McConnell Blocks $2,000 Covid Relief Checks

By Yuval Rosenberg

McConnell Blocks $2,000 Covid Relief Checks

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Tuesday blocked
an attempt by Democrats to pass a bill that would increase
coronavirus relief payments from $600 to $2,000 for most
Americans.

McConnell objected to calls by Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for unanimous consent
to approve the $2,000 payments. In a bit of parliamentary
maneuvering, Sanders then blocked McConnell’s bid to unanimously
override President Trump’s veto of the National Defense
Authorization Act, tying to the two issues together while leaving
both in limbo with just a few days left before the 116th Congress
comes to a close on Sunday.

Both the $2,000 payments and the NDAA veto override were passed
by the House on Monday. The larger stimulus checks passed 275-134,
with 44 Republicans joining 231 Democrats in favor of the increased
payments and 130 Republicans opposed. House lawmakers voted 322-87
to override Trump's veto of the defense bill.

The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation said Monday that
increasing the direct payments from $600 to $2,000 and expanding
eligibility as the House-passed bill did would cost $464
billion.

McConnell’s strategy: Speaking on the floor of the
Senate, McConnell recognized that Trump had demanded that the
coronavirus relief legislation, which was
signed into law on Sunday, include the $2,000
payments. He also referred to two of Trump’s other complaints about
the bill: that it failed to remove legal protections for tech firms
contained in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act or
provide for further investigations of alleged election fraud.

“Those are the three important subjects the president has linked
together. This week the Senate will begin a process to bring those
three priorities into focus,” McConnell said, while remaining vague
about how those issues — and the timing of votes — might play
out.

McConnell’s on Tuesday reportedly
filed a bill tying the $2,000 payments — which he and
other Republican leaders oppose — to Trump’s additional
demands.

The move is sure to undermine support for the bill among
Democrats, who are unlikely to vote in favor of eliminating Section
230 or opening investigations into the recent election. In a
statement, Schumer said that McConnell’s combined bill "will not
pass the House and cannot become law – any move like this by Sen.
McConnell would a blatant attempt to deprive Americans of a $2,000
survival check."

Trump responds: The president
replied to McConnell’s vote block in a tweet: “Unless
Republicans have a death wish, and it is also the right thing to
do, they must approve the $2000 payments ASAP. $600 IS NOT ENOUGH!
Also, get rid of Section 230 - Don’t let Big Tech steal our
Country, and don’t let the Democrats steal the Presidential
Election.”

Trump also attacked Republican leaders, calling them “weak and
tired” for allowing the override vote on the NDAA to proceed.

Strange bedfellows: The conflict is creating some unusual
alliances, with Democrats backing Trump on the larger relief
payments and GOP leaders threatening to defy a president they have
been loath to cross in the past.

While most Republican senators oppose the effort to increase the
relief payments, a handful have expressed support, including Sens.
Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Marco Rubio (R-FL). Facing runoff elections
next week, GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia
have also recently gotten behind the effort.

What’s next: McConnell may have
effectively killed off the $2,000 checks since his combined bill
won’t pass the Senate and the House is done for the
year.

A Senate vote to override the NDAA is now delayed until January
1 at the earliest, Roll Call
said, and senators my now face several days of
debate and maneuvering on the relief payments.

“McConnell’s move was just the beginning of a saga that is
likely to engulf the Senate for the rest of the week,” The
Washington Post’s Mike DeBonis and Tony Romm
reported.

Quote of the Day: Falling Short on Covid Shots

“It’s not like we didn’t know vaccines were coming. It’s not
like this has caught us off guard. Two things have gone on. One is
we have not gotten the vaccines out to states as quickly as we were
promised. But that to me is the less important issue. The more
important issue is that there really has not been much of a plan on
what happens after the vaccine arrives in states. How do we get it
into people’s arms? We just left it up to states and states are
really stretched, we’ve given them very little money. We’re
repeating all the mistakes we made with PPEs and testing all over
again.”

–
Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean of the Brown University
School of Public Health, on NBC’s “Today” show. The United States
is set to fall well short of its goal to vaccinate
20 million Americans by the end of the year. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that 11.4 million
doses of vaccine had been distributed and
2.1 million initial doses had been administered as
of Monday morning.

Number of the Day: 400,000

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now forecasts
that the United States will reach 400,000 coronavirus deaths by
January 20, when President Trump leaves office.


Bloomberg News lays out how the death toll has
accelerated: “The country surpassed 100,000 deaths in May, and
200,000 four months later. It passed 300,000 in three months, and
400,000 looks set to take just one month” based on CDC
modeling.

A programming note: We'll be back in
your inbox on Monday. Here's hoping for a healthy and happy 2021 —
and that the new year is better in every way. It has to be, right?
Right?

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