This time, they said all the right things afterward. “Significant progress,” McConnell told reporters.
“I’ll just say it was a good meeting,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“There’s a kind of gravitational pull here in Congress, where unless we are careful any major negotiation can easily slide into an unending catalogue of disagreements,” McConnell said as he opened the Senate Saturday morning.
As the 116th Congress comes to close, its leaders remain at an impasse on both legislative negotiations and how to interact. They suffer from a major trust deficit that has often left them unable to talk with one another.
With all four just reelected to two-year terms atop their caucuses, President-elect Joe Biden will soon inherit this dysfunctional “four corners” of Congress, as the leaders often refer to themselves.
Biden has talked about a “time to heal,” both around the nation and on Capitol Hill. The 36-year veteran of the Senate believes that he can bring the two parties together in ways that reflect a previous era.
But as negotiations the past two weeks demonstrate, these leaders need serious help to bridge the deep chasm.
“A values deficit, you might call it,” Pelosi said Friday evening, blaming Republicans for a lack of concern about suffering Americans.
A successful negotiation over the next few days could provide something to build upon. But there are so many issues that Biden, if he wants to have any success on Capitol Hill, will have to perform a political version of group therapy.
Since the two huddles Tuesday, one in the afternoon and one that night, the four leaders have only spoken by phone without any other meetings.
At least this get-together went better than their last gathering in March.
After that unusual Sunday morning huddle, McConnell accused Pelosi — who had been back in California — of blowing up an emerging bipartisan deal among senators that he had kick-started a week earlier.
“All of a sudden, the Democratic leader and the speaker of the House shows up. And we’re back to square one. So we’re fiddling here. Fiddling with the emotions of the American people, fiddling with the markets, fiddling with our health care,” McConnell said in a Senate floor speech March 22.
Instead, Schumer picked up the reins and negotiated the final, biggest details with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for the Cares Act, a very popular pandemic relief bill that came as part of four bills passed in March and April that funneled nearly $3 trillion into the economy.
Despite public squabbling, those bills passed with almost no opposition. But congressional leaders have deadlocked on the next relief effort, even as the nation sinks deeper into a health and economic crisis.
Democrats blame McConnell, who despite a previous reputation as a dealmaker has frequently stepped back the past two years, allowing Mnuchin to serve as lead negotiator on everything from the coronavirus response to budget and trade deals.
After Mnuchin’s early pandemic deals sparked fury from Senate conservatives, McConnell took the lead in early May. But once conservatives balked at his initial $1 trillion proposal, McConnell again retreated and allowed Mnuchin to deal with Pelosi and Schumer.
Democrats complain McConnell’s negotiating style, hardly ever speaking, leaves others unclear where he truly stands on an issue.
At one point Tuesday, as Mnuchin joined the four leaders over speakerphone, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) complained that Pelosi and Schumer did 90 percent of the talking, according to a Democrat familiar with the discussion, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
“Well, you know Mitch doesn’t speak that often,” Pelosi retorted.
McConnell, who often refuses to bring legislation to the floor if President Trump is adamantly opposed, often explains his deference as a reality check.
“I like to remind everybody that the way you get a result is, you have to have a presidential signature,” McConnell said at a Dec. 1 news conference.
That presidential acquiescence will end Jan. 20 when Biden is sworn in and McConnell becomes the nation’s most powerful Republican, even if Republicans lose both Georgia Senate races next month and he is relegated to minority leader.
With McConnell as his chief obstacle, Biden will need some charm offensive — but not from Pelosi or Schumer.
A couple of decades ago, before ascending to their leadership posts, Pelosi, 80, and McConnell, 78, served as the top House Democrat and top Senate Republican, respectively, on the subcommittees that funded the State Department. By most accounts, they treat each other with a mutual respect when in the same room, but it’s more like the respect bitter sports rivals have for one another.
Pelosi and McCarthy, 55, have an equally toxic relationship, based both on a generational and geographic rivalry. Pelosi treats McCarthy almost dismissively in public, and McCarthy has taken particular glee in touting his party’s pickup of four seats in California this year after Pelosi used gains there in 2018 to win the majority.
Some Democrats hope things will change with Trump out of the White House.
“Hopefully McConnell, knowing now there’s a different executive, will return to being a senator and the Senate takes up its responsibilities,” Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), the incoming chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said Friday.
Other Democrats believe McConnell doesn’t appreciate Trump’s erratic negotiating tactics, so he defers to Mnuchin to protect his own internal caucus politics.
“I don’t think Mnuchin makes any final deal without checking in with McConnell,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Friday.
The longest serving Senate GOP leader in history, McConnell has earned implicit trust from most corners of his conference.
“Leader McConnell’s been around for a long while, he knows the challenges in negotiating, not only within his own conference, but with Senator Schumer and with the house and with the White House,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who worked with a bipartisan centrist group to target $900 billion as the top-line figure.
Despite moderates reaching that figure a few weeks ago, the “four corners” had to give final sign-off on any deal — and as he left the Senate Friday night, McConnell still expressed a mix of optimism and frustration.
They were close to a deal — but that those final steps are the toughest part of any deal.
“You know, we’ve been close for a while now. And we still are,” he told reporters.
