Tag Archives: White House

White House says Trump could act unilaterally to avoid U.S. airline layoffs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump could take executive action to avoid massive layoffs at U.S. airlines, while the coronavirus pandemic weighs on air travel and talks on a new COVID-19 stimulus bill remain stall in Congress, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on Wednesday.

“We’re looking at other executive actions,” Meadows said in an online interview with Politico. “If Congress is not going to work, this president is going to get to work and solve some problems. So hopefully, we can help out the airlines and keep some of those employees from being furloughed.”

His remarks came a day after American Airlines said its workforce will shrink by 40,000, including 19,000 involuntary cuts, in October without an extension of government aid.

Meadows said he has spoken to American Airlines, as well as United Airlines, which has warned that 36,000 jobs are on the line, and to Delta Air Lines, which announced furloughs of nearly 2,000 pilots on Monday.

“So we’ve raised this issue. It would take a CARES package, I believe, to do it,” Meadows said, referring to a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package that Congress passed earlier this year.

Talks between Meadows, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer ended in early August, with top Democrats and the administration far apart on new legislation. Meadows told Politico that he is not optimistic that negotiations will restart soon.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Alistair Bell)

U.S. postmaster tells House committee he will resume cost-cutting after election

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Postmaster Louis DeJoy told lawmakers on Monday that he planned to resume some cost-cutting measures that have factored in widespread service delays, defying Democratic lawmakers who have sought to block his changes.

DeJoy told lawmakers that he will push to improve on-time deliveries after the Nov. 3 election, an effort that he suspended last week after a public backlash. He also said he would keep in place a management reshuffle he implemented after assuming his job in June.

“These two changes, creating our new on-time transportation network and designing an engaged functional organizational structure, will be the catalyst for the significant improvements in cost, performance and growth,” DeJoy told the House of Representatives Oversight Committee.

DeJoy has sought to assure Americans that widespread delays caused by his cost-cutting efforts would not cause their ballots to go uncounted in November, when up to half of U.S. voters could cast their ballots through the mail.

DeJoy, who has donated $2.7 million to President Donald Trump and other Republicans since 2016, has rejected charges of political interference. Trump has claimed, without evidence, that absentee voting is unreliable, even though he has voted that way himself.

DeJoy’s push to improve on-time deliveries forced trucks to leave sorting facilities even if mail was still on the loading dock, postal workers say, leading to widespread delays nationwide.

Postal Service documents released by Democrats show an 8% slowdown in first-class mail, largely occurring after he became postmaster in June.

“Whatever the cause of these massive delays, the American people want to go back to the way things were,” Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney said.

DeJoy has refused to bring back mail-sorting machines and mailboxes pulled from service in recent weeks, saying they were routine responses to changes in mail volume that were underway before he took office.

He said he was not responsible for some other service changes, such as reduced retail hours and overtime for Postal Service workers.

The White House has declined to say whether Trump will respect the results of the election if he loses.

Dozens of Democrats have called for DeJoy to be fired.

The House on Saturday voted to prevent DeJoy from taking action that would impede service until January, and also to provide $25 billion in funding. That legislation is not expected to advance in the Republican-controlled Senate and the White House has threatened to veto it. The Postal Service also opposes that legislation.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Dan Grebler)

U.S. House votes to block Postal reforms seen as threat to mail-in ballots

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives voted on Saturday to provide the cash-strapped Postal Service with $25 billion and block policy changes that have stirred concerns about mail-in balloting ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

The 257-150 vote sent the legislation dubbed the “Delivering for America Act” on to the Republican-controlled Senate. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement that the Senate would “absolutely not pass” the stand-alone bill.

The White House also strongly opposes the legislation and has said it would recommend that President Donald Trump veto the measure.

But more than two-dozen House Republicans broke ranks to join Democrats in approving the bill, during a rare Saturday session called by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the middle of the congressional August recess.

With mail-in voting expected to surge during the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has alarmed Democrats by repeatedly denouncing mail-in ballots as a possible source of fraud. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy recently suspended cost-cutting measures that have slowed deliveries in recent weeks.

Democrats, who accuse Trump of trying to discourage mail-in balloting to gain an electoral advantage over Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, cast themselves as defenders of a public that relies on the Postal Service for vital deliveries, including prescription drugs.

“The American people do not want anyone messing with the Post Office. They certainly do not want it to be politicized. They just want their mail, they want their medicines and they want their mail-in ballots delivered in a timely way. And that is exactly what our bill does,” said Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney, who authored the legislation.

Maloney also released a Postal Service document showing an 8% slowdown in the processing of first class mail, most of it occurring after DeJoy became postmaster in June.

Republican leaders denied that the Postal Service was in any danger and criticized Democrats for moving legislation forward before DeJoy could testify at a House hearing slated for Monday.

“This is the result of a legislative process only slightly less absurd than the conspiracies, insinuations and fabrications that gave rise to the purported need for it,” said Republican Representative James Comer.

The 26 Republicans who supported the measure represented more than one in 10 House Republican members. Another 23 Republicans did not vote.

As lawmakers prepared to vote, Trump took to Twitter to accuse Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of seeking unnecessary funding for the Postal Service and trying to pull off a “Universal Mail-In Ballot Scam.”

“Vote NO to the Pelosi/Schumer money wasting HOAX which is taking place now,” the president wrote.

DeJoy told a Senate committee on Friday that the Postal Service would deliver ballots “securely and on time” in the November election but said bigger changes could come after that.

In fact, the House bill would prevent DeJoy from taking any action that would impede service until after next January or the end of the coronavirus health emergency, whichever comes later.

“Our legislation is not just about the election. It’s about – surprise, surprise, Mr. Postmaster General – the coronavirus!” Pelosi told a news conference.

Pelosi insisted that congressional action is necessary, calling DeJoy’s assurances ambiguous and unsatisfactory. “His comments are one thing. His actions will be another. And that’s why we have this legislation,” she said.

She said Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting were part of a larger effort to suppress voting that also includes his recent call for law enforcement officers to monitor voting at polling places.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Alistair Bell, Aurora Ellis and Daniel Wallis)

As White House pushes ‘skinny’ COVID-19 bill, Democrat sees September action

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Wednesday pushed for Congress to take up a narrow coronavirus economic relief bill that Democrats have long rejected, while a leading Senate Democrat said real action may come soon after the Sept. 7 U.S. Labor Day holiday.

With the breakdown of talks between the White House and top congressional Democrats now in its 12th day, Senate Republicans are floating a “skinny” version of the $1 trillion bill proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for a possible vote in the Republican-led chamber.

That bill ran into immediate opposition from both Democrats and McConnell’s own Republicans when he unveiled it late last month.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows called on Democrats to use Saturday’s vote on U.S. Postal Service legislation in the House of Representatives as a vehicle for coronavirus relief including stimulus checks for individuals and funding for personal protective equipment and schools.

“I think the outlook for a skinny deal is better than it’s ever been and yet we are still not there,” Meadows told reporters. “If Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi moves forward a single bill on postal … let’s add in the things we can agree upon.”

But leading Democrats have flatly rejected White House and Republican calls for narrow legislation, saying Americans need broad legislation and accusing Republicans of failing to grasp the severity of the crisis.

House Democratic leaders are resisting calls by some centrist Democrats, including Representative Derek Kilmer, to hold a separate vote Saturday on extending federal unemployment benefits.

“Saturday focus is postal,” a senior Democratic aide said, adding that there’s “still more consensus building in (the) caucus to be done.”

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said that he does not expect the White House to get serious about negotiations until after next week’s Republican presidential election convention, where he expects Republicans to tout President Donald Trump’s executive orders on coronavirus relief.

“Once we get out of the Republican convention, the week before Labor Day, you’re going to see serious negotiations restart. And that means we could do something possibly right after Labor Day, when we return,” Kaine said in an online interview with Politico.

The Senate is due to return from recess on Sept. 8 and the House on Sept. 14.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Susan Cornwell, additional reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)

Pelosi: Democrats willing to cut COVID-19 bill in half to get a deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday that Democrats in Congress are willing to cut their coronavirus relief bill in half to get an agreement on new legislation with the White House and Republicans.

“We have to try to come to that agreement now,” Pelosi said in an online interview with Politico. “We’re willing to cut our bill in half to meet the needs right now. We’ll take it up again in January. We’ll see them again in January. But for now, we can cut the bill in half.”

But her remarks did not signal a new position for Democrats, according to a senior aide.

The Democratic-led House passed legislation with over $3 trillion in relief in May. This month, Democrats offered to reduce that sum by $1 trillion, but the White House rejected it.

The two sides remain about $2 trillion apart, with wide gaps on funding for schools, aid to state and local governments, and enhanced unemployment benefits.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Chris Reese and Chizu Nomiyama)

Kudlow sees single-digit unemployment in August, ‘V’ recovery

(Reuters) – White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Thursday said he expects the U.S. unemployment rate to return to single-digit levels as early as this month and growth in the third quarter should be 20% or more as the economy recovers from the recession triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

“The key point that I would make is the economy is rebounding, it looks like a V-shaped recovery and the recent news now is even better than it was a month ago,” Kudlow said in a virtual appearance at a conference hosted by the Council of the Americas.

(Reporting By Jonnelle Marte and Dan Burns; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

White House, Democrats show no sign of budging on U.S. coronavirus aid

By Susan Cornwell and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A breakdown in talks between the White House and top Democrats in Congress over how to help tens of millions of Americans suffering in the coronavirus pandemic entered a fifth day on Wednesday, with neither side ready to resume negotiations.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said there may be no deal to reach with House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, with more than 5.16 million COVID-19 cases in the United States.

Pelosi described the two sides as “miles apart” with a “chasm” between them.

The global pandemic has taken a particularly heavy toll on the United States, where it has killed more than 164,000 people, more than any other country, and made tens of millions of workers jobless, who have now seen a further hit after $600 per week in additional federal unemployment benefits expired last month.

Congress has already approved about $3 trillion in assistance for families, hospitals, healthcare workers, state and local governments, vaccine research and testing.

Talks on a new package broke down last Friday after Democrats offered to reduce their demand for more than $3 trillion in additional aid by about $1 trillion, if the White House agreed to come up by a similar amount from an initial $1 trillion Republican proposal.

Sticking points include the size of an extended unemployment benefit, aid to state and local governments, money for schools to reopen and other issues.

Asked if deal was still possible, Mnuchin told Fox Business Network: “I can’t speculate. If the Democrats are willing to be reasonable, there’s a compromise. If the Democrats are focused on politics and don’t want to do anything that’s going to succeed for the president, there won’t be a deal.”

But Pelosi reiterated Democratic calls for the White House to “meet in the middle.”

“Until they’re ready to do that, it’s no use sitting in a room and letting them tell us that states should go bankrupt,” she told MSNBC. “As a practical matter, they’re going to have to come to the table.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who did not join any of the negotiating sessions, blamed Pelosi and Schumer for the ongoing impasse.

“Republicans wanted to reach agreement on all these issues where we could find common ground and fight over the last few issues later.” McConnell said on the Senate floor.

“But the speaker and the Democratic leader say nothing can move unless very one of these unrelated far-left items tags along.”

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found that Americans divide blame pretty evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell and Susan Heavey; Writing by David Morgan; Editing by Toby Chopra, Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)

Democrats offer to cut $1 trillion from coronavirus plan, White House says no

By Richard Cowan and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats in Congress said on Friday they had offered to reduce a proposed coronavirus aid package by a trillion dollars if Republicans would add a trillion to their counter-offer, but the idea was flatly rejected by Donald Trump’s White House.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi disclosed the offer as she and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer prepared to meet White House negotiators again on Friday afternoon.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, one of the White House negotiators, rejected Pelosi’s proposal out of hand, telling reporters, “that’s a non-starter.”

After nearly two weeks of talks that have failed to make substantial progress, the Republican president has threatened to pull his negotiators out and instead issue executive orders to address the human and economic toll of a crisis that has killed more than 160,000 Americans and thrown tens of millions of people out of work.

It was unclear how much any president could do by executive order. At a news conference, Schumer said the president could not order any new money spent – as that is the power of Congress – but could only defer costs until they were eventually paid.

Democrats have advocated for a $3 trillion-plus economic aid program, while leading Republicans have proposed about a third of that.

“Yesterday I offered to them, we’ll take down a trillion if you add a trillion in,” Pelosi said. “They said absolutely not.”

She said she would make the offer again at an afternoon negotiating session with Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. “We’ve got a responsibility to find common ground,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi said the proposed $1 trillion cut in Democrats’ plan would mean the aid would run out sooner.

Schumer said the White House would have to compromise with Democrats, because they need Democratic votes to get anything passed by Congress. “They can’t just say no,” he said.

“Their other choice is to do some weak insufficient executive orders that wont do the job for the people we want to help,” Schumer said.

Pelosi said Democrats want the biggest possible number for reviving an expired federal payment to the unemployed that had been $600 a week. Renewing that benefit has been a leading Democratic demand.

The White House at one point suggested $400 a week in federal benefits for the unemployed, but Democrats rejected it and have refused to do a separate deal on that, saying they wanted a comprehensive package that also included money for state and local government and other matters.

Congress passed more than $3 trillion in relief legislation early in the pandemic. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said a new boost is needed to help the U.S. economy, but some of his fellow Republicans oppose doing anything more.

Pelosi and Schumer have pushed for a comprehensive package of assistance for the unemployed, the poor, hospitals, schools, and state and local governments.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Lisa Lambert and David Morgan; Writing by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)

Trump executive order to boost U.S. drug manufacturing: Navarro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday will sign an executive order aimed at boosting American drug manufacturing and lowering drug prices, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said as the administration continues to grapple with the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The order, first reported by USA Today, “establishes Buy American rules for government agencies, strips away regulatory barriers to domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing, and catalyzes the Advanced Manufacturing technologies needed to keep drug prices low,” Navarro tweeted.

It will allow the Department of Health and Human Services to use a 1950 law to procure certain “essential” medicines and other equipment from U.S. companies, although it does not list specific products, USA Today reported, citing the White House.

The order also directs the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to give priority status to U.S. drug ingredient manufacturers during their regulatory review process, and addresses counterfeit medicines sold by third-party sellers, according to the report.

So far, more than 157,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19 – about 1,000 each day – with 4.8 million known COVID-19 cases.

Trump is expected to sign the order later on Thursday, USA Today said. The Republican president is scheduled to travel to Ohio to visit a Whirlpool manufacturing plant and hold a fundraiser for his re-election campaign before traveling to his New Jersey golf resort for the weekend, according to the White House.

Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Stacey Abrams warns not to expect a U.S. presidential winner on Election Night

By Alessandra Galloni

(Reuters) – Voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams warned Americans on Tuesday not to expect to learn the winner of the White House on Election Night Nov. 3, as problems delivering and counting an expected flood of mail-in ballots prompted by the coronavirus pandemic could delay the result and draw a flurry of legal challenges.

“The sheer volume of people who will be voting by mail is going to preclude the ability to count those ballots and adjudicate the outcome of the election by 11 p.m. on Election Night,” Abrams, a Democrat and former leader in Georgia’s state legislature, said in a virtual Reuters Newsmaker event.

The public health crisis has drawn litigation in dozens of states from both major parties. Democrats and voting rights groups have pushed voting by mail as a safer option to cast ballots during the pandemic, while President Donald Trump and his allies have proclaimed without evidence that expanded voting by mail will lead to widespread fraud.

Abrams, once considered a possible running mate for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, said cuts in Postal Service overtime imposed by Louis DeJoy, a new Trump-appointed postmaster general, may cause delays in service as voting by mail ramps up.

“And so my admonition is that we have to approach Nov. 3 with patience,” Abrams said.

A Postal Service spokesman said last week the agency was taking steps to increase operational efficiency and ensure prompt and reliable service.

Several primaries this year experienced long delays in counting and naming winners because of the mail-in ballots. Ballots from New York’s June 23 primary are still being counted in some undecided races, including a congressional contest.

Abrams said states hurt by the economic collapse lack the resources to handle a deluge of mail-in ballots, and are going to need to determine whose ballot should be questioned and who needs to provide additional information.

“But we also can’t ignore that the president has put in place a postmaster general who is slowing down the essential delivery of mail… We know that’s going to lead to a number of legal challenges,” Abrams said.

Abrams, 46, gained national prominence after narrowly losing her 2018 bid in Georgia to become the country’s first Black female governor. She accused Republican opponent Brian Kemp of voter suppression after he refused to resign as the state’s top elections officer while campaigning for governor.

Abrams, who later formed a voting rights group, Fair Fight, called on Trump and other Republicans to fund more than $3 billion in assistance to state election officials in the coronavirus relief bill being negotiated in the U.S. Senate.

Trump, who trails Biden in opinion polls, has raised a series of questions about the integrity of the election. Last week he suggested delaying the election due to the likelihood of fraud, though he does not have the authority to do so.

‘VOTER SUPPRESSION’ THE ISSUE

Election experts say voter fraud of any kind, including incidents related to mail-in ballots, is extremely rare.

“Voter fraud is not the issue. Voter suppression is the issue,” Abrams said.

She said the election funding would help state officials deal with an expected crush of mail-in ballots, as well as provide adequate polling sites for in-person Election Day voting to resolve some of the problems seen in recent primaries in Wisconsin, Georgia and elsewhere.

“The United States knows how to run elections, we just have to agree to do it properly,” she said. “Our bottom line is we have to have a full toolbox of methods of voting.”

Asked whether she had been interviewed by the Biden campaign as a potential running mate, Abrams declined to comment, referring questions on the process to the campaign. But she said she feels qualified for the job and would serve if Biden asked.

Her chances at the spot have faded in recent months as other candidates emerged as more likely selections, according to conversations with Democratic officials and Biden allies. Biden is expected to announce his running mate next week, ahead of the Democratic National Convention.

Abrams said Black voters were motivated to defeat Trump in November. They became a focus in the campaign after the racial and social justice protests in American streets sparked by the death of George Floyd, a Black man, under the knee of a white police officer.

The first dip in Black voter turnout in 20 years contributed to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s upset loss to Trump four years ago.

“Even if people don’t necessarily feel enthusiastic about the person that is Joe Biden, they are enthusiastic about the policies that are Joe Biden, and that’s what I think is going to matter in November,” Abrams said.

(Reporting by Alessandra Galloni, Joseph Ax and Colleen Jenkins; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Howard Goller)