Trump heads back to White House after GOP nixes larger checks

President has signed relief bill with $600 payments, but Ky. senator has blocked vote raising those to $2,000

President Donald Trump was set to jet back to the White House on New Year’s Eve after the Republican Senate rejected his demands for $2,000 COVID stimulus checks.

Trump was uncharacteristically quiet on Twitter on Wednesday evening after the press office announced he and First Lady Melania Trump would leave his resort in Palm Beach at 11 a.m. Thursday.

There was no immediate word on what Trump’s early pre-holiday return to the nation’s capital might mean for the stimulus logjam on Capitol Hill.

GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pronounced Trump’s bigger checks as dead on arrival even thought Democrats say they believe they could amass the 60 votes needed to pass it.

Trump has spent more than a week demanding that lawmakers increase the amount of the checks from the $600 that his own negotiators agreed to in a $908 billion compromise spending package.

After resisting for days, the president relented and signed the relief package. But he quickly pivoted to demanding a new measure to increase the amount of the checks.

The House quickly passed a bill for $2,000 direct payments and pushed for its enactment in the Senate.

McConnell rejected that move, claiming that the stimulus payments would have to be passed in a package with two unrelated Trump demands: a commission to probe his unfounded claims of voter fraud and repealing liability protections for social media companies.

The Senate is still in session as it prepares to vote to override Trump’s veto of a defense spending bill. That leaves open the possibility of more presidential pressure in the waning hours of 2020 or the first days of 2021.

All congressional business must be finished by Sunday when Congress officially ends its term.