Senate Republicans left a two-hour meeting with President Biden Monday evening with positive things to say about the exchange but no progress on a bipartisan coronavirus aid deal.
“It was a very good exchange of views,” Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican and top Senate bipartisan broker, told reporters after the meeting. “I wouldn’t say we came together on a package tonight. No one expected that in a two-hour meeting.”
Collins said the two sides agreed “to follow up and talk further” at the staff level, among Senate lawmakers and with the president and vice president, on an aid package.
Collins was among 10 Republicans who asked to meet with Biden to discuss finding a compromise on a new round of COVID-19 aid.
Biden is proposing a $1.9 trillion package that would also raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Collins and fellow GOP lawmakers pitched a package worth about $600 billion that is much narrower in scope. It would provide funding to deal with the virus, including the production and distribution of a vaccine, and would provide new stimulus checks for a narrow group of low-income individuals and families.
Despite the big gap, Collins said she is “hopeful” the two parties can agree again, as they have on at least two previous COVID-19 aid deals. But later in the evening, White House press secretary Jen Psaki issued a statement making clear the president has no intention of slowing Democrats’ reconciliation plans if a deal is not struck with the opposition party.
“While there were areas of agreement, the president also reiterated his view that Congress must respond boldly and urgently, and noted many areas which the Republican senators’ proposal does not address. He reiterated that while he is hopeful that the Rescue Plan can pass with bipartisan support, a reconciliation package is a path to achieve that end,” she said.
“The president expressed his hope that the group could continue to discuss ways to strengthen the American Rescue Plan as it moves forward, and find areas of common ground — including work on small business support and nutrition programs,” Psaki added.
The meeting took place as Democrats prepared to pass the Biden plan without Republican support through the use of a tactic called budget reconciliation.
Democrats want to pass the Biden plan or something similar very soon and have largely dismissed Republican overtures to pare the plan back to win their support.
Biden said he is still hoping for a bipartisan deal.
Collins said Republicans appreciated Biden using his first Oval Office meeting with any lawmakers “to spend so much time with us in a frank and useful discussion.”
