Donald Trump plays golf as Congress scrambles to salvage Covid relief bill
After tossing a grenade that threatens to blow up a massive Covid relief and government funding bill and force a government shutdown in the midst of a pandemic, Donald Trump was golfing on Christmas for a second straight day.
Failure to agree on the bill could deny checks to millions of Americans on the brink.
Trump had no events on his public schedule on the first day of his winter vacation on Thursday, but travelled to his Palm Beach golf club, where he was spotted by CNN cameras on the links.
Reporters were given no details of his schedule for the day, but told that, “As the Holiday season approaches, President Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People. His schedule includes many meetings and calls.”
Trump’s departure came as Washington was still reeling over his surprise, 11th-hour demand that an end-of-year spending bill that congressional leaders spent months negotiating give most Americans $2,000 Covid relief checks – far more than the $600 members of his own party had agreed to. The idea was swiftly rejected by House Republicans during a rare Christmas Eve session, leaving the proposal in limbo.
The bipartisan compromise had been considered a done deal and had won sweeping approval in the House and Senate this week after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it. If Trump refuses to sign the deal, which is attached to a $1.4tn government funding bill, it will force a federal government shutdown, in addition to delaying aid checks and halting unemployment benefits and eviction protections in the midst of the most dire stretch of the pandemic.
It was an apparent act of antagonism toward congressional Republicans from a president who has been raging over his 3 November loss to President-elect Joe Biden and trying to come up with new, increasingly outrageous schemes to try to overturn the results of a Democratic election. He has been egged on by allies like his lawyer, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who accompanied the president to Florida onboard Air Force One.
Trump’s ire has been focused, in part, on Republicans in Congress whom he believes have been insufficiently supportive of his quest to delegitimize Biden’s win by lobbing unfounded claims of mass voter fraud before Congress meets to tally the electoral college votes on 6 January.
Meanwhile, the nation continues to reel as the coronavirus spreads, with record infections and hospitalizations and more than 327,000 now dead. And millions are facing the prospect of spending the holidays alone or struggling to make ends meet without adequate income, food or shelter thanks to the pandemic’s economic toll.
Meanwhile, the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, have been trying to salvage the year-end legislation to try to prevent a shutdown. Democrats will recall House lawmakers to Washington for a vote on Monday on Trump’s $2,000 proposal, though it would probably die in the GOP-controlled Senate. They are also considering a Monday vote on a stopgap measure to at least avert a federal shutdown and keep the government running until Biden is inaugurated on 20 January.
In addition to the relief checks, the Covid bill that passed would establish a temporary $300-a-week supplemental jobless benefit, provide a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses, restaurants and theaters and money for schools, and provide money for healthcare providers and to help with Covid vaccine distribution.