Official White House Photo by Joyce N. BoghosianBy LIBBY CATHEY, ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — House lawmakers are returning to Washington Wednesday amid a highly contagious pandemic to vote tomorrow on the Senate-passed $484 billion interim relief package that replenishes a small business loan program and also boosts funding to hospitals and testing, as Democrats demanded.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi touted that success in an interview Wednesday morning, and in a moment self-reflection, said she probably should be speaking out more strongly with President Donald Trump moving forward.
“We must start to insist on the truth with the president. This is what, the conclusion I came to on Easter Sunday. I was saying, other people are being political, they are not speaking out strongly enough. And then I realized, maybe I’m not either,” Pelosi told MSNBC.
“I don’t want to be political, we want to do this in a unified way, every bill bipartisan. But the fact is, if the president refuses to accept evidence, data, truth and the rest, we must insist on the truth because that is the path,” she said.
She suggested the president doesn’t want to be truthful about testing because “he doesn’t want to know the numbers, probably.”
As more states move ahead with plans to partly reopen their economies, Trump entered Wednesday facing questions around whether they were doing enough testing following an Oval Office meeting with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo who said he pressed him to have the federal government help states do more.
States are safely coming back. Our Country is starting to OPEN FOR BUSINESS again. Special care is, and always will be, given to our beloved seniors (except me!). Their lives will be better than ever…WE LOVE YOU ALL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 22, 2020
“You know, not everybody wants to do such significant testing. Testing is good in some cases — and in some cases it’s not. You have governors who don’t want to go all out on the testing because they think they can do it in a different manner and do it better,” the president said at Tuesday’s White House briefing.
But Trump also said he would speak to Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp after the briefing to ask him whether people entering businesses being allowed to reopen, such as nail salons, would be tested, after Kemp said the state’s bowling alleys, tattoo parlors and barber shops could reopen on Friday.
“Are they doing testing before they go in? We have to find that out. That’s why — I’m speaking to the governor in a little while, and I’ll be asking him those questions.”
He also said he would sign an executive order “today” to temporarily “pause” immigration for 60 days for those seeking green cards.
Here are the latest developments in the government response:
Trump tweets he’ll sign immigration order today, backs away from broad ban to target green card holders
President Trump tweeted this morning to confirm that he intends to sign his promised executive order to “pause” green card applications for 60 days.
I will be signing my Executive Order prohibiting immigration into our Country today. In the meantime, even without this order, our Southern Border, aided substantially by the 170 miles of new Border Wall & 27,000 Mexican soldiers, is very tight – including for human trafficking!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 22, 2020
Trump said that in addition to the new order, which appears to fall far short of the total ban he at first teased, security at the southern border “is very tight.”
Security at the southern border, which aims to prevent undocumented immigration, and green card applications are two distinct issues — but as Trump looks to make the connection, it demonstrates that the president is politically eager to tie immigration to the ongoing pandemic.
Though it was not mentioned in the tweet, Trump said at Tuesday’s briefing that the order would not apply to farmers.
The Trump administration also barred asylum seekers from the U.S. last month, citing a drain on the country’s medical resources.
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