The rare House Christmas Eve session lasted a few minutes, with help for millions of Americans waiting for Trump’s signature on the bill. Unemployment benefits, eviction protections and other emergency aid, including checks under $ 600, are at risk. Trump’s refusal to package the $ 900 billion, which is related to the $ 1.4 trillion government fund bill, could lead to a federal shutdown on Monday at midnight.
“We will not let the government shut down, nor will we let the American people fall,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., The majority leader.
The outlook seems terrible to Republicans and the outgoing president, as the nation suffers the worst vacation many remember. Families are isolated under COVID precautions and millions of American homes are devastated without adequate income, food or shelter. The number of virus deaths of 327,000 more increases.
Trump is ending his presidency the same way he started it: sowing confusion and reversing promises, contesting elections and judicializing a federal closure for demands that his own party in Congress not meet.
SEE: In a Twitter video, Trump suggests he will not sign the COVID relief bill
Republican leaders in Congress have been left almost speechless by the outbreak of their Trump job.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy helped negotiate the year-end deal, a precious bipartisan compromise, which garnered general approval this week. in the House and Senate after the White House assured Republican leaders that Trump supported him.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin boasted that the $ 600 checks all parties had agreed to for the Americans would be mailed in a week.
Instead, Washington is facing a crisis with the help of COVID about to collapse, as the president is at his club Mar-a-Lago. He has been attacking GOP leaders for refusing to unite their efforts to overturn the election Joe Biden won when the Electoral College votes in Congress were counted on January 6th.
“The best way out of that is for the president to sign the bill,” Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri said Thursday. “And I still hope that’s what he decides.”
Races to save year-end legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mnuchin are in talks over options.
Democrats will recall House lawmakers in Washington to vote on Trump’s proposal Monday, with a rollout call that would record all members who supported or rejected the $ 2,000 checks. A vote on a failure measure on Monday to prevent at least one federal closure is also being considered. It would keep the government running until the inauguration of Biden on January 20th. Lawmakers will also be asked to overturn Trump’s veto on a mandatory Defense bill.
After presiding over the short session of the House, an exasperated representative Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., Denied the possibility that COVID attendance could collapse.
“It’s Christmas Eve, but it’s not a quiet night. Not everything is quiet. For many, nothing is bright,” he told Capitol Hill.
A town hall that hosted the night before “made people cry, people were terrified of what was going to happen,” he said. Recently, a father told him that he had to explain to his children that there will be no Santa this year.
The president’s push to increase direct payments for most Americans from $ 600 to $ 2,000 for individuals and $ 4,000 for couples boosts Democratic support, but divides the Republican Party with a politically difficult test of his loyalty to the president.
Click here to open our stimulus check calculator and see how much you could receive.
Republican lawmakers have traditionally rejected big spending, never fully accepting Trump’s populist approach. Many have opposed checks over $ 2,000 as overly expensive and misdirected.
In a conference call, Republican lawmakers in the House denounced Trump throwing them under the bus, according to a Republican in the private call, and granted anonymity to discuss it. The majority had voted for the package and urged Republican Party leaders to participate in cable news programs to explain its benefits, the person said.
Still, the president has found common ground with Democrats, particularly leading Liberals who support the $ 2,000 payments as the best way to help troubled Americans. Democrats only settled for the lowest number to commit to Republicans.
Even if the House is able to approve Trump’s $ 2,000 dollars on Monday, that measure would likely die in the Republican-controlled Senate, which is due to reconvene on Tuesday.
The president’s unpredictable demands are creating more Trump-related headaches for Georgia’s GOP sensations, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are fighting for their political lives – and for the GOP’s continued control of the Senate – in a couple of years. ‘eliminations from Georgia on January 5th. elections. They are forced to choose whether to support or back Trump, which can anger voters on all sides.
The clash unfolded Thursday as the Democratic-controlled House met for a routine proforma session, which had been scheduled before Trump’s sudden moves, when lawmakers predicted no business would take place.
Instead, the 12-minute session of the House turned into a procedural fight, as Hoyer, the House’s No. 2 Democrat, called for the unanimous approval of all members of the House to pass the bill. with Trump’s proposal. Republican Party leader Kevin McCarthy, who was not present in the nearly empty chamber, refused.
House Republicans tried, but failed, to get unanimous approval of his own proposal to review routine funding for foreign aid, which Trump had cited as one of his key objections to the general spending package.
The year-end package against which Trump dismissed himself as a “misfortune” is the product of months of work. It would establish a temporary additional benefit of $ 300 a week for unemployment, along with a new round of grants for affected businesses, restaurants and theaters and money for schools. Money is included for health care providers and to help with the distribution of the COVID vaccine. Trump pointed to foreign aid funds in the package he agreed to in the past and called for in his annual budget.
The final text of the more than 5,000-page bill required the compilation of days, but Pelosi announced Thursday that it was finished and was being sent to the White House for Trump’s signature.
The end-of-year calendar complicates the calendar in advance. Even if Trump doesn’t formally veto the package, he could let it expire with a “pocket veto” at the end of the Congress session.
The Senate cleared the huge relief package Monday by 92-6 votes after the House approved it by 359-53. These vote totals would be enough to overturn a veto should Trump decide to take that step.
SEE: Mixed families excluded from the first stimulus controls may be relieved with the second round
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