Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced Wednesday that he is dropping out of the Democratic presidential race, after weeks of clinging to an all-but-impossible path to victory over his moderate rival Joe Biden in a race now frozen by the coronavirus crisis.

The president and the speaker haven’t spoken in months, while the president is openly taunting the Senate’s top Democrat about a potential primary challenge more than two years away. The top Republicans have direct channels to the president but don’t share the same big-spending appetite as the leader of their party.

Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly submitted his resignation on Tuesday morning and Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Twitter that he’d accepted the resignation and named Under Secretary of the Army James McPherson to be his temporary replacement.

Congressional leaders and the White House are converging on the need for a new assistance package to try to contain the coronavirus pandemic’s economic devastation, fearful that a $2 trillion bailout law enacted last month will have only a limited effect.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is forging ahead on her plans to develop another coronavirus-related relief package to address the ongoing public health crisis, including more direct payments to Americans and increased unemployment benefits.