New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Trump’s threat plunges Republicans into tumult
WASHINGTON— The video message that plunged Washington into chaos was filmed in secret.
President Donald Trump stood in the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room, holiday garland and gleaming ornaments draped on the fireplace behind him, and spoke into the camera not to deliver warm Christmas wishes, but to threaten to detonate Congress’ $900 billion COVID-19 relief and year-end package.
The video was released without warning Tuesday night, its recording orchestrated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and kept from all but a handful of aides. Few Republicans or even White House staffers knew Wednesday what Trump planned next, a return to the around-theclock chaos of his first months in office and a flashback to the 2015 launch of his political career when he delivered direct assaults on GOP leadership and aimed to blow up the party’s establishment.
The message served as a broadside launched at his fellow Republicans, a warning that Trump stood poised to burn it all down before he leaves office, potentially sabotaging his party’s chances of controlling the Senate as he lashed out in anger at those he believes have not supported his efforts to overturn the election. And the threat revived fears of a federal government shutdown and potentially denying benefits to Americans grappling with a raging pandemic and deep economic uncertainty.
All but abandoning his responsibilities as chief executive, save for using his presidential powers to issue pardons for political allies and those he believes wronged by his foes, Trump has holed up in the White House with an ever-shrinking circle of aides. He has ignored the surging pandemic that is killing 3,000 Americans a day and done next to nothing to promote the use of the vaccines that are being counted on to bring it to an end.
Trump’s focus instead has solely been on trying to overturn his defeat to President-elect Joe Biden, embracing baseless conspiracy theories, pushing futile legal challenges and undermining confidence in the tenets of American democracy and
the peaceful transfer of power.
“There are mixed signals from the White House leaving more confusion than calm,” said Biden on Wednesday as he pushed for passage of the hard-fought bipartisan COVID relief bill.
Trump’s latest effort to subvert the election came Tuesday night, when he released two videos, one falsely declaring that he won the election in a “landslide” and the other calling on lawmakers to increase direct
payments for most Americans from $600 to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for couples, measures most Republicans strongly oppose.
“I am also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation, and to send me a suitable bill, or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package, and maybe that administration will be me,” Trump said.
The video on the relief bill was released after the White House had sent signals that the president would sign it and after Trump’s lead negotiator, Treasure Secretary Steve Mnuchin, had taken a victory lap over its presumed adoption.
Trump’s threat put Republicans, many of whom stuck out their necks to vote for the measure, in a difficult position, and threatened to throw the party into disarray.
The president had raged all week that he felt like more Republicans were abandoning him and refusing to fight, turning to his ever-shrinking inner circle to blast Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican whip Sen. John Thune, both of whom recently recognized Biden’s win.
He also complained to allies in recent days that
Vice President Mike Pence, who by any measure has spent four years demonstrating loyalty to Trump, was not doing enough to defend him. And he said he was pleased by the departure of Attorney General William Barr, who had not supported his calls for a special counsel to look into election fraud.
This was far from the first time Trump pulled a sudden about-face on a major deal; he previously allowed the government to shut down in a fight over funding for his border wall. But the timing made it particularly damaging for Republicans and added yet another complication to the political paths of the two GOP senators fighting to keep their seats in next month’s runoff elections in Georgia, races that will determine control of the chamber.