Mitch McConnell you clown!

Bill Palmer | 9:02 pm EDT March 14, 2020

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Last night the House overwhelmingly passed bipartisan emergency coronavirus response legislation, which Donald Trump has already publicly signed off on. Now all that’s needed is for the Republican Senate to hold a vote of its own, and the response can get underway. Trouble is, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent the Senate home for the weekend.

We were hoping that McConnell might change his mind this morning and recall the Senate so the vote can be held as quickly as possible. But that didn’t happen, and now it looks like we really are going to have to wait until Monday for this legislation to be officially enacted and for relief measures to get underway.

Democratic Senators were sufficiently outraged at Mitch McConnell’s clownery:

McConnell needs to call the Senate back into session this weekend for a vote on paid sick leave.

Millions of workers, who have symptoms or kids whose schools have closed, do not know if they will get paid if they stay home on Monday.

Why is McConnell leaving them in limbo?

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) March 14, 2020

It’s Saturday morning. There is a bill that will provide relief for people with COVID 19 that the House passed and the POTUS will sign. But Leader McConnell has us out of session from Thursday evening until Monday evening. Time is of the essence. Let’s get this done now.

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) March 14, 2020

Bill Palmer

Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report