Trump tries to save some virus aid
Ill president returns to Oval Office, wants stimulus checks
WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to salvage a few priority items lost in the rubble of COVID-19 relief talks that he blew up, pressing for $1,200 stimulus checks, and new aid for airlines and other businesses hard hit by the pandemic.
But it’s not clear whether he can undo the self-inflicted political damage so close to the election.
Trump, who, except for a video posted in the afternoon, remained out of sight for a second day Wednesday recovering from COVID-19, returned towork in theOval Office and made his presence knownon social media as he tweeted broadsides against Democrats and pushed lawmakers to take up piecemeal economic aid proposals after nixing negotiations on a broader assistance package.
It was Trump’s first visit to the Oval Office since being discharged Monday night from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. While there he was briefed onHurricane Delta, which is bearing down on the Gulf Coast, and on economic stimulus prospects.
In a barrage of tweets, Trump pressed for passage of these chunks of economic assistance, an aboutface from his abrupt move Tuesday to abandon talks with a longtime rival, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D
Calif. Pelosi has rejected such piecemeal entreaties all along.
Trump’s tweets amounted to him demanding his way in negotiations that he had ended.
Trump, who absorbed much political heat for abandoning the talks, is the steward of an economy whose continued recovery may hinge on significant newsteps such as pandemic unemployment benefits. His tweets helped move the financial markets into positive territory, though itwas far from certain whether they would impress voters demanding more relief.
Trump called on Congress to send him a “Stand
Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200)” — a reference to a preelection batch of direct payments to most Americans that had been a central piece of negotiations between Pelosi and the WhiteHouse.
Trump also urged Congress to approve $25 billion for airlines and $135 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program to help small businesses.
The stock market fell precipitously after Trump pulled the plug on the talks but rose Wednesday after he floated the idea of piecemeal aid.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 530.7 points, or 1.9%, at
28,303.46. The Nasdaq composite climbed 1.88%, and the S&P rose 1.74%.
Trump’s decision to scuttle talks between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Pelosi came after the president was briefed on the landscape for the negotiations — and on the blowback that any PelosiMnuchin deal probably would have received from his GOP allies in Congress.
“It became very obvious over the last couple of days that a comprehensive bill was just going to get to a point where it didn’t have really much Republican support at all,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Wednesday
on Fox News. “It was more of a Democrat-led bill, which would have been problematic, more so in the Senate than in theHouse.”
Pelosi told reporters that “all the president wants is his name on a check” for direct aid payments.
The unexpected turn could be a blow to Trump’s reelection prospects and comes as his administration and campaign are in turmoil. Trump is quarantining in the WhiteHouse, and the latest batch of opinion polls shows him significantly behind Democrat Joe Biden with the election four weeks away.
Trump’s withdrawal from the talks came immediately after he spoke with the GOP leaders in Congress.
Many Republican senators had signaled they would not be willing to go alongwith anymeasure that topped $1 trillion, and GOP aides had been privately dismissive of the prospects for a deal. Any Pelosi-sponsored agreement of close to $2 trillion raised the potential of a GOP revolt if such a plan came to a vote.
Pelosi and Mnuchin talked briefly Wednesday about the chances for a stand-alone airline rescue, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill tweeted.
Meanwhile, a panel of three appellate judges Wednesday upheld a lower court order allowing the 2020 head count of every U.S. resident to continue through October. But the panel struck down a provision that had suspended a year-end deadline for turning in figures used to decide how many congressional seats each state gets.
The ruling by the three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was a split decision for theTrumpadministration and a coalition of civil rights groups and local governments that had challenged the administration’s 2020 census schedule.
By sticking to the Dec. 31 deadline, the apportionment countwould be under the control of the Trump administration no matter who wins the presidential election next month.
The census determines how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets and how $1.5 trillion in federal funds is distributed each year.