Trump Caves on Covid Relief Bill

By Yuval Rosenberg

Trump Caves, Signs $2.3 Trillion Year-End Covid Relief and
Spending Package

After five days of drama and uncertainty created by his demands
for the massive year-end Covid relief and government funding bill,
President Trump on Sunday unexpectedly signed into law the package
he had dismissed days earlier as a "disgrace."

The reversal by the president averted a government shutdown that
would have started on Tuesday and it will extend a moratorium on
evictions that was due to expire at the end of the month. But the
delay in enacting the legislation also allowed pandemic-related
unemployment benefits for some 14 million Americans to temporarily
lapse.

Those programs — one providing aid to gig workers and others who
don’t typically qualify for unemployment insurance and the other
extending payments by up to 13 weeks — will restart now that Trump
has signed the bill, but jobless workers in the programs likely
won’t get a payment for the final week of the year and future
benefits could also be delayed as state agencies update their
computers. The $300 in weekly supplemental federal payments may now
only last 10 weeks instead of 11 since the legislation sets a March
14 end date for the enhanced benefits.

"The President’s pointless delay in approving the relief
legislation cost millions of Americans a week’s worth of
pandemic-related unemployment assistance that they desperately
need," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA)
said in a
statement. "His stalling only intensified anxiety
and hardship for workers and families who are collateral damage in
his political games. Now, people will need to wait even longer for
direct payments and other vital assistance to arrive."

What Trump says he got: Trump had insisted last week —
after the $900 Covid relief bill and $1.4 trillion omnibus spending
package were passed by Congress with overwhelming support — that
the $600 per person in direct payments provided by the legislation
should be increased. He also railed against other spending in the
nearly 5,600-page year-end package before departing Washington to
spend the holidays in Florida, where he has been
golfing repeatedly in recent days.

The president said in a statement released Sunday that he still
wants increased stimulus payments of $2,000 per adult and $600 per
child and would be demanding numerous "rescissions" or cuts to
various spending measures in the legislation.

"I will sign the Omnibus and Covid package with a strong message
that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be
removed. I will send back to Congress a redlined version, item by
item, accompanied by the formal rescission request to Congress
insisting that those funds be removed from the bill," the statement
said.

Trump added that Congress will review Section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act, a law he objects to that protects big
tech companies like Twitter from liability for content posted on
their platforms. The president said that section of the law will
"either be terminated or substantially reformed." And, he said,
Congress agreed to "focus strongly" on his claims of election
fraud.

"The Senate will start the process for a vote that increases
checks to $2,000, repeals Section 230, and starts an investigation
into voter fraud," he said. "Much more money is coming. I will
never give up my fight for the American people!"

What Trump really got: Trump’s demands reportedly caused
lawmakers to
panic, concerned about the potential effects of a
government shutdown during a pandemic. Republicans, in particular,
were in an uncomfortable position, faced with a choice of publicly
bucking a president of their own party or accepting the larger
payments that they had previously blocked.

Trump, angry at lawmakers in both parties, may have been happy
to
make them squirm — and to thrust himself into the
legislative process again after largely being absent from
negotiations on the year-end deal as he focused on his baseless
claims of widespread voter fraud.

In practical terms, though, the president got nothing from the
last-minute confusion he created.

"Trump got taken to the cleaners," Politico’s Playbook
said. "What a bizarre,embarrassing
episode for the president. He opposed a bill his administration
negotiated. He had no discernible strategy and no hand to play —
and it showed. He folded, and got nothing besides a few days of
attention and chaos. People waiting for aid got a few days of
frightening uncertainty."

Lawmakers are likely to dismiss any rescission requests Trump
sends or act on his other demands.

"I applaud President Trump’s decision to get hundreds of
billions of dollars of crucial COVID-19 relief out the door and
into the hands of American families as quickly as possible," Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in a
statement that made no mention of the concessions
Trump said lawmakers had made.

What’s next: The Democratic-led House is set to
vote Monday evening on a separate bill to increase the relief
payments to $2,000 per adult. The House failed to approve the
increased payments by unanimous consent on Thursday, but there’s a
fair chance that the measure will pass today.

It’s unclear whether the larger payments can clear the
Senate, where 60 votes will be needed for passage. "If the bill
actually passes the House with a strong Republican vote, it will
put Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a tough position of
having to decide whether to bring the provision to the floor in the
Senate as a standalone bill," CNN
reports. "While the President has been urging
Republicans to up the payments, many Republicans in McConnell’s
ranks have made it clear they don’t think an increase is warranted,
given how much it would increase the price tag of the stimulus
bill."

The increased payments would add roughly $370 billion to
the $900 billion cost of the Covid relief package.

A veto override? The House also plans to vote to
override Trump’s veto of the annual defense authorization bill. The
Senate is set to vote on that Tuesday, potentially overriding a
Trump veto for the first time.

The Treasury Department, meanwhile, is rushing to get
stimulus payments out, but The Washington Post
reports that it’s not clear yet whether the
administration will be able to start sending the payments by the
end of the week.

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