Biden invites 10 GOP senators to White House for coronavirus relief talks

Rebecca Falconer

President Biden will meet with a group of Republican senators who are seeking a bipartisan deal on coronavirus relief, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Sunday evening.

Driving the news: Psaki said that after receiving a letter earlier Sunday from the 10 Republicans, led by Sen. Susan Collins, Biden had spoken with the Maine senator "and invited her and other signers of the letter to come to the White House early this week for a full exchange of views."

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  • Psaki added that "the scale of what must be done is large," with "the virus posing a grave threat to the country, and economic conditions grim for so many."

  • "As leading economists have said, the danger now is not in doing too much: it is in doing too little. Americans of both parties are looking to their leaders to meet the moment," she said.

The big picture: The White House has deployed top officials to get a wide ideological spectrum of lawmakers, governors and mayors on board with the president’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief proposal, per Axios' Hans Nichols.

  • Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), one of the letter's signatories, told Fox News Sunday the Republicans' alternative relief package would cost about $600 billion.

Zoom in: In their letter, the Senate Republicans outlined a plan for $160 billion to go toward testing, vaccines, personal protective equipment and treatments.

  • "In the spirit of bipartisanship and unity, we have developed a COVID-19 relief framework that builds on prior COVID assistance laws, all of which passed with bipartisan support," states the letter, asking to discuss the proposal in greater detail with the president.

"Our proposal reflects many of your stated priorities, and with your support, we believe that this plan could be approved quickly by Congress with bipartisan support."

Read the Republicans' letter in full, via DocumentCloud:

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