House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday continued excoriating President Trump following his move to abruptly call off COVID-19 relief negotiations last week as the country records more than 215,000 fatalities during the pandemic thus far.
In “Dear Colleague” letters released over the weekend, the House speaker expressed her dissatisfaction over the Trump administration’s latest $1.8 trillion proposal for a COVID-19 relief package, and continued pushing provisions from Democrats’ $2.2 trillion bill the House passed earlier this month.
On Saturday, Pelosi wrote that the Trump administration’s COVID-19 relief proposal “amounted to one step forward, two steps back” and accused the President of wanting “more money at his discretion to grant or withhold, rather than agreeing on language prescribing how we honor our workers, crush the virus and put money in the pockets of workers.”
The next day, Pelosi dismissed the Trump administration’s response to Democrats’ proposals on COVID-19 testing, tracing, treatment and vaccine distribution as “grossly inadequate.”
Pelosi maintained her criticism in a “Dear Colleague” letter issued on Tuesday as she dismissed the Trump administration’s latest COVID-19 relief proposal, following Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s return to the negotiating table, as “one step forward, two steps back” that could possibly “make matters worse.”
The House speaker then appeared to jokingly reference a meme-worthy moment during last week’s vice presidential debate when a fly stayed put on Vice President Mike Pence’s head for several minutes as she continued swatting away the Trump administration’s COVID-19 relief proposals.
“A fly on the wall or wherever else it might land in the Oval Office tells me that the President only wants his name on a check to go out before Election Day and for the market to go up,” Pelosi wrote on Tuesday. “The American people want us to have an agreement to protect lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy. Democrats are determined to do so!”
Pelosi went on to slam Trump for his “shameful” attitude now that more than 215,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, nearly 7.8 million have been infected and millions are unemployed.
“Tragically, the Trump proposal falls significantly short of what this pandemic and deep recession demand,” Pelosi wrote on Tuesday.
