House votes to increase stimulus payments to $2,000 per person

 YAHOO / AXIOS

The House voted 275-134 on Monday to increase direct payments from its coronavirus relief package to $2,000 per person, up from the $600 checks that Congress had previously approved.

Why it matters: The measure is unlikely to pass the GOP-controlled Senate, but could further divide President Trump and Republicans ahead of the crucial Senate runoffs in Georgia next week.

House Republicans last week blocked an effort by House Democrats to pass $2,000 stimulus checks via unanimous consent. Monday's measure, which forced Republicans to go on the record on whether they support Trump's demand, required a two-thirds majority to pass.

Forty-four Republicans joined the majority of Democrats in passing the bill.

Senate GOP leadership has signaled opposition to increasing the size of the checks.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said that no Democrat in his chamber will oppose the increase.

Trump still refusing to sign Covid Relief bill into law.

 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

On December 21, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, a $2.3 trillion bill that pulled together a number of different pieces of legislation, including a $900 billion coronavirus relief bill and a $1.4 trillion appropriations bill (which included 12 separate annual appropriations bills). Today’s news is that Trump is refusing to sign the bill into law.

[Highlights of the $900B Relief & Wrap-up Bills ]

Here’s what’s at stake: the bill provides $300 a week in federal unemployment benefits on top of state benefits, and without it, expanded unemployment benefits ran out today for millions of Americans. The bill increases the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food support program by $13 billion, and allocates $25 billion in assistance to help pay past-due rent. It also provides $20 billion to buy more vaccines and about $8 billion distribute them. The bill also calls for a one-time $600 direct payment to individuals.

That’s the coronavirus relief piece of the measure. Another piece is the regular appropriations bill for the 2021 federal fiscal year, which ends on September 30, 2021. This includes military spending, aid to foreign countries, and the money that keeps federal programs afloat. It has $1.4 billion allocated to the wall on our southern border. Congress should have passed this appropriations bill in time for the start of the 2021 fiscal year on October 1, 2020, but it didn’t, so it has kept the government funded through continuing resolutions. The one under which we are currently operating expires at midnight on Monday, December 28.

Here’s the third piece of the measure. More than 3000 of the 5593 pages of this massive bill are additional measures that have nothing to do with the first two. They extend tax breaks from previous laws, amounting to tax cuts of about $200 billion. They include money for flood control and coastal protection. They fund community health centers and historically Black colleges and universities. They reauthorize intelligence programs for 2021. They establish the Women’s History Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. (although it appears they do not allocate money for them, but simply authorize their establishment, as required by law).

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 passed Congress by large bipartisan majorities. Trump has not called congressional Democratic leaders in more than a year, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was part of the negotiations, and spoke for the White House. Everyone expected that, after Congress had passed the bill, Trump would sign it into law.

But he left for Mar-a-Lago on December 23 without signing it, and is threatening not to. In a surprise video on Tuesday, December 22, he called the legislation “a disgrace.” He complained about the $600 stimulus checks—it was Mnuchin who insisted on that amount—and demanded the amount be raised to $2000. He also complained about “wasteful spending and much more,” although some of the things he called out, including funds for Egypt and the Egyptian military and money for the Kennedy Center, were his own requests. Republicans were stunned by his sudden hostility. Democrats, who had wanted higher stimulus payments all along, promptly tried to pass a stand-alone $2000 payment measure through the House, but were stopped by Republicans.  

Trump’s sudden hostility to a bill that took months to hammer out is disastrous for millions of Americans whose expanded unemployment benefits ran out today and whose state benefits are long gone. It also threatens to force a government shutdown.

[NY Times: Trump's plans for relief bill remain unclear ]

So, what’s Trump up to?

A couple of things. First, he is furious with Senate Republicans, especially Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Majority Whip (the second most powerful Republican in the Senate, who enforces party discipline) John Thune (R-SD), both of whom have acknowledged that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Trump continues to insist that he won “by a landslide” and that the election was stolen. He is incensed by any Republican who has not signed on to his crusade, yet as he relies more and more on marginal figures like his lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and Biden’s victory becomes more and more secure, party leaders are distancing themselves from him. Tonight, he tweeted that it is “[t]ime for Republican Senators to step up and fight for the Presidency….”

Now, though, Republican leadership needs him to sign this bill to help Republican Senate candidates in Georgia. Democrats in the House passed coronavirus relief back in May, but McConnell objected to anything of the sort until after the election, when it became clear that control of the Senate was going to depend on the outcome of a runoff for both Senate seats from Georgia. In that state, the two Republican candidates are having a hard time because voters are disgusted that there has been so little help coming from the Republicans for people hurt by the economic crisis that came in on the heels of the pandemic. If those Senate seats go the Democratic candidates, Jon Ossoff and the Reverend Raphael Warnock, the Senate will be balanced 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. In the case of such a tie, the position of the Senate Majority Leader goes to the top member of the party of the U.S. President, meaning that a Democrat would replace McConnell.

McConnell assured the Georgia Republican Senate candidates that there would be a coronavirus relief package before Christmas, and they ran on that promise. Now Trump has them over a barrel.

That’s one reason he’s suddenly stalling.

Women lay flowers at a candlelight vigil for Brandon Bernard on December 13 in Los Angeles. Bernard, 40, was the youngest person to be executed in the US in nearly 70 years, and was put to death for a crime committed when he was a teenager.

The other is quite likely that he is angry and frustrated at his impending loss of power, and is lashing out to hurt people. It seems of a piece with the fact that he and then-Attorney General William Barr resumed federal executions in July 2019, and that he has sped up the executions of federal prisoners since his November defeat. During his administration, the federal government has executed ten prisoners, more than any president since Grover Cleveland in 1896. This includes executions during the transition to the next administration. Traditionally, presidents stop executions during this period, leaving life-and-death decisions to their successors. One person in conversation with White House officials talked with Jeff Stein of the Washington Post about Trump’s scuttling of the bill and said, “He’s just angry at everybody and wants to inflict as much pain on Congress as possible.”

Trump’s supporters are urging him to “pocket veto” the Consolidated Appropriations Act, taking advantage of a weird option at the end of a congressional session. Normally, a president has ten days, not including Sunday, to review and sign a bill. During a congressional session, if the president doesn’t sign a bill within ten days, it becomes a law. But if the congressional session ends within ten days, the bill does not become a law. This is known as a pocket veto. The 116th Congress—this one—officially ends at noon on January 3. If Trump got the bill on December 24, and all indications are that he did, the ten-day window ends on January 4. So, he could, in fact, run out the clock in such a way that Congress could not override his veto.

Trump Slams COVID-19 Relief Bill, Asks For Changes After Bitter Negotiations

 

NPR

DOMENICO MONTANARO

ARNIE SEIPEL

President Trump threatened a hard-fought relief bill passed by Congress on Monday, calling it "a disgrace" in a video released on Twitter Tuesday evening.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Updated at 9:21 p.m. ET

President Trump is threatening to derail a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package passed by Congress on Monday after months of bitter negotiations.

In a video released on his Twitter feed Tuesday evening, Trump said he wants Congress to "send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package."

Trump said the bill was a "disgrace" and called the $600 payments to individuals in the current bill "ridiculously low." He said he wants that boosted to $2,000 per individual and $4,000 for couples — despite the fact that it was Republicans who stood in the way of higher payments for months.

The relief package was passed as part of a bill to fund government operations for the rest of the fiscal year, though the president did earlier sign a stopgap measure that extends government funding until Monday.

Trump blasted money appropriated for foreign aid, environmental programs and cultural institutions, calling them "wasteful."

Virtually all of the complaints Trump made in the four-minute video — including foreign aid agreements, aid to the Kennedy Center, fish management language and more — are not part of the $900 billion covid relief agreement but rather included in other, separately negotiated parts of the legislation, including a $1.4 trillion omnibus appropriations bill and a measure authorizing $9.9 billion in water projects. These bills and many others were packaged together in the agreement, which is over 5300 pages long.

POLITICS

Here Is What's In Congress' COVID-19 Relief Package

Trump did not expressly threaten to veto the legislation. It was passed by overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate, with enough votes to potentially override a presidential veto if Trump were to carry out that option. But the process would take weeks.

Trump's move throws a big wrench into what's been a hotly contentious process.

Democrats seized on Trump's call for higher payments. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said they'll bring the $2,000 direct payments to the floor Thursday for a vote by unanimous consent.

"Republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the President wanted for direct checks," Pelosi said. "At last, the President has agreed to $2,000 — Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent. Let's do it!"

Trump's comments also put leading Republicans in a box.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina responded on Twitter, calling the relief bill "imperfect," but that it "will save jobs and lives. The sooner the bill becomes law - the better."

The implications for what happens next could be severe. If he refuses to sign the bill, the government will shut down on Dec. 29. The $900 billion in emergency economic aid will be frozen, and the race for the two Senate seats in Georgia could also be upended.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), however, quickly responded to the Twitter post by saying congressional Democrats would move as soon as Thursday, when the House is scheduled to meet for a brief pro forma session, to advance the $2,000 stimulus checks.

“Republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the President wanted for direct checks,” she posted on Twitter on Tuesday night after Trump’s message. “At last, the President has agreed to $2,000 — Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent. Let’s do it!”

Logistically, though, none of this is likely to happen.

If any Republican in the House opposed Pelosi’s effort on Thursday, it would not pass. Such a change would also require Senate Republicans to pass the measure unanimously, something that is also unlikely..

Trump can continue to keep himself in the news by escalating the drama of his behavior, seeking a showdown with the Senate Republicans who are doing their very best to avoid precisely such a showdown. He wants a fight.

Clash between GOP, Democrats over stimulus bill intensifies

1.8 trillion package falls far short of advancing in Senate

Democrats blocked legislation from moving forward, saying that it did not do enough to shore up the health-care system and help ordinary Americans, but talks between the sides continued.
By Erica Werner, Seung Min Kim, Rachael Bade and Jeff Stein



Governors, mayors in growing uproar over Trump’s response

Many officials complain that President Trump does not have a coherent or ready plan to confront a crisis that could soon push the nation’s health-care system to the brink of collapse.
By Robert Costa and Aaron Gregg

After the governors of multiple states and other leaders made urgent pleas on Sunday for masks and other protective equipment to help fight the swelling outbreak, President Trump listed a number of federal actions in a news conference in the evening.

As the number of known cases in the United States crossed 31,700, California officials told hospitals to restrict coronavirus testing, and a hospital in Washington State warned that it could run out of life-preserving ventilators by early next month. ​Washington State’s Department of Health told local leaders that only the highest-priority areas would have access to the government’s reserves of protective equipment, including N95 masks.

Mr. Trump said that major disaster declarations were in process for New York, California and Washington — the three states hardest hit by the virus — and that they would not have to pay for deploying National Guard units.

Mr. Trump also said during the Sunday conference that he had directed FEMA to supply four large federal medical stations with 1,000 beds for New York, eight large federal medical stations with 2,000 beds for California, and three large federal medical stations and four small federal medical stations with 1,000 beds for the State of Washington.

The stations for New York, to be built in Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, were announced earlier in the day by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

As Mr. Trump detailed federal activities, he at times repeated facts and appeared halting as he described a complex list of facts and figures in the millions.

Many state and local officials have pressed Mr. Trump to use his authority under the Defense Production Act to mobilize industry to manufacture scarce goods. On Sunday, Peter T. Gaynor, the FEMA administrator, said the president was not doing so, and instead was using the threat of the act as “leverage to demonstrate that we can.”

At the news conference on Sunday, Mr. Trump defended his decision not to implement the Defense Production Act despite an outcry from state governors and Democrats.

The president’s top trade adviser said that, in fact, the act had spurred the country’s “industrial base” to voluntarily mobilize, allowing for the quick conversion of corporate production facilities to produce medical supplies.

“We’re getting what we need without putting the heavy hand of government down,” Peter Navarro, the president’s top trade adviser, told reporters.

New York State now has roughly 5 percent of the world’s cases.
A sharp increase in confirmed coronavirus cases in New York State on Sunday indicated that the state now accounts for roughly 5 percent of coronavirus cases worldwide.

The jump stemmed from both the rapid growth of the outbreak and a significant increase in testing in the state. Health officials emphasized that testing was revealing how quickly the virus had spread.

There are now 15,168 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the state, up 4,812 since Saturday, and 114 deaths, Mr. Cuomo said. About 13 percent, or 1,974 people in New York who tested positive for the virus, were hospitalized, he said.

The governor took issue with what he called the “insensitive” and “arrogant” behavior of New York City residents who continued to gather in parks and other public spaces. Mr. Cuomo indicated that he would give the city 24 hours to come up with a plan to reduce density in these spaces, which he would need to approve."I don’t know what I’m saying that people don’t get,” Mr. Cuomo said, suggesting that city officials could close some streets to traffic to give residents more outdoor space.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York warned that the city’s hospitals were straining under a deluge of cases, and he again called on Mr. Trump to send more help. “April is going to be worse than March,” he said. “And I fear May will be worse than April.”






'I can't jump in front of the microphone and push him down': Fauci says he tells Trump things FOUR times before they sink in, criticizes him for shaking hands with people and using term 'China virus' - and is absent from latest briefing

When asked Sunday by Science magazine’s Jon Cohen about having to stand in front of the nation as “the representative of truth and facts” when “things are being said that aren’t true and aren’t factual,” the 79-year-old said there is only so much he can do.

“I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down,” Fauci said, referencing Trump. “OK, he said it. Let’s try and get it corrected for the next time.”
The frank comment was just one part of a remarkable Q&A published Sunday night in which Fauci shed light on his relationship with Trump, how the pair handles their differences and what happens before each coronavirus task force news conference.

Read Fauci's full interview here

On more than one occasion, Fauci, described by The Washington Post’s Ellen McCarthy and Ben Terris as “the grandfatherly captain of the corona­virus crisis,” has found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to publicly contradict the president — a risky action that could conceivably jeopardize the scientist’s job.
Anthony Fauci was ready for this. America was not.
Fauci acknowledged as much on Sunday.
“To my knowledge, I haven’t been fired,” he told Cohen, laughing.

Most recently, Fauci has sought to temper Trump’s comments touting an old anti-malarial drug as a potential treatment for covid-19. At a news conference Friday, one day after Trump called the medicine a possible “game-changer,” Fauci said the only evidence of the drug’s promise so far has been “anecdotal,” adding, “So you really can’t make any definitive statement about it.”

Harvey Weinstein has coronavirus: Rapist, 68, tests positive and is put in isolation just days after he was moved from Rikers Island to an upstate NY prison to start his 23-year sentence

Harvey Weinstein has tested positive for coronavirus. A source told DailyMa 'He tested positive and is quarantined.' Weinstein, 68, is isolated at Wende Correctional Facility in Western New York. The shamed producer is said to have told prison staff he believed he has the virus when he entered the state prison system last Wednesday from Rikers Island.