WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate Leader Mitch McConnell nearly closed the door on President Donald Trump’s push for $ 2,000 COVID-19 aid checks, stating that Congress provided sufficient pandemic aid when it blocked a new Democratic effort to force a vote.
The GOP leader made it clear on Wednesday that he is unwilling to give in, despite political pressure from Trump and even some Republican senators demanding action. Trump wants the recent $ 600 in aid increased threefold. But McConnell rejected the idea of larger “survival checks”, approved by the House, saying the money would go to many American households that just don’t need it.
McConnell’s refusal to act means the extra relief Trump wanted is nearing death.
“We just approved nearly a trillion dollars in aid a few days ago,” McConnell said, referring to the year-end package Trump signed by law.
McConnell added, “If specific struggling households still need more help,” the Senate will consider “smart targeted aid. No other fire hose borrowed money.”
The showdown between the outgoing president and his own Republican Party over the $ 2,000 checks has thrown Congress into a chaotic end-of-year session just days before new lawmakers are sworn in.
It is a final standoff, along with the lifting of Trump’s veto of a sweeping defense bill, which will accentuate the president’s last days and deepen the GOP’s divide between its new wing of Trump-style populists and what the conservative stances against government spending were.
Trump denounces the GOP leaders and tweeted “$ 2000 ASAP!”
President-elect Joe Biden is also backing the payments and wants to build on what he calls a “down payment” for emergency relief.
“In this moment of historic crisis and untold economic pain for countless American families, the president-elect supports $ 2,000 direct payments as passed by the House,” said Biden transition spokesman Andrew Bates.
The roadblock instituted by Senate Republicans seems insurmountable. Most GOP senators seemed to accept the passivity, even as a growing number of Republicans, including two senators in second election on Jan. 5 in Georgia, agree with Trump’s demand, some wary of defeating him.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the $ 600 checks would start going out Wednesday. Congress had settled for smaller payments in a compromise on the major COVID-19 bill for emergency relief and government funding that Trump reluctantly signed the law. But before signing, Trump demanded more.
For the second day in a row, Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer attempted to force a vote on the bill passed by the House, meeting Trump’s demand for the $ 2,000 checks.
“What we’re seeing now is Leader McConnell trying to destroy the checks – the $ 2,000 checks that so many American families desperately need,” Schumer said.
With Senate elections days out in Georgia, leading Republicans warned that the GOP’s refusal to provide more aid as the virus worsens could jeopardize the outcome of those races.
Georgia’s GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler attempt to repel Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in second election that will determine which party has the majority of the Senate. The two Republicans have expressed support for Trump’s call for more generous checks.
“Senate Republicans are at risk of throwing away two seats and scrutiny from the Senate,” Newt Gingrich, the former Congress leader, told Fox News.
McConnell has been trying to protect his divided Republicans from a tough vote. On Wednesday, he suggested that he had kept his word to start a “process” to meet Trump’s demands, even if it means there will be no actual vote.
“It’s no secret that Republicans have different views,” he said.
Earlier, McConnell had unveiled a new bill full of Trump’s other priorities as a possible way out of the stalemate. It included the $ 2,000 checks that focused more closely on lower-income households with a complicated withdrawal Protection for tech companies such as Facebook or Twitter under section 230 of a communications law complained of by the president is unfair to conservatives. It also addressed the creation of a bipartisan committee to review the 2020 presidential election Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden.
If McConnell casts a vote on his bill, it could revive Trump’s priorities. But because the approach includes the additional technical and election provisions, Democrats and some Republicans are likely to recoil and there is unlikely to be enough support in Congress to succeed.
No additional votes on COVID-19 assistance are planned at this time. For McConnell, the procedural steps allowed him to tick the box on the pledges he made when Trump defiantly refused to close for the big year-end package last weekend. “That was a commitment, and that’s what happened,” he said.
Liberal senators, led by Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who back the emergency response, are blocking action on a defense bill until a vote can be taken on Trump’s demand for $ 2,000 for most Americans.
Sanders thundered that McConnell should call his own voters in the GOP leader’s home state of Kentucky “and find out how they feel about the need for immediate help in terms of a $ 2000 check.”
Republican sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida, among the party’s potential presidential hopefuls for 2024, also pushed in the direction of the president. Hawley also heads Trump’s Jan. 6 challenge to the Electoral College results in Congress.
Other Republicans flipped the bigger controls, arguing during a lively Senate debate that the nearly $ 400 billion price tag was too high, that aid is not targeting those in need, and that Washington has already sent generous amounts for COVID-19. help.
Senator Pat Toomey, R-Pa., Tweeted that “borrowing billions blindly,” so that we can send $ 2,000 checks to millions of people who have lost no income, is a terrible policy. “
Considered a longshot, Trump’s demand gained momentum at the beginning of the week when dozens of House Republicans calculated that it was better to connect with most Democrats than defy the outgoing president. They helped pass a bill to increase payments with a strong two-thirds approval.
As Trump’s push fades, his attempt to change the year-end package – $ 900 billion in COVID-19 aid and $ 1.4 trillion to fund the government agencies until September – will stick around as possibly a final showdown before the new Congress swears in on Sunday.
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.
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Ashraf Khalil, Associated Press writer in Washington, contributed to this report.