Playbook: “Here is a remarkable fact: President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi haven’t spoken in nearly one year. Their last one-on-one conversation was Oct. 16, 2019 — they had a brief interaction at the State of the Union, before Pelosi ripped the president’s speech up. In that time period, the nation has been turned upside down, shaken to the core by an unrelenting virus that has killed more 200,000 and hobbled a once vibrant economy.”
“But through it all, Pelosi and Trump have remained distant, unified only in their distaste for one another.”
“Al of a sudden, though, their incentives are aligned: they both want a massive Covid deal in an unthinkably quick timeframe. This may happen, it may not, but both sides seem to be rowing toward the same goal at the moment. Washington has never negotiated on a package of this magnitude this late into a presidential election year.”
“Trump is unreadable and unplayable for most Washington observers because he, in fact, has no governing theory. But, in recent days, he has apparently decided that it is in his political interest to spend trillions of dollars.”