Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Politics

White House, Democrats Apart on Job Aid as Benefits End

  • Three-hour meeting at Capitol on finding a stimulus compromise
  • Democrats oppose stop-gap measure to extend lapsed benefits
Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff, center, and Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury secretary, second left, speak to members of the media as they arrive for a meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 1.

Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff, center, and Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury secretary, second left, speak to members of the media as they arrive for a meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 1.

Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg
Updated on

A top-level meeting on Saturday between Congressional Democrats and Trump administration officials was termed productive but left central questions unanswered on striking a deal to extend unemployment insurance and provide other coronavirus pandemic relief.

“There’s still a lot of work to do” to strike a deal, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters after the three-hour meeting. An impasse continues, he said, on whether to do a short-term extension deal for enhanced unemployment benefits, or push forward to try to nail down a comprehensive deal, as Democrats want.