This is Brian Lair's Daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Thursday, December 3rd.

I'm Bridget Bergen, WNYC's City Hall and Politics reporter, filling in for Brian today.

With Mitch McConnell still

balking, the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate has come out in support of a bipartisan

COVID stimulus bill put together by moderate Republicans and centrist Democrats in the Senate.

It totals less than half of the Heroes bill passed by the House, but still includes some of its key

components, including extended unemployment benefits and aid to state and local governments.

With some benefits from the last bill already expired and the rest running out at the end of

the year, will the expressed bipartisan support be enough to gain White House and Senate

leadership support.

To talk about this and other issues, I'm joined now by Congressman Adriano Espayat, whose district

covers Upper Manhattan and parts of the West Bronx.

Congressman Esfayat, good morning, and welcome back to the show.

Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me once again.

Congressman, just yesterday,

you wrote an op-ed in the Daily News, calling for the Senate to pass the Heroes Act, the stimulus bill passed by the House two months ago. The spending in the bill totaled something like $2.2 trillion.

Well, this one totals $908 billion. Suddenly that money is allocated, but not yet

spent. What's your reaction to the bill? Well, first and foremost, we passed the Heroes Act many

months ago, and the Heroes Act was, for the first time, the view and the vision of the House of

Representative or how should we move forward.

The CARES Act and other legislation that we have previously agreed on to address the pandemic

...