin said.
Trump laid out his plan for the executive order in a speech from Bedminster, New Jersey, Friday night. He accused Democrats of holding coronavirus stimulus negotiations "hostage," and said the order would defer payroll taxes until to the end of year and be retroactive to July 1; enhance unemployment benefits until end of 2020, although he didn't say what the total amount would be; defer student loans and forgive interest indefinitely; and extend eviction moratoriums.
Meadows told reporters earlier in the day that the executive orders would come this weekend.
Mnuchin said prior to Trump's press conference that individuals receiving unemployment insurance will not receive a full $600 a week in unemployment benefits as was the case under the previous coronavirus relief package. On Friday, Mnuchin seemed to point to the Senate GOP bill that he helped negotiate which cuts the federal unemployment insurance benefit to $200 a week through roughly September and then those benefits would be set at 70% or a worker’s lost wages.
For two weeks now, the two parties have struggled to find common ground on their two proposals which came in at sizably different prices. The original Democratic proposal, which passed the House in May, was worth $3.4 trillion. The Republican proposal came in around $1 trillion.
Pelosi and Schumer said during a press conference Friday that they attempted to negotiate the price of the bill during talks on Thursday. They offered to lower their asking price to $2 trillion if Republicans would raise their price to meet them.
"That's a non-starter," Mnuchin said, when asked about the deal on Friday.
Democrats would have achieved a lower price for the bill by shortening the length of certain benefits, but not by cutting them from their proposals, a tactic that Meadows said was not palatable.
"Even with their trillion dollar Washington D.C., magical way of saying they are coming down a trillion they can't come up with any significant cuts to their bill," Meadows said.
Earlier this week, Mnuchin and Meadows set a deadline for an agreement to be reached by Friday. As hopes of an agreement waned, each side accused the other of being too rigid and unwilling to compromise.
Both administration officials expressed frustration about returning to Capitol Hill today only to be met with more of the same during talks.
"I'm extremely disappointed that we came up here today just to hear the same thing repeated over and over again which is the same thing we've heard repeated for the last two weeks," Meadows said.
Throughout negotiations, Republicans have advocated for a slimmed-down bill that targets specific areas, whereas Democrats have argued that a robust bill addressing a wide spread of health and economic issues was necessary.
"We're there representing the kitchen table needs of the American people," Pelosi said. "They are there representing the board conference room table and that is a different perspective. And that's why it takes long."
