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On the first day of the first full week when tens of millions of Americans went without the federal jobless aid that has cushioned them during the pandemic, President Trump was not cajoling undecided lawmakers to embrace a critical stimulus bill to stabilize the foundering economy.
He was at the White House, hurling insults at the Democratic leaders whose support he needs to strike a deal.
Mr. Trump called Speaker Nancy Pelosi “Crazy Nancy,” charging that she had no interest in helping the unemployed. He said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, only wanted to help “radical left” governors in states run by Democrats. And he threatened to short-circuit a delicate series of negotiations to produce a compromise and instead unilaterally impose a federal moratorium on tenant evictions.
The comments came just as Mr. Trump’s own advisers were on Capitol Hill meeting with Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer in search of an elusive deal, and they underscored just how absent the president had been from the negotiations. They also highlighted how, three months before he is to face voters, the main role that Mr. Trump appears to have embraced in assembling an economic recovery package is that of sniping from the sidelines in ways that undercut a potential compromise.
On Monday, the president said he remained “totally involved” in the talks, even though he was not “over there with Crazy Nancy.” But while White House officials say that he is interested in the talks and is closely monitoring them, he has not sought to use the full powers of his office to prod a deal, and more often he has complicated the already sensitive negotiations.
The situation reflects the dysfunctional dynamic that Mr. Trump has developed with leaders of both parties in Congress. He has a toxic relationship with Ms. Pelosi, with whom he has not met face-to-face since last year. And Republicans have learned to eye their own president warily in delicate negotiations, knowing that he is prone to changing his position, bucking party principles and leaving them to suffer the political consequences of high-profile collapses.
In the stimulus talks, Mr. Trump’s ideas have often been out of sync with members of his own party. On Monday, he said he was considering acting on his own to eliminate payroll taxes, something a president does not have the power to do himself, and an idea that his advisers had dropped from the talks in the face of near-unanimous opposition by Republican lawmakers. The eviction moratorium he has championed was not a part of the Republican plan.
“I’ll do it myself if I have to,” Mr. Trump said.
While that might be possible, virtually every other measure under discussion to stimulate the economy would require congressional approval.
[…]
Mr. Trump, who spent Saturday and Sunday on his golf course in Virginia, berated Democrats from the White House on Monday, accusing them of being blinded by a focus on “bailout money” for states controlled by Democrats, as opposed to extending unemployment benefits.
“All they’re really interested in is bailout money to bail out radical left governors and radical left mayors like in Portland and places that are so badly run — Chicago, New York City,” Mr. Trump said.
[…]
White House officials describe Mr. Trump as interested in the talks, but from a distance. He calls Mr. Meadows, a former House member, for updates nearly a dozen times on some days, and in general gets briefed in 10-minute increments from other aides. He makes frequent calls to allies like Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, and to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader.
But he does not reach out to members of the House he is not personally close with to use the power of persuasion that comes with the presidency, they concede, and he is expending little energy of his own to move the ball forward.
If you read the rest of the article you’ll see that the GOP is a total mess on this, with members all over the place, some babbling about deficits others trying to respond to the business community, all of the confused and impotent. The White House is, of course, completely chaotic because the man at the top is a moronic basketcase.
The reason I blame the GOP entirely for this is that they all had a chance to make one crucial vote last January to remove this lunatic before he could completely destroy the country and they were all, except one, too cowardly to do it. Now, with their help, he’s done it.
I assume they will come up with something eventually and that the money will be retroactive. It has to be. But this is just insane. And it’s all their fault.