Here’s the state of play in the last minute blow up of the omnibus spending bill and COVID relief bills. It’s as confused and chaotic as you might imagine:
A surprise scuffle over pandemic relief is set to run up against a crucial federal funding deadline next week as Democrats side with President Donald Trump in his demand for $2,000 payments to most Americans and Republicans take up his criticism of government spending.
Republicans on Thursday objected to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer‘s attempt to replace the $600 payments in the latest pandemic relief legislation with the $2,000 payments Trump said he wants. Democrats will try again Dec. 28, with a similar new bill that will be put to a full vote on the House floor.
“House and Senate Democrats have repeatedly fought for bigger checks for the American people, which House and Senate Republicans have repeatedly rejected – first, during our negotiations when they said that they would not go above $600 and now, with this act of callousness on the Floor,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Thursday.
The standoff over stimulus payments comes after months of intense negotiations finally yielded a compromise to inject $900 billion into the U.S. economy — including forgivable loans for small businesses, supplemental unemployment benefits, support for renters facing eviction and funds for vaccine distribution. Those measures were combined with $1.4 trillion in annual government spending, and now the entire package is in limbo.
Trump hasn’t explicitly said he would veto the legislation, which Congress finished processing Thursday after it passed both chambers on Monday. The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The bill will be flown to Florida, where Trump is spending Christmas at his private Mar-a-Lago club, according to a person familiar with the matter.
If the president doesn’t sign the bill by Monday night, the government — now operating under temporary funding — would begin a partial shutdown starting on Tuesday. The House may attempt to pass another stopgap funding measure on Monday if Trump hasn’t acted.
The president tweeted a video Tuesday criticizing the $2.3 trillion bill. His call for $2,000 payments, which most Republicans rejected as too costly, surprised GOP lawmakers.
“Republicans in Congress and the White House can’t agree on what they want,” Hoyer told reporters Thursday at the Capitol. “Surely, the president of the United States, whether he is in Mar-a-Lago or someplace else, ought to empathize with the suffering and apprehension and deep angst people are feeling this Christmas Eve.”
Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the GOP leadership, said there were not enough Republican votes in the Senate to pass the $2,000 payments.
“I hope the president looks at this again and reaches that conclusion that the best thing to do is to sign the bill,” Blunt told reporters.
The House will reconvene Monday to vote on the Cash Act, a bill introduced by Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal to increase stimulus checks to $2,000.
Republicans on Thursday tried to seek unanimous consent on a measure to examine taxpayer money spent on foreign aid, but Democrats blocked that move. In his complaint Tuesday about Congress’s combined virus aid and government spending bill, Trump criticized federal resources spent on international programs, even though such spending was included in his budget and was allocated as part of the bipartisan appropriations process.
Trump’s conflict with Congress further escalated this week with his veto Wednesday of the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed both chambers by large bipartisan margins earlier this month. The House plans to vote to override Trump’s veto Monday, with the Senate following suit on Tuesday. It would be the first time Congress overrules Trump.
President Donald Trump injected confusion into the outlook for Covid-19 relief on Tuesday night, demanding changes to the bipartisan legislation approved by Congress less than 24 hours earlier.
In a surprise video announcement posted on his Twitter account, Trump called the bill a “disgrace” and said it was full of “wasteful and unnecessary” items. He demanded that lawmakers increase the stimulus checks due to go out to most Americans to $2,000, from the “ridiculously low” amount of $600.
“I am asking Congress to amend this bill,” Trump said. “Send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a Covid relief package. And maybe that administration will be me, and we will get it done.”
The attack on Monday’s legislation, which included $900 billion in relief along with $1.4 trillion in government funding through next September, marked a sudden change after the administration had endorsed frantic negotiations among congressional leaders to get a deal after months of deadlock.
If the president doesn’t sign the legislation by Dec. 28, government funding would lapse after midnight that day.
House Democratic leaders, according to two people familiar with their thinking, plan to offer a separate bill during a pro forma session on Thursday that would replace references to $600 in the legislation passed Monday with $2,000.
Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, tweeted Tuesday night that she and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York “have the amendment ready. Send the bill back, and we will put in the $2,000.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that the president should sign the current bill “to help people and keep the government open and we’re glad to pass more aid Americans need.”
The House adjourned Monday after approving the pandemic relief bill, with only pro forma sessions scheduled until possible votes on Dec. 28. The Senate is next scheduled to convene for regular business on Dec. 29.
If Trump vetoes or declines to sign the measure, it would suspend benefits from the previous Covid relief bill that expire at the end of the month, including a moratorium on evictions and extended unemployment insurance — all of which were addressed in the giant package approved Monday night.
Trump blamed the Democrats for delaying the bill when the reality is that it was the Republicans. He lied. Surprise.
Trump’s rant about the package came after he took a mostly hands-off approach to negotiations with Congress for months. He declined to engage directly with Pelosi, nor did he convene bipartisan congressional leaders in White House meetings to get a deal.
Still, Trump had indicated privately during the negotiations that he was unhappy with some of the provisions. The president had been working on a statement calling for $2,000 stimulus checks, but White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows raised objections to releasing it amid the fragile talks, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Trump also sent conflicting signals about how big a package he wanted. He at one point pulled his team from talks with Democrats, then demanded a bigger bill than Pelosi herself had favored.
With regard to direct payments, a member of his own party, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, personally blocked bipartisan attempts to approve $1,200 checks instead of the $600 that ended up in the bill — citing concerns about the fiscal deficit.
Senior Senate GOP members in recent days touted that they kept the relief effort below $1 trillion, instead of the $2 trillion and more sought by Democrats, only now to be undercut by a lame-duck president after the fact.
If Trump had pushed for this 2,000 during the fall and told the American people that he would work directly with Pelosi to get that money and all the other necessities to the American people to help them through the pandemic he would have won. But he wanted to wage the culture war because that’s what he cares about.
I have no idea how this is going to come out. But I’m relieved that Pelosi is holding the line on this. They had to be back because of the potential government shutdown (due to Trump being a moron) but it’s nonetheless good that they are there to react to however this comes down.
If you needed an example of just how damaged the Republicans are, how weak, how corrupt how servile to Trump’s lunacy, this is it. We are suffering the death toll of 9/11 every single day. And this is how they lead. At Christmas. It’s mind-boggling.
Happy Hollandaise everyone,