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THE BIG DEAL—Democratic leaders report ‘some progress’ in stimulus talks with White House: Democratic leaders announced slow progress with White House negotiators Monday after meeting for nearly two hours in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office on Capitol Hill.
- At this rate, no deal is expected before the end of the week, even after millions of unemployed Americans saw the $600-a-week federal boost to state unemployment benefits expire last week.
- Pelosi told reporters Monday that negotiators are still trying to map out possible common ground, while Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) said he thinks an agreement is still possible.
“It was productive. We’re moving down the track, but we still have our differences. We are trying to have a clearer understanding of what the needs are,” Pelosi said after meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
“The needs are that millions of children in our country are food insecure. Millions of people in our country are concerned about being evicted,” she added. “The way we can correct so much of that is for us to defeat the virus. Much of our discussion has to be on how we defeat the virus, and that takes dollars and policy.”
The Hill’s Alexander Bolton explains here.
The prognosis: Asked if a deal might emerge in the next 48 hours, both Democratic leaders remained silent. Staffs on both sides plan to work late into Monday evening.
What’s on the table:
- The Democratic relief proposal would increase the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s maximum benefit by 15 percent. It would also provide a new 12-month moratorium on evictions for renters who do not pay.
- The proposal from the White House and Senate GOP does not include an increase in food stamp benefits or an eviction moratorium, but it does provide $105 billion to help colleges and schools resume classes in the fall. More money in the proposal would go to schools that resume in-person classes.
LEADING THE DAY
Prosecutors hint at probe into ‘possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization’ The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday hinted that its subpoena for President Trump’s tax returns is part of an investigation into potential fraud allegations detailed in media reports in recent years.
In response to the latest legal challenge by Trump’s attorneys, New York County prosecutors said that news reports about the president’s financial history provide sufficient justification for requesting the extensive amount of information from the accounting firm Mazars in their grand jury investigation.
The Hill’s Harper Neidig breaks it down here.
What prosecutors are eyeing:
- A footnote in the court filing listed three media stories published in 2018 and 2019 about the president’s financial history. One of them, a Washington Post story published last year, reported that Trump had inflated his net worth to potential lenders and investors.
- Prosecutors also cited a 2018 New York Times investigation that found Trump had employed “dubious tax schemes” that included “outright fraud” while managing the Trump Organization, which he still owns, in the 1990s.
- A third story, from The Wall Street Journal, details former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s allegations that the president directed him to pay hush money to two women who claim to have had affairs with the president. Those allegations had been previously cited by the prosecutor’s office in issuing the subpoena.
Trump backs potential Microsoft, TikTok deal, sets September deadline: President Trump said Monday that social media platform TikTok must end its U.S. operations on Sept. 15 if a pending deal with Microsoft to buy the company from Chinese group ByteDance does not go through.
“We set a date — I set a date of around Sept. 15, at which point it’s going to be out of business in the United States,” Trump told reporters. “But if somebody, and whether it’s Microsoft or somebody else, buys it, that will be interesting.”
Trump noted that he approved of Microsoft buying TikTok. Microsoft confirmed Sunday that it had spoken to Trump and was in talks to buy TikTok from ByteDance, a Beijing-based company that is currently under investigation by the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
“I don’t mind whether it’s Microsoft or somebody else — a big company, a secure company, a very American company — buys it,” Trump said Monday. “It’s probably easier to buy the whole thing than to buy 30 percent of it.”
The Hill’s Maggie Miller has more here.
GOOD TO KNOW
- The government should again impose strict coronavirus-related lockdowns for a month or longer across the U.S. in order to boost the economy, a top Federal Reserve official said Sunday.
- Stephen Moore, a member of the White House’s economic recovery task force, is urging President Trump to direct the IRS to suspend collecting payroll taxes, arguing that doing so would help the middle class and benefit the president politically.
- Five takeaways from Big Tech’s blowout earnings
ODDS AND ENDS
- Tailored Brands, the company that owns Men’s Wearhouse, has joined a growing list of retailers filing for bankruptcy protection amid the coronavirus pandemic.