Sen. Mitch Mcconnell again rejected a vote on $2,000 pandemic relief checks.
Senate leader: Congress delivered enough pandemic relief
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell all but shut the door Wednesday on President Donald Trump’s push for $2,000 COVID-19 relief checks, declaring Congress has provided enough pandemic aid as he blocked another attempt by Democrats to force a vote.
The GOP leader made clear he is unwilling to budge. Mcconnell dismissed the idea of bigger “survival checks,” saying the money would go to plenty of American households that just don’t need it.
Mcconnell’s refusal to act means the additional relief Trump wanted is all but dead.
“We just approved almost a trillion dollars in aid a few days ago,” Mcconnell said, referring to the year-end package Trump signed into law.
Mcconnell added, “If specific, struggling households still need more help,” the Senate will consider “smart targeted aid. Not another firehose of borrowed money.”
Trump has been berating GOP leaders, and he tweeted, “$2000 ASAP!”
For a second day in a row, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tried to force a vote on the bill approved by the House meeting Trump’s demand for the $2,000 checks.
“What we’re seeing right now is Leader Mcconnell trying to kill the checks — the $2,000 checks desperately needed by so many American families,” Schumer said at the Capitol.
The roadblock set by Senate Republicans appears insurmountable. Most GOP senators seemed to accept the inaction even as several Republicans, including two senators in runoff elections on Jan. 5 in Georgia, agreed with Trump’s demand.
Congress had settled on smaller $600 payments in a compromise over the big, year-end COVID relief and government funding bill that Trump reluctantly signed into law. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said those checks will start to go out Wednesday.
Earlier, Mcconnell unveiled a new bill loaded with Trump’s other priorities as a possible off-ramp for the stalemate.
It included the $2,000 checks and a complicated repeal of protections for tech companies like Facebook or Twitter under Section 230 of a communications law that the president complained is unfair to conservatives.
It also tacked on the establishment of a bipartisan commission to review the 2020 presidential election Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden.
Democrats opposed that approach, and it does not have enough support in Congress to pass.