Good Monday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing.

And I'm Anna Palmer. A quick reminder to please join us at 9 a.m. for a virtual briefing to talk about

Washington's response to the coronavirus. All right, now back to the show. Whatever you think of

Senate Democrats' decision to vote en masse against the coronavirus bill, they help negotiate.

Whatever you think of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's stewardship of this process thus far. Here's where it's

ended up. The final particulars of this bill were being worked out by the Treasury Secretary

and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer into the wee hours of Monday morning in the Capitol.

Again, that's Stephen Mnuchin,

a former Democrat in the Trump administration, negotiating with the Senate Democratic leader

late into the night and early into Monday morning. They spoke a number of times Sunday,

according to Schumer's office, including at 1049 p.m. and 11.45 p.m. Schumer spoke to reporters just after midnight saying there were

some serious problems in McConnell's bill and they're working to make them better and progress is being

made. He said that he was hopeful there could be a bill out this morning. The situation is so odd and

the consequence is so dire, it's difficult to draw broad-based conclusions, but a few things stand out.

Mnuchin inexplicably told reporters this week that this bill would be done Monday.

He set an artificial deadline for reasons not clear to us.

That's why markets were expecting it and perhaps would send the Dow and S&P futures down so quickly.

Artificial deadlines are the devil in congressional politics.

McConnell, brushed aside, request last week to hold four-corner negotiations

between himself, Schumer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Instead,

he held bipartisan talks with senators for a few days. But the deal ultimately needed Pelosi's

sign-off. So even though she flew back to Washington for talks, Democrats were unhappy with the bill,

...