Pelosi hopes to vote on ‘at least part’ of funds

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday it is her “hope” to vote on at “at least part” of the White House’s request for funding to fight COVID-19 this week after the money was stripped from a funding bill last week.

“We’ll have to get it done,” Pelosi said at a press conference during a trip to New York. “It would be my hope that we could bring up a bill this week that would do at least part of that.”

State of play: The government funding package passed last week would have had $15.6 billion to fight the virus. It was not immediately clear how much funding would be in the “part” that Pelosi referred to, but about half of the total was paid for with offsets that drew objections from some House Democrats.

Senate Republicans have insisted that the COVID-19 funding be fully paid for, meaning any bill the House passed that did not meet that standard would likely be unable to pass the Senate.

With Republicans insisting on spending offsets and a group of House Democrats objecting to them for about half of the funds, it is unclear what the path forward is.

The White House says the funds are urgently needed.