When the moderates introduced their plan, the top Democrats saw their opportunity. They quickly embraced it as the easiest vehicle for jump-starting negotiations.
It was a major shift for the leaders, who had rejected Trump administration proposals twice as large, refusing to budge as the election approached even as they privately conceded that there was little momentum for a deal. During one call in late September, Ms. Pelosi had told Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that she had spent a sleepless night watching a rerun of “The Princess Bride,” the 1987 cult classic. She compared their negotiations to how Billy Crystal’s character, Miracle Max, describes a patient in the film who has been tortured to the brink of death, pronouncing them “mostly dead.”