'All he wants is his name on a check': Nancy Pelosi says Democrats are holding out for a bigger stimulus agreement from Trump

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats were holding out for a larger relief package from Republicans opposed to larger spending.
• "We have to meet their needs, not give the president a chance to just say, 'I'm going to put my name on a check, send it out, and don't talk to me about food, rent, first responders, healthcare workers, the virus, or anything else,'" Pelosi said in a New York Times podcast interview published Monday.
• President Donald Trump last week prodded Republicans to back a larger stimulus package with direct payments, but Republican senators doubled down on their opposition.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats were holding out for a larger stimulus deal from President Donald Trump, who recently prodded Republicans to back a larger package that includes a second round of direct payments.

In an interview published Monday on the "Sway" podcast hosted by the New York Times opinion writer Kara Swisher, the California Democrat blasted the GOP's opposition to substantial federal spending, charging that Trump is interested only in printing his name on stimulus checks.

"We have to meet their needs, not give the president a chance to just say, 'I'm going to put my name on a check, send it out, and don't talk to me about food, rent, first responders, healthcare workers, the virus, or anything else,'" Pelosi said. "That's all he wants is his name on a check that goes out."

Pelosi dismissed the $1.5 trillion compromise that a group of bipartisan House lawmakers unveiled early last week, and she urged trillions of dollars in additional spending to address the pandemic.

"Fourteen million children in America are food-insecure, and their families as well," Pelosi said. Millions of those families are on the verge of eviction.

"None of that is covered in what the Republicans have put forth," she said. "The virus needs to be crushed."

Read more: Morgan Stanley says the stock market's future is 'unusually dependent' on another stimulus package — and recommends 5 portfolio moves to make if Congress passes another round

Trump last week called on Republicans to pass a larger spending package. He praised the $1.5 trillion plan, which included another round of direct payments, boosted unemployment benefits, and small-business aid.

"I want to see people get money," the president said at a White House press conference on Wednesday.

But Republican lawmakers doubled down on their resistance to increasing the size of their spending proposals.

"This used to be the White House versus Pelosi up until about now — now the president's coming in and saying we can maybe go to $1.5 trillion," Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate's finance committee, told Bloomberg on Thursday. "He better be careful of that, because I don't think that will get through the United States Senate."

Negotiations on coronavirus relief between Democrats and the White House have been stalled since early August. Both sides fiercely disagree on the level of spending needed to keep the US economy afloat and on which priorities to pursue.

Many economists have urged lawmakers to approve more spending to confront the economic fallout of the pandemic, which threatens to deepen the pain for nearly 29 million Americans still receiving some form of unemployment benefits.

The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday may scramble Congress's legislative agenda before the election, as a battle to confirm a replacement is likely to be fierce.

Lawmakers still must approve spending bills to keep the government funded past the end of the fiscal year on October 1. But Pelosi told ABC News on Sunday that she intended to keep that separate from the nomination showdown.