Democrats took advantage of Trump’s surprise objections to the bill in an attempt to push Republicans to accept a higher value for stimulus checks – and Republican lawmakers are now in a difficult situation where they will be forced to decide whether or not to challenge the President.
Democrats pledged that their effort is not yet over, promising to pass a bill to increase stimulus checks to $ 2,000 with a full vote up or down in the House plenary on December 28.
“On Monday, I will bring the Chamber back to the session, where we will hold a registered vote on our independent bill to increase the payments of economic impact to $ 2,000. Voting against this bill is to deny the financial difficulties that families face and deny them the relief they need, “said Pelosi in a statement.
“Hopefully, by then, the president will have already signed bipartisan and bicameral legislation to keep the government open and provide relief from the coronavirus,” she said.
The passage of the rescue package through both chambers was a huge undertaking and represented a bipartisan advance after months of party stalemate and contentious differences.
One of the main points of conflict that needed to be overcome was disagreement over how much the package should cost, with many Republicans warning that they could not accept a very high price.
After a deal was finally struck, the president was expected to support the package and the White House indicated that Trump would sign the legislation as soon as it reached his desk.
But on Tuesday, Trump questioned all of this when he signaled that he would not sign the bill if Congress did not amend the legislation and increase the “ridiculously low” stimulus checks from $ 600 to $ 2,000 for individuals or $ 4,000 per couple.
Pelosi asked Trump to get Republicans to accept the higher sum.
“If the president takes direct payments of $ 2,000 seriously, he must ask House Republicans to end their obstruction,” said Pelosi.
Republicans responded to the Democratic effort today with a proposal to withdraw a portion of the spending package that included foreign aid – an area that Trump attacked after Congress passed the bill. These provisions, however, were largely in line with Trump’s own budget request and were supported by the vast majority of Republicans. That effort was rejected by the Democrats.
At a press conference after the House’s postponement until December 28, House majority leader Steny Hoyer said Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin are still involved in discussions about Covid’s aid package – despite the fact that Mnuchin helped to negotiate the deal that Trump surprisingly, and publicly, doubted earlier this week.
Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the Republican Party leadership, says Republicans don’t really know what Trump will do next, but that they hope that he won’t veto the stimulus financing project.
“I have no idea what he plans to do,” said Blunt.
“We were assured that the president would sign the bill,” he told reporters after a brief pro-forma session. “I have no reason to believe that Secretary Mnuchin did not believe that.” Mnuchin served as the chief negotiator on behalf of the administration.
This story has been updated with further developments.
CNN’s Jazmin Goodwin contributed to this report.