WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s push for larger $ 2,000 COVID-19 relief checks stalled in the Senate on Tuesday, as Republicans blocked a quick vote proposed by Democrats and were split within their own ranks on whether to spend the spending raise or defy the White House.
The roadblock set up by Mitch McConnell, the leader of the majority of the Senate, may not last as the pressure builds. Trump wants the Republican-led chamber to follow the House and raise checks of $ 600 for millions of Americans. A growing number of Republicans, including two senators in the second election on Jan. 5 in Georgia, have said they will support the greater number. But most GOP senators are against more spending, even if they are also wary of beating Trump.
Senators will be back on Wednesday as McConnell is trying to find a way out of the political situation, but the outcome is highly uncertain.
“One question remains today: Do Senate Republicans along with the rest of America support $ 2,000 checks?” Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer said when he made a motion to vote.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said some of the $ 600 payments could potentially be made by direct deposit to the Americans’ bank accounts as early as Tuesday evening. Mnuchin tweeted that paper checks are starting to go out on Wednesday.
The showdown with the $ 2,000 checks has thrown Congress into a chaotic end-of-year session just days before new lawmakers are sworn in for the New Year. It prevents action on another priority – overturning Trump’s veto on a sweeping defense law that has been passed every year for 60 years.
In saying little, McConnell signaled an alternative approach to Trump’s controls that may not divide his party as badly, but may lead to no action at all.
The GOP leader filed new legislation late Tuesday that linked the president’s demand for greater controls with two other Trump priorities – repealing protections for tech companies like Facebook or Twitter that the president has complained are unfair to conservatives, as well as the Establishing a two-party committee to review the 2020 presidential election he lost to President-elect Joe Biden.
“The Senate will initiate a trial,” said the GOP leader. He didn’t say much more, just that he would “highlight” the president’s demand for the $ 2000 checks and other outstanding issues.
David, a professor of political science at Meredith College McLennan said he does not expect the larger stimulus effort to pass.
“It has never been preferred by Mitch McConnell. As a majority leader, he controls the agenda for the Senate, and has already begun to cut ties with President Trump, so he does not feel obligated to President Trump,” McLennan said.
Due to last-minute pressure from the president for bigger checks, Republicans have been deeply divided between those who adhere to Trump’s populist instincts and those who hold on to some more traditional conservative views against government spending. Congress had settled for smaller payments of $ 600 in a compromise on the grand bill at the end of the year that Trump reluctantly signed into law.
Liberal senators, led by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who support the emergency response, are blocking action on the bill until it can vote on Trump’s demand for $ 2,000 for most Americans.
“The working class of this country today is facing more economic despair than ever since the Great Depression of the 1930s,” Sanders said while also trying to force a vote on emergency controls. “Working families need help now.”
But McConnell objected a second time.
The fact that the bill got into the Senate at all is the result of a devious policy by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Her sudden decision to back the president’s politically popular demand has put McConnell in a difficult position, especially with both Republican Senate seats in Georgia on the ballot next week.
“He is less concerned about the president and what the president says or tweet about him than about Georgia, and he will more or less remain in control of the senate at the next Congress,” McLennan said. “I think both the president and the speaker Pelosi have put McConnell in a very dire situation. “
The two GOP senators from Georgia, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, announced on Tuesday that they support Trump’s plan for greater controls as they face Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in second elections that will determine which party will make the senate checks.
“I am delighted to support the president,” Perdue told Fox News. Loeffler said in an interview on Fox that she, too, is behind the increased emergency checks.
The GOP blockade is causing concern for some as the virus crisis worsens nationwide and Trump bolsters his unexpected demands.
Trump echoed his demand in a tweet ahead of Tuesday’s Senate session, “$ 2,000 to our wonderful people, not $ 600!”
Following Trump’s push, Republican sens. Josh Hawley from Missouri and Marco Rubio from Florida, among the party’s potential presidential hopefuls for 2024, push the party in the direction of the president.
‘We have the votes. Let’s vote today, ”Hawley tweeted.
Other Republicans overturned the larger controls, saying the nearly $ 400 billion price tag was too high, the aid is not targeting those in need, and Washington has already donated generous amounts of COVID aid.
“We’ve spent $ 4 trillion on this problem,” said Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas.
The House vote late Monday to approve Trump’s request was a stunning turn of events. A few days ago, at a brief Christmas Eve rally, Republicans blocked Trump’s sudden demand for bigger checks because he defiantly refused to sign the broader COVID-19 aid and funding act at the end of the year.
While Trump smoked for days from his private Florida club where he spends the vacation, millions of Americans saw jobless aid expire and the nation risked a federal government shutdown on Tuesday.
Dozens of Republicans calculated it was better to get in touch with Democrats to increase pandemic payments rather than beat the outgoing president and voters counting on the money. House Democrats led passage, 275-134, but 44 Republicans joined nearly all Democrats for a robust two-thirds vote of approval.
It is very possible that McConnell will vote ahead on both the house-passed measure in support of Trump’s $ 2000 checks and his own new version linking it to the retraction of technology companies’ liability shields in “ section 230 ” of the Communications Act and the new presidential election review committee.
That is a process that almost ensures that neither bill is passed.
Trump’s pressure could die in the Senate, but the debate over the size and scope of the package – $ 900 billion in COVID-19 aid and $ 1.4 trillion to fund government agencies – may be a final showdown before it new congress on Sunday is sworn in.
If The bill passes the Senate before Jan. 20, it could make it easier for Biden to push for another aid package more quickly, McLennan said.
“It may be something that works out better for Joe Biden – a good way to start his administration – and not such a great way to end President Trump’s administration,” he said.
For now, the $ 600 checks, along with other help, will be delivered to the largest rescue kits of its kind.
The COVID-19 portion of the bill revives a weekly pandemic boost to unemployment benefits – this time $ 300, through March 14 – as well as the popular Paycheck Protection Program of grants to businesses to keep employees on the payroll. It expands eviction safeguards and adds a new rental assistance fund.
Americans earning up to $ 75,000 are eligible for the $ 600 direct payments, which are phased out at higher income levels, and there is an additional $ 600 payment per dependent child.
Biden supports the $ 2,000 checks, saying on Tuesday that the aid package is just a “down payment” for what he plans to deliver once he gets to the office.
Economists said a $ 600 check will help, but it is far from the purchasing power a $ 2,000 check would bring to the economy.
“It will make a big difference if it’s $ 600 versus $ 2,000,” said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s.
The president also objected to the funding of foreign aid that his own government had requested, promising to send Congress “a redefined version” of expenditures he wants to have removed. But those are just suggestions for Congress. Democrats said they would resist such cuts.
WRAL Capitol Bureau Chief Laura Leslie contributed to this report