The week
Congress signals it will ignore Trump’s post-signature demands on a $ 2.3 trillion spending package
President Trump abruptly reversed the course on Sunday night and signed a $ 2.3 trillion package to provide economic relief during the COVID-19 pandemic and to fund the federal government through September. Republican lawmakers spent the weekend publicly and in particular urging Trump to reconsider his implicit veto threat, issued after legislation passed Congress earlier this week. Specifically, Trump called for the $ 600 COVID-19 payments suggested by his negotiator, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to be increased to $ 2,000, and for cuts in foreign aid from the $ 1.4 trillion overhead account . Trump “wants to be remembered for advocating for big checks, but the danger is that he will be remembered for chaos, misery and erratic behavior if he allows it to expire,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) Told Fox News Sunday. Trump, vacationing at his resort and golf club in South Florida, has not entirely given up on his demands. “In a statement he issued after the law was signed, Trump released a long list of false allegations and complaints,” reports The Washington Post. “He said he would send a ‘red line’ version of the bill back to Congress’ insisting that these funds be removed from the bill.” Trump also said that Congress agreed to vote to increase stimulus checks to $ 2,000 – something the House has already planned to do on Monday and the Senate is unlikely to consider – and start working soon to end protection. technology companies and examine their allegations of electoral fraud. A person who interacted with Trump in Palm Beach in the past few days told the Post that the president had not discussed either the unemployment benefits he allowed to lapse or the impending government shutdown, but instead “has been focusing much more on his failed effort to reverse the election result, attacking Republicans in Congress and members of their own government for not joining him in the fight. ”“ The current Congress ends in six days, ”notes the Politico, and Trump leaves office in three weeks House Democrats and Senate Republicans immediately suggested or declared that Congress would ignore Trump’s demands.Trump said he would withhold foreign aid funds, approved at levels he had already approved in his budget and in many cases requested, using the Accumulation Control Act of 1974, reports The Wall Street Journal. But he can only freeze funds for 45 days, at which point President-elect Joe Biden will be in the White House. More stories from theweek.com Trump has learned nothing that sending $ 2,000 checks from Trump costs him the WSJ editorial board. Schumer abandons fundraising efforts in the second round of the Georgia Senate