Stay tuned after the show for a message from United Health Group.

Good Friday morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook audio briefing.

And I'm Jake Sherman. Well, this should be interesting. In the face of calls to enter into an

urgent negotiation with all party leaders on Capitol Hill to save the cratering economy,

Mitch McConnell has decided to do the exact opposite. He's decided to

widen the circle. Beginning today, McConnell has invited roughly two dozen lawmakers and

aides from both parties to join him for a discussion on Capitol Hill about his legislation,

aimed at rescuing the country from the deadly coronavirus, which has sent the global economy

into a tailspin. McConnell said Thursday from the

Senate floor, his colleagues are standing by to explain this legislation and talk with their

counterparts. There's a truism in Washington legislating. If you give someone a stage to complain,

they'll take it. With a bunch of lawmakers, plus Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin, National Economic

Council Director Larry Kudlow, and Legislative Affairs

Chief Eric Euland in the room, you wonder how crowded that stage will be and how quickly

this group can wrap this bill up.

The truth is, everyone in the Senate has a shared goal here, to pass a massive spending

package immediately.

McConnell will attend the meeting, as will Chuck Schumer, who has urged the GOP

leader to sit down one-on-one to no avail. McConnell has said everyone is going to stay in town

until this bill is done, which is a pretty heavy threat, considering the virus has already reached

the capital and is spreading in the district, Maryland, and Virginia. What McConnell Schumer

and Nancy Pelosi have shown us time and time again is that large-scale legislative deals are typically notched when a small group of leaders are in a room alone. McConnell's done it with Joe Biden and Pelosi. Schumer's done it with McConnell, and most recently Pelosi did it with Mnuchin. Hard decisions need to be made and the leaders need to summon the fortitude to convince lawmakers to join them. If you talk to McConnell's circle, they'll tell you the Kentucky Republican wants

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