Republican Leaders Meet with Donald Trump; Propose $1 Trillion More Aid for Coronavirus Relief

President Donald Trump met with congressional Republican leaders at the White House on Monday, previewing another round of coronavirus pandemic relief.

“We’re focused on starting with another trillion dollars. We think that will make a big impact, and the focus is on kids and jobs and vaccines,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, noting that both he and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows would meet with Republicans on Capitol Hill on Monday.

Mnuchin said that liability protections were also important to allow the economy to continue reopening.

“We want to make sure that frivolous lawsuits don’t prevent schools, universities, and businesses from reopening,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed.

“We don’t need an epidemic of lawsuits on the heels of the pandemic that we’re already struggling with,” McConnell said.

Mnuchin said that it was important to pass legislation to protect unemployed Americans, but also make fixes to make sure the federal government was not giving the unemployed more money to stay home than they would earn by going to work:

We’re going to make sure that we don’t pay people more money to stay at home than go to work. We want to make sure that people who can go to work safely can do so. We’ll have tax credits that incentivize businesses to bring people back to work [and] will have tax credits for PPE for a safe work environment.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy agreed.

“We don’t think any federal money should be spent [if] it gives you a disincentive to work. We want to make sure we have incentives to keep going,” he said.

President Trump repeated that he was interested in getting a payroll tax cut for American workers into the package.

“It’s been proven to be successful, and it’s a big saving for the people,” he said. “It’s a tremendous saving and an incentive for companies to hire their workers back and to keep their workers.”