WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) – President-elect Joe Biden is calling on Congress to enact billions of dollars in emergency COVID-19 assistance before the year’s end, according to a senior adviser who warned Friday that “there’s no more room for delay.”
Biden transition aide Jen Psaki delivered the remarks before Biden’s first in-person meeting since winning the election with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. The incoming Democratic president hosted the top Democrats in the House and Senate on Friday afternoon at his makeshift transition headquarters in a downtown Wilmington, Delaware, theater.
Biden sat with Schumer, Pelosi and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, all wearing masks and spaced out around a bank of tables.
“In my Oval Office, mi casa, you casa,” Biden said during the brief portion of the meeting that journalists were allowed to witness. “I hope we’re going to spend a lot of time together.”
Pelosi said at an earlier news conference that she and Schumer would be talking with Biden about “the urgency of crushing the virus,” as well as how to use the lame-duck session of Congress, legislation on keeping the government funded and COVID-19 relief.