In rejecting the plea of governors and mayors for additional funding to make up for huge expenditures and revenue shortfalls stemming from the coronavirus, McConnell made himself a target. Suggesting states go bankrupt instead only added fuel to the fire of governors. In this case, the outrage over McConnell is bipartisan, which was entirely predictable given that senators are desperate to fund fire, police and other essential services back home. (Seriously, what could McConnell have been thinking?)

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) spent two days ragging on McConnell for his bankruptcy idea, challenging him to put that in a bill. In other words, he successfully called McConnell’s bluff. (“A Senate GOP aide said that McConnell is not pushing legislation to allow states to file for bankruptcy.”)

Predictably, McConnell’s intention to stiff state and local workers (who are at risk of getting laid off) and essential services did not go down well with his own members. CNN reports: “A number of Senate Republicans are publicly and privately expressing an openness toward a new round of funding to cash-strapped state and local governments, even as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell floated the possibility of states declaring bankruptcy rather than receive more federal aid.” These include rock-ribbed Republicans such as Sens. Mike Braun (Ind.) and Bill Cassidy (La.), further proof that deficit hawks never object to spending on things they like.

Schumer and Pelosi, however, are going to town on McConnell’s blunder. During her news conference on Friday, Pelosi mused, “We cannot defeat this pandemic if Mitch McConnell is letting our health heroes get fired. And that’s what is happening: They’re getting fired now.” She later mused that McConnell is the same politician who passed “almost a $2 trillion tax break, that 83 percent of the benefits went to the top one percent without even saying . . . a word about what the impact on the deficit was.”

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Appearing on NPR, Schumer observed that “what McConnell said was so far out of the mainstream I think he’s going to have to walk it back.” He gleefully added, “He has isolated Republican senators, Republican governors have denounced him, and you know he was the reason that state and local aid was blocked in the interim bill that the president is signing today, he wouldn’t let it go forward.”

Schumer continued: “This is not abstract, you know, state government. Rather, it is police officers who patrol our streets and keep us safe, it’s ambulance workers, it’s bus drivers. These people should not be thrown out of work because the states are not collecting revenues.” If McConnell does not come around, Schumer vowed, “I think there will be the momentum to defeat him.”

McConnell has tied himself to Trump’s mast, but on this one the president may not even agree with him. Trump apparently is open to helping the states. (Cuomo’s visit to the White House last week apparently paid off.) In any event, McConnell can read the polls — Trump is sinking, his Senate majority is at risk and he has a well-financed challenger in Amy McGrath.

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Given all that it’s an odd strategy to declare you have no interest in bringing home relief to, as Pelosi describes them, “health care workers and public hospitals and the rest, police and fire, emergency services folks, first responders, our teachers, our teachers, our teachers, transit workers who enable people, the essential workers to get to work.” Perhaps McConnell has been in Washington too long and has gotten badly out of touch — even with Republicans.