(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said talks on providing additional fiscal stimulus are now “starting to work out,” after he pulled his side out of negotiations earlier this week.
“I think we have a really good chance of doing something,” Trump said Thursday morning in a live interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business. There are now “very productive talks” on coronavirus relief, he said.
Months of hard-fought negotiations on a stimulus package to shore up a slowing economic recovery came to an abrupt end Tuesday, when Trump pulled his team out of the talks. He then called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to send him standalone assistance bills, including for airlines and individual stimulus checks.
Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held phone calls Wednesday on potential aid for the airline industry, but the speaker’s receptiveness didn’t appear to extend to other elements of what was to have been a comprehensive relief package.
Pelosi on Wednesday rejected pressure from Trump to green-light a bill authorizing $1,200 individual stimulus checks, saying that was insufficient to address the Covid-19 challenge.
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Trump claimed Thursday morning that those checks, and other measures, are on the table, however.
“We started talking again. And we’re talking about airlines and we’re talking about a bigger deal than airlines,” Trump said. “We’re talking about a deal with $1,200 per person, we’re talking about other things.”
Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill tweeted Wednesday that the speaker and Mnuchin agreed to talk again Thursday.
(Adds Trump comment in second paragraph and context throughout.)
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