Pelosi forecasts House OK of Senate’s $2.2T virus aid plan

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the massive $2.2 trillion coronavirus economic relief bill approved by the Senate will pass the House on Friday with “strong bipartisan support.”

Pelosi spoke to reporters at the Capitol on Thursday a day after the Senate unanimously approved the measure.

The package comes to the House as fresh evidence emerges that the economy is in a recession. The government reported 3.3 million new weekly unemployment claims, four times the previous record.

”We will have a victory tomorrow for America’s workers,” Pelosi said, praising the bill’s expansion of unemployment benefits. She encouraged companies battered by the pandemic to keep paying their workers, even those who are furloughed.

“Tomorrow we’ll bring the bill to the floor,” she told reporters. “It will pass. It will pass with strong bipartisan support.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in a TV interview the economy “may well be in a recession.”

The unanimous Senate vote late Wednesday came despite misgivings on both sides about whether it goes too far or not far enough and capped days of difficult negotiations as Washington confronted a national challenge unlike any it has faced.