Katie Porter: McConnell Is the “Sole Holdout” on Relief Deal

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Are you any closer? Is there actually room for a deal, as Mitch McConnell says, or, as is being said in Washington right now, actually, there’s no closer — that you’re no closer to actually coming to a deal?

REP. KATIE PORTER (D-CA): What’s really important for people to understand is that Democrats and Republicans have a lot of agreement here. The problem is one particular Republican, Senator Mitch McConnell. And, so, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans House Democrats, House Republicans agree on the need to fund small business loans, on the need to support hospitals and essential workers and get help to families who desperately need it. Senator McConnell is the sole holdout.

AMANPOUR: Can we just — just tell us, for clarity, what is actually not on offer, but what you’re trying to bring to the table? It’s a big stimulus bill with COVID relief. How much is involved here, and where would it go to?

PORTER: Well, Democrats and Republicans have agreed on to do about $900 billion in assistance right now. And I think it’s really important that we start to refer to this as what it is, which is survival payments, disaster relief, in light of the COVID situation. This isn’t stimulus in any sense that we think our economy or the American people are suddenly going to be all better. This is really about survival, about dealing with the consequences of the uncontrolled pandemic that we find ourselves in. So, the sticking point here isn’t the number, the dollar figure. I think everybody can agree that we can do some now and some later. The sticking point here is that Mitch McConnell is trying to pass — to change the law, so that corporations could literally kill their employees and face no liability for their reckless actions.

AMANPOUR: Congresswoman, I just want to play a couple of sound bites from some of these people who are very, very afraid of what’s going to happen to them next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The pandemic wasn’t my fault. Being laid off wasn’t my fault. I’m not ashamed that I have to rely on the system that I have paid into for years. It’s just frustrating that it’s not equipped for what we’re dealing with right now.

SHAYLYNN WEBB, FACING EVICTION: It’s just really overwhelming and scary, because we don’t know what’s going to happen in there. They could say we got to move out in a week. And we don’t know.

CLAIRE BABINEAUX-FONTENOT, CEO, FEEDING AMERICA: America is right in the middle of a food crisis, absolutely, no question. And what I want your audience to keep in mind is, for every one of those cars, there are tens of millions of people who don’t make it to that line.