The tea leaves: After several days in a row of talks between Pelosi and Mnuchin, Pelosi's spokesman gave no readout of any conversations for Thursday. The lame duckNo matter how artificial of a deadline it was in reality, Election Day has loomed large over these stimulus talks. It's the tell that these negotiations over the last week may be positive, but they aren't yielding an outcome. Republican state of mindHouse and Senate Republicans are more in the dark in these negotiations than they have been. Now, no one thinks that Pelosi and Mnuchin are close enough that it's a real threat at all.

Source: CNN October 23, 2020 12:45 UTC