White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said yesterday that he is not optimistic about reaching a new coronavirus relief deal before the end of September, predicting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will use the government funding cliff at the end of next month as leverage to strike a deal on pandemic aid, Politico reported. Meadows said his staff had reached out to Pelosi's office on Tuesday but added that he does not anticipate a response. The White House chief of staff said that lawmakers from both parties have privately expressed to him a desire to make progress on coronavirus relief. The hold up, Meadows said he suspects, is that Pelosi is holding back her party's rank and file in order to secure more Democratic priorities in any legislation. "It's really been Speaker Pelosi really driving this train as a conductor more so than really anybody," Meadows said. "And I think privately she says she wants a deal and publicly she says she wants a deal, but when it comes to dealing with Republicans and the administration, we haven't seen a lot of action." Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told Politico that a member of Meadows' staff texted the speaker's staff to confirm they had the correct number for the chief of staff, but did not mention resuming talks. Meadows also said he would call Pelosi during an interview on ABC News on Sunday, but Hammill said he never did.
