Pressure on the Republican-led senate is mounting to follow the House, which voted overwhelmingly on Monday to comply with the president’s demand to raise the $ 600 checks as the virus crisis worsens. 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.
The result is highly uncertain on the way to the rare holiday week session.
“We shouldn’t suspend until the Senate holds a vote,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, as he files a motion to push it in the direction of a vote.
McConnell, who said little in public at Trump’s request, objected, but gave almost no indication of his future plans.
“The Senate will initiate a trial,” said the GOP leader. He said he plans to “spotlight” the president’s demand for the $ 2,000 checks and other outstanding issues.
The showdown 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 passed every year for 60 years.
The president pushing for greater controls at the last minute deeply divides the Republicans, who are divided between those who align with Trump’s populist instincts and those who stick to what were previously traditional conservative views against government spending. Congress had settled for smaller payments of $ 600 in a compromise on the grand financial statements Trump reluctantly signed into law.
Liberal senators led by Vermont’s Bernie Sanders who support the emergency response block action on the defense bill until a vote can be taken on Trump’s demand for $ 2,000 for most Americans.
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.
Trump tweeted his demands ahead of Tuesday’s Senate session, “$ 2,000 to our wonderful people, not $ 600!”
The mood in the House late Monday 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 holidays, 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 who were on the money charged. Democrats led passage, 275-134, but 44 Republicans joined nearly all Democrats for approval.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “Republicans have a choice: either vote for this legislation or vote to deny the American people the higher pay they need.”
The showdown could become more symbol than substance if Trump’s efforts in the Senate fail and possibly do little to change the COVID-19 relief and federal spending package Trump signed into law on Sunday.
That package – $ 900 billion in COVID-19 aid and $ 1.4 trillion to fund government agencies – will bring long-sought cash to businesses and individuals and prevent a federal government shutdown that would otherwise have started Tuesday.
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Along with votes this week to override Trump’s veto on sweeping defense law, it may be a final showdown between the president and the Republican party he leads as he sets new demands and disputes the results of the presidential election. The new convention will be sworn in on Sunday.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the Republican who holds the Ways and Means Committee rankings, acknowledged the division, saying that Congress had already approved sufficient funds during the COVID-19 crisis. “Nothing in this bill will get anyone back to work,” he said.
Aside from $ 600 direct checks to most Americans, the COVID-19 portion of the bill is reviving a weekly unemployment benefit pandemic boost – $ 300 this time, through March 14 – as well as the popular Paycheck Protection Program of grants to businesses to keep employees in work payrolls. 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.
President-elect Joe Biden told reporters at an event in Wilmington, Delaware that he supported the $ 2,000 checks.
Trump’s sudden decision to sign the bill came as he faced escalating criticism from lawmakers on all sides for his eleventh-hour demands. The bipartisan bill negotiated by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was well past the House and Senate. Lawmakers had thought they had Trump’s blessing after months of negotiations with his administration.
The president’s defiant refusal to act, published with a heated video he tweeted just before the Christmas holidays, sparked chaos, the lapse of millions of unemployment benefits and the threat of government shutdown during the pandemic. It was another crisis of his own origin, which was resolved when he finally signed the law.
In his statement on the signing, Trump reiterated his frustrations with the COVID-19 emergency bill for providing checks as low as $ 600 to most Americans and complained about what he considered unnecessary expenditure, particularly on foreign aid – a large part of which part by its own budget.
While the president has insisted that he send Congress “a redefined version” of editions he wants to be removed, those are just suggestions to Congress. Democrats said they would resist such cuts.
For now, the administration can’t begin sending the $ 600 payments.
Most House Republicans simply took the pressure off Trump, 130 of them voting against the higher checks that would add $ 467 billion in additional costs. Another 20 House Republicans – including California minority leader Kevin McCarthy, a Trump confidant – skipped the vote, despite pandemic procedures allowing lawmakers to vote by proxy to avoid trips to the Capitol. McCarthy was recovering from elbow surgery at home, his office said.
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