Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday slammed Democrats for blocking narrow coronavirus relief bills in favor of what he called a “multitrillion-dollar laughingstock” proposal — saying the gridlock could kill small businesses in the final stretch of the COVID-19 pandemic.

McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the Senate floor that a months-long stalemate means businesses may be unable to survive, even with vaccines produced by the companies Moderna and Pfizer nearing approval.

“We might lose the hardest-hit small businesses in the home stretch because Democrats have refused to let us continue helping,” he said.

Senate Republicans staged a late October vote on replenishing funds for the Paycheck Protection Program, which gives forgivable loans to businesses for payroll and overhead. McConnell peeled off five Democrats who backed the GOP majority on PPP loans.

McConnell, continuing a long-running blame game, quoted Democratic criticism of the more than $3 trillion HEROES Act that House Democrats passed in May, including outgoing New York Rep. Max Rose, who called the bill championed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “a middle finger to the American people.”

“Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic leader have been equally consistent. They don’t think Congress should do anything at all — anything — unless they get to cash out a far-left ideological wish list, including things with zero relationship to the present crisis,” McConnell said.

“They’ve continued to insist that Congress sometimes their so-called HEROES ACT or do nothing at all. The problem is that their proposal is a multitrillion-dollar laughingstock that never had a chance of becoming law.”

Democrats and Republicans for months negotiated on a new bill, but Democrats objected to McConnell’s demand that a liability waiver for businesses be included in any measure. Republicans, meanwhile, objected to the amount of aid proposed for state and local governments, arguing it would bail out poorly run Democrat-governed areas.

Conservatives and liberals also clashed over proposals to revive a federal unemployment insurance supplement that expired in July, with Democrats wanting a renewed $600 per week and Republicans saying that could give people in some states an incentive not to work because they could earn more than their pre-pandemic pay.

President Trump temporarily resurrected that supplement at a lower rate with an August executive order.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows met with McConnell after his remarks to discuss a year-end government funding bill to avoid a partial government shutdown.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) fired back at McConnell in his own Senate floor speech Wednesday, saying it was McConnell who was being unreasonable, and noting narrow Republican proposals lacked funds for cash-strapped transit systems, including New York’s.

“The Republican leader has asked the Senate to accept several inadequate partisan proposals. And in every version of the COVID relief legislation that the Republican majority has put on the floor, there have been poison pills to ensure the bill will fail,” Schumer said.

“Many members of the Republican Senate caucus want to spend no dollars. So Leader McConnell has to twist himself and pretzels to put any bill on the floor. And the only way he can get support of his caucus is to put poison pills in so he can wink at them and say, ‘Hey, this won’t pass.'”

Democrats retained their House majority in the Nov. 3 election, but control of the Senate remains undecided due to two January runoff elections in Georgia, meaning there may be divided government and continued gridlock after President-elect Joe Biden assumes office on Jan. 20.