Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) agreed with CNN host Jake Tapper on Monday when he said Democrats, particularly Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), were the ones who continually blocked meaningful COVID-19 relief bills.
"You talked about that 1.8 trillion dollar bill that the White House, Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, was working on with the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Democrats walked away from that bill," Tapper said.
"That's right!" Sanders interjected.
"Because [Democrats] wanted 2.2 trillion and they walked away from 1.8 trillion. Was that a mistake?" Tapper asked.
"That’s what I’m saying! Exactly what I’m saying! Here was a proposal, much, much larger. Democrats said, no, not good enough and now we are prepared to accept a proposal which has, I think, $350 billion in new money and which has, we believe, I believe to the best of my knowledge, corporate immunity language as well. So that is my point here is that I don’t think this is much of a compromise. I think the Republicans have probably gotten 90% of what they want. Our job is to fight and get a 50/50 deal," Sanders said.
Sanders's comments come shortly after Pelosi herself admitted Democrats were the ones to hold up clean COVID relief bills.
"I’m going to tell you something — don’t characterize what we did before as a mistake, as a preface to your question if you want an answer. That was not a mistake, it was a decision, and it’s taken us to a place where we can do the right thing without other, shall we say, considerations in the legislation that we don’t want. Now, that is it. Now the fact is, I'm very proud of where we are," Pelosi said.
She added the reason why they are now willing to take a smaller deal is because of Joe Biden being declared the winner of the presidential election and the promising vaccines that have been produced.