Politicians continue careful dance on stimulus

WASHINGTON—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met again on Tuesday over the phone to try to reach a deal on a COVID-19 relief package. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would bring any bill arising from those talks to a vote.

But will a deal actually happen? Pelosi had called Tuesday a “deadline” for negotiations, but she clarified that did not mean producing a final proposal. “Let’s see where we are,” she said. “We all want to get an agreement.” She and Mnuchin continued to haggle over funding for schools and vaccines. White House deputy communications director Brian Morgenstern told Fox News that President Donald Trump raised his offer to a $1.88 trillion package. “I want to do [a deal] even bigger than the Democrats,” Trump said Tuesday. “Not every Republican agrees, but they will.”

Dig deeper: Read Katie Gaultney’s report on the people working to make a COVID-19 vaccine happen.