President Donald Trump said yesterday that he may take executive action to impose a moratorium on evictions and to enact a payroll tax holiday, with talks on a new virus-relief plan making slow progress in Congress, Bloomberg News reported. The White House is also exploring whether the president can act on his own to extend enhanced unemployment insurance payments that, like an eviction moratorium, were part of stimulus legislation enacted in March but now have expired. Later, Trump told reporters that he’s discussing suspending payroll taxes through an executive action. Trump spoke while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, met at the Capitol with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. Both sides said after the two-hour meeting that they made some progress, and would convene again on today. “It was productive, we are moving down the track,” Pelosi said, adding that “we still have our differences.” The two sides are trying to close the gap between the $3.5 trillion Democratic plan passed by the House in May and the $1 trillion package of aid that Senate Republicans introduced last week.
