Pelosi says McConnell and Republican senators have ‘endless tolerance for other people’s sadness’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans blocking $2,000 coronavirus relief payments, which passed by a two-thirds majority vote in the House of Representatives on Monday before the GOP leader flatly rejected legislation on Tuesday.

"Who is holding up that distribution to the American people? Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans," Speaker Pelosi said in her weekly conference on Wednesday. “In blocking it, they are in denial of the hardship that the American people are experiencing now – healthwise, financially and every way. Their lives and livelihoods in many cases are on the brink.”

Speaker Pelosi said she hoped Senate Republicans will "see the light and understand the suffering that is going on in our country."

"It's amazing to see the patience that some people have with other people suffering," she said. "These Republicans in the Senate seem to have an endless tolerance for other people's sadness."

On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer sought to quickly pass the House-approved and Donald Trump-supported boost in direct relief to millions of Americans through unanimous consent, but Senator McConnell shot down the attempt.

He has not announced whether he would schedule a vote on the bill.

More than 20 million Americans are relying on some form of unemployment aid in the economic fallout from the public health crisis.

The number of people in poverty has grown by more than eight million since May, according to the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.

The centre warned that the population of Americans living in poverty was on track to spike by nearly 5 million in January if Congress and the president failed to extend federal assistance programmes recently signed by the president.

More than 340,000 Americans have died from Covid-19; hospitalisations have reached near-daily record highs, with more than 124,000 people in hospital as of 29 December.

Senator Bernie Sanders, the leading progressive in the chamber, and Democratic Senator Ed Markey have vowed to block passage of a congressional override of the president’s veto of a $740bn military spending bill in order to force a vote on direct payments.

“I’m going to object until we get a vote on legislation to provide a $2,000 direct payment to the working class," he said in a statement. "Let me be clear: If Senator McConnell doesn’t agree to an up or down vote to provide the working people of our country a $2,000 direct payment, Congress will not be going home for New Year’s Eve. Let’s do our job.”

While addressing the Senate on Tuesday, the Vermont senator pointed to Republican hypocrisy over the party’s support for tax cuts benefiting wealthy Americans and large corporations as a growing number of Americans support the increase in direct payments.

“The House did the right thing. I congratulate them,” he said. “And now it is time for the Senate to step up to the plate and do what the working families of this country overwhelmingly want us to do.”

Mr Trump has accused Senate Republicans of having a “death wish” if they reject $2,000 payments.

The president made his late signature on a $900bn Covid-19 relief package conditional on increasing the size of those checks and demands that Congress investigate unrelated allegations of election fraud and repeal legal protections for social media platforms he claims are censoring conservatives.

Senator McConnell has promised only that the Senate will start a “process” to vote on those issues.