Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday described the GOP stimulus proposal as “a starting place,” acknowledging that Democrats will be needed to get anything to the President’s desk.
“Every bill has to start somewhere. Republicans are in the majority in the Senate. This is a starting place. You’ll have plenty of stories to cover along the way as we have these discussions back and forth across party lines and with the administration,” he said at a briefing Monday following the roll out of the proposal.
Asked by a reporter why there is no money in the bill for election assistance, McConnell responded, "We’ve already appropriated an awful lot of money for election assistance. What we're not going to do is federalize the American election system, which is basically conducted in every single state in very different ways. We provided plenty of financial assistance, but we're not going to tell them how to conduct their elections during the pandemic or in my view in the future either. That’s why there’s not additional money in there for election assistance."
McConnell was asked about how the bill text includes $1.75 billion for the design and construction of a Washington, DC, headquarters facility for the FBI, and if it is possible that there could be a $2 billion provision included that he didn’t know about.
The majority leader would not say if he supported its inclusion and instead said the administration insisted on that element.
“Well, in regard to that proposal, obviously we had to have an agreement with the administration in order get started. And they will have to answer the question as to why they insisted on that,” McConnell said.
Asked if he supports it being in there, he said, “You’ll have to ask them why they insisted that be included.”
McConnell was first asked why the money for the FBI headquarters was in the bill.
He responded. “I’m not sure it is.”
An appropriations aide to McConnell then interjected and explained off camera to everyone in the room: “There’s a limitation to honing specifically to Covid-related matters, so we’ll get more information for you.”