House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview with NPR Wednesday that the chamber would not have unanimous support to approve the Senate’s version of a measure to add $251 billion in funding to a small business loans program established by the $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package last month.
Democrats have called for additional funding for hospitals, state and local governments, and food stamps to be passed alongside the small business loans funding.
“The White House says they don’t support that, but we do,” Pelosi said.
Asked about President Donald Trump’s removal of the inspector general who had been tasked to oversee the implementation of the CARES Act, Pelosi said what Trump is doing “is so very, very wrong.”
“We cannot allow this to happen without a bright light shining on it,” she said of rolling out the aid package.
Pelosi said the committee on the coronavirus crisis that Democrats plan to launch later this month will seek to prevent waste, fraud, abuse, profiteering and price-gouging.
“This is not an offense to the President. It’s about how big money attracts some kind of profiteering and price gouging and the rest,” she added of the committee’s purpose.