Welcome to Monday, August 3rd, pups and dogs...

A COVID relief bill remains up in the air as negotiations resume.

On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) hosted coronavirus relief negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in attendance.

Attendees of the 3+ hour meeting told reporters that while they’re still far apart on a number of key issues, they made progress during their talks.

Lawmakers are trying to negotiate a compromise relief package to support the economic and healthcare recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Negotiations are set to continue throughout Monday.

Talks regarding the “phase 4” package have accelerated with the expiration of the $600 per week enhanced federal unemployment benefit on July 31. But lawmakers still need to bridge the gap between the $3 trillion HEROES Act put forward by Democrats and the $1 trillion HEALS Act favored by Republicans.

Do you want Congress to reach a compromise on a new coronavirus relief bill?

On the Radar

Trump Suggests Delaying Election ‘Until People Can Properly, Securely and Safely Vote’ 

President Donald Trump suggested delaying November's presidential election, citing concerns about mail-in voting.

"With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???"

Trump has continued to claim, without evidence, that mail-in voting will lead to massive voter fraud. In May, Twitter fact-checked two of President Trump's unsubstantiated tweets that mail-in ballots in the 2020 election would lead to widespread voter fraud.

Late last month, Trump refused to say whether he would accept the results of November's election if he loses to Joe Biden, telling "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace:

"I have to see. I'm not just going to say yes. I'm not going to say no."

A record number of Americans are expected to rely on mail-in voting this November to avoid the risk of exposure to the coronavirus. 

Would you support delaying the 2020 election over voter fraud concerns?

Under the Radar

Obama Calls for Elimination of the Filibuster as a ‘Jim Crow Relic’

At a funeral service for the late Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), former President Barack Obama called for the elimination of the legislative filibuster, adding high profile support for the use of the “nuclear option” to end the Senate’s 60 vote threshold for legislation if former Vice President Joe Biden wins the White House and Democrats retake the Senate.

In his eulogy, Obama called the filibuster a “Jim Crow relic” that should be eliminated to allow for the passage of voting rights legislation named after Lewis, making Election Day a national holiday, and statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico:

“And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster, another Jim Crow relic, in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do.”

Obama’s statement is a reversal from his past support for the Senate’s legislative filibuster (aka the cloture motion), which has historically been used both to block and advance civil rights legislation in the Senate. The Senate’s most recent legislative filibuster was Senate Democrats successfully blocking debate and amendment votes on Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) police reform bill, the JUSTICE Act.

Should the Senate abolish the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster?

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And, in the End...

On this date in 1936, Jesse Owens won the first of his four Olympic gold medals:

Give a gold medal to our four-legged friends today, too—it's Assistance Dog Day,

—Josh Herman

Talk to us via email at contact [at] countable.us. And don’t forget to keep in touch @Countable.