The status of stimulus talks in D.C.

Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith joins Yahoo Finance Live to break down the latest stimulus news out of Washington.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: But first, we want to get to the latest down in Washington and talk about those stimulus talks. We heard from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell earlier today saying that a compromise might actually be within reach. Jess Smith is always-- as always, keeping a close eye on where the talks stand for us. And Jess, I guess, should we be a little bit more optimistic about where talks stand today?

JESSICA SMITH: I'm nervous to say optimistic, but the fact that McConnell and Pelosi held talks today, that they actually had a conversation, is a good thing, I would think, seeing as we really haven't heard about them talking much throughout these negotiations. Speaker Pelosi has largely dealt with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. But now we know that she and McConnell did have a phone call today.

McConnell did say, on the Senate floor, that he had seen some hopeful signs over the past few days. And again, he did say that compromise is within reach, but then he went on to list some of the differences that still remain. He is pushing for a more targeted relief package that Democrats don't like.

There is more growing support for that bipartisan plan that we saw rolled out earlier this week, that $908 billion plan. We know Republicans who are backing that plan did meet with McConnell today to walk him through the proposal that they're putting together. Still not clear if McConnell would change his mind and back that and it's not clear if the president would actually sign that bill. He did say today that he thought they were getting close to a deal, but he didn't say which proposal he would support there. We know Mnuchin had said that President Trump would sign McConnell's targeted relief bill.

So we'll see which one of these proposals that are floating around, if any, leads to some progress. But it sounds like lawmakers are hoping to put some of these proposals in a spending bill to keep the government funded next week. That funding runs out on December 11. So they're up against this deadline, and they may be able to include some provisions in that package.

But there are still some remaining differences. As we've talked about for months, state and local aid and liability protections, those two issues don't seem to be really going anywhere. So we'll see if they can work out those issues. We know that bipartisan plan-- it's not an actual bill yet-- but we do expect to see the final bill at some point early next week. So we'll see if that moves the needle at all in these talks.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Jess, do we know if-- on both sides because there are two different proposals for all of this-- where the airline-- the Payroll Support Program numbers fall? I've seen as high as $25 billion and as low as $17 billion. Is it all still in there?

JESSICA SMITH: You know, the-- these are still very much in flux. And like I mentioned earlier, the $908 billion proposal is still being worked out. We don't have the final legislative text on that yet. I know there was $45 billion initially marked for transportation, some of that going toward airlines. So it's not quite clear what the final number that they're going to put in this bill is quite yet.