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Washington — President Donald Trump said Monday that he’s looking at steps he can take with executive orders on issues like stopping evictions, since he claimed Democrats aren’t serious about negotiating a new coronavirus relief bill.
“A lot of people are going to be evicted but I’m going to stop it because I’ll do it myself if I have to,” Trump told reporters at an event at the White House. “I have a lot of powers with respect to executive orders and we’re looking at that very seriously right now.”
He didn’t specify what any of those powers were, though.
Trump’s comments came after The Washington Post reported that his administration was eyeing steps it could take unilaterally if no deal is reached on Capitol Hill. It’s unclear exactly what those might be, but the discussions are a reflection of officials’ increasingly pessimistic outlook for the talks with congressional Democrats.
Pressure is increasing for an outcome since enhanced unemployment benefits expired for some 30 million workers on Friday, and a moratorium on evictions also recently expired.
Trump spoke even as the latest round of negotiations got underway in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer were meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The group has met nearly daily for the past week without making much progress, as Democrats are holding out for a wide-ranging $3 trillion bill while Trump administration officials are pushing a short-term fix for unemployment insurance, evictions and perhaps a few other issues.
Trump was asked why he wasn’t taking part in the talks and he tried to insult Pelosi before insisting that he was involved.
“I’m totally involved, I’m totally involved,” Trump said, but he accused Democrats of “slow-rolling” the talks and said he might have to act on his own.
In an interview earlier on CNN, Pelosi said it was critical to make a deal.
“It’s absolutely essential that we reach agreement,” Pelosi said. “The numbers are spiking in terms of the lives and the — life and death, as well as infections, in terms of the virus. So, my view is that if you want to open the economy and the schools, you just have to defeat the virus, and we haven’t done that.”
It’s not clear what steps the administration could take without the help of Congress on issues such as lapsed enhanced unemployment benefits or the expired moratorium on evictions — the two matters Trump has recently identified as his highest priorities in the ongoing talks. Both of those programs were authorized by Congress earlier this year but were designed to be temporary.