House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is criticizing Republicans for tolerating Americans’ suffering amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
She noted this past week alone, the daily average of COVID-19 cases reached over 160,000. At the same time, the number of hospitalizations hit a record high for three days in a row last week.
Twenty million people are receiving unemployment benefits and millions have “fallen into poverty and are food insecure.”
“Some of the things that we do regularly, but especially at Thanksgiving, to minister to those who are food insecure and the rest will not will not actually be possible, but nonetheless, we must try,” Pelosi said.
She added, “We are in a full-blown economic and health catastrophe and it is amazing to see the patience the GOP has for other people’s suffering.”
Check out her remarks below:
Speaker Pelosi: "It is amazing to see the patience the GOP has for other people's suffering." pic.twitter.com/oDqFkfFCmz
— The Hill (@thehill) November 20, 2020
To mitigate the effects the pandemic has had on the economy, Pelosi and and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to meet with them and strike a deal on the next relief package, as IJR previously reported.
“For the sake of the country, we ask that you come to the table and work with us to produce an agreement that meets America’s needs in this critical time,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter they sent to McConnell.
Schumer revealed on Thursday McConnell has agreed to resume negotiations with them, as IJR previously reported.
“There’s a little bit of good news, as of today. As you know, I’ve been eager to sit down with Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, to have some discussions and leader McConnell for months has resisted that,” Schumer said during a press conference.
He continued, “They’ve agreed to sit down, and the staffs are going to sit down today or tomorrow to try to begin to see if we can get a real good Covid relief bill. So there’s been a little bit of a breakthrough in that McConnell’s folks are finally sitting down and talking to us.”