Liability protections are top GOP priority in next coronavirus bill, McCarthy says
Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury secretary, from left, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky,U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence listen as President Donald Trump speaks before signing the H.R. 748, Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, March 27, 2020.
Erin Schaff | The New York Times | Getty Images
Republican leaders including Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are set to discuss their priorities for another coronavirus relief bill Tuesday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said.
McCarthy, R-Calif., told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the leaders will be “looking at ways of where we can work together to move forward on what we do need” in a legislative package. That search would start with liability protections for doctors and businesses, McCarthy said.
“Liability protections would be the No. 1 thing I would look at,” McCarthy said. “No bill will pass without it.”
Democrats on Friday night passed a sweeping $3 trillion bill, nearly $1 trillion of which would go toward funding state and local governments. Republicans have condemned the measure as dead on arrival in the GOP-controlled Senate.
But that lengthy bill is merely “another political game being played” by Democrats, McCarthy told CNBC. “Much of that bill was about legislation that Democrats have wished and tried to pass in the House long before Covid ever came around.”
The meeting on the Senate side of the Capitol will take place at 9 a.m. ET, a GOP leadership aide told NBC News. Mnuchin, alongside Fed Chair Jerome Powell, is set to testify before the Senate Banking Committee at 10 a.m.
