Haunted by her statement earlier this month that Democrats “weren’t budging” on their demand for more funding in any COVID aid package, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), has missed a deadline allowing thousands of people to lose their jobs.
September 30th, 2020, was the deadline that faced over 50,000 airline workers. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, two of the country’s major carriers, told their employees that massive layoffs would come in October. American plans to downsize by 19,000 jobs and Delta has announced plans to lay off an estimated 2,000 pilots.
In July, United Airlines announced it would furlough around 36,000 employees starting October 1st, 2020, as well.
Pelosi and her negotiating team were cognizant of this deadline.
On Tuesday, Pelosi told MSNBC’s Craig Melvin, “We’re in a negotiation, and hopefully we’ll come to a bipartisan agreement…so that we can put money in the pockets of the American people, so we can stop what’s happening to the airlines. We only have a couple of days before many people will lose their jobs who are employed by airlines. That’s a date certain, September 30th. So, we want to move quickly on this.”
Earlier I the month when the deadline wasn’t looming and jobs in the airline industry weren’t in immediate danger, Pelosi was much more nonchalant about the negotiating process.
“Why should there be a bill that has far less than what the public needs,” Pelosi asked during a weekly press conference, defending a wish list of pork items
Pelosi: "We're not budging. Understand this –"
Reporter: "Then how do you break the impasse?"
Pelosi: "They have to move." pic.twitter.com/qEpGAWPpww
— The Hill (@thehill) August 27, 2020
“They have to move,” Pelosi said when a reporter asked how to break the impasse. “They are just going to have to come up with more money.”
Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke for 50 minutes Tuesday after Democrats released a revised COVID stimulus plan that removed special interest items to the tune of $1.2 trillion.
The White House expressed hope in the conversation between Pelosi and Mnuchin.
