Trump calling for hourly updates as talks on coronavirus bill hit impasse

Washington, DC, US: The White House and top Democrats in Congress are not close to a deal to pump more money into the U.S. economy to ease the coronavirus' heavy toll, both sides said on Saturday, August 1, after an essential lifeline for millions of unemployed Americans expired.

"We're still a long ways apart and I don't want to suggest a deal is imminent because it is not," Mnuchin told reporters, adding "there are still substantial differences but we did make good progress." The officials will meet again on Monday, August 3, and their staff will meet on Sunday, Mnuchin said, adding that reaching a deal on the bill was the President Donald Trump's "top priority." "The president is checking in literally on a hourly basis to see how we're progressing," Meadows said.

On Saturday, Trump could be seen playing golf at Trump National Golf Club, his club in the Washington suburbs. The president, along with most of those in his group, did not sport masks for the outing. Congress for the past several months has been unable to reach an accord for a next round of economic relief from a pandemic that has killed more than 150,000 Americans and triggered the sharpest economic collapse since the Great Depression.

In a meeting on August 30 night between top White House officials and congressional Democratic leaders, negotiations focused on an extension of the $600 per week in federal unemployment benefits, which Americans who lost jobs The House in May passed a $3 trillion deal that addressed a wide range of coronavirus responses, including more money for testing, for elections and support to financially strapped state and local governments.