The sticking point on coronavirus relief legislation continues to be with liability protection because Democrats do now want to provide that assistance for the nation's businesses, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday.
"There are more than a thousand suits out there," the California Republican said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "We have 100,000 restaurants already closed for good. These small businesses are barely hanging on. They cannot get sued into the future. We want to make sure that protection stays."
McCarthy added that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is still saying no to what's being done with concessions on liability, stimulus checks, and state and local funding, but one must remember that she has said for the past four months that "doing nothing is better than doing something."
"I think she is the only person in America who believes that," said McCarthy, adding that there are several Democrats who are willing to vote on the proposed $908 billion bipartisan relief bill.
He described the measure as one that helps the most and will be most likely signed by President Donald Trump.
But, he added that now is not the time to blame anyone, but to "simply do the job."
"Do you realize there's more than $100 billion sitting there for states that is already appropriated, $100 billion sitting there for small business to pay their workers and it's just been sitting for the last three months, and 40 times we have gone to the floor to release that," McCarthy said. "The election is over. Nancy Pelosi finally admitted that she held it up for that cause. Let's make sure that we put people before politics, and I believe just like Winston Churchill said, you can count on Americans to do the right thing after they exhausted everything else. I think we're at that point."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.