Trump throws COVID reduction bill into disarray, shutdown looms
Washington
President Donald Trump’s sudden build a question to for $2,000 tests for many Americans became once mercurial rejected by Home Republicans Thursday, throwing a huge COVID reduction and authorities funding bill into disarray.
A rare Christmas Eve session of the Home of Representatives lasted true minutes and resulted in stalemate. Home leaders are now scrambling to uncover an answer sooner than lawmakers return to Washington for a brand new vote Monday.
The crisis arises after the reduction and authorities funding bill received sweeping bipartisan approval this week in the Home and Senate. The rest bill involves unemployment benefits, eviction protections, and other emergency serve, including $600 tests. The White Home assured Republican leaders that Mr. Trump supported it.
But Mr. Trump is now calling the kit a “disgrace” and calling for $2,000 tests. Since the reduction bill is linked to the authorities funding bill, Mr. Trump’s refusal to signal it would possibly per chance per chance per chance per chance per chance spark a federal shutdown at the hours of darkness Monday.
Mr. Trump’s decision to assault the bill has been considered, no now not as a lot as in section, as political punishment for what he considers insufficient backing by congressional Republicans of his marketing campaign to overturn the outcomes of the Nov. 3 election with counterfeit claims of voter fraud.
“At a meeting in Florida this present day, all people became once asking why aren’t the Republicans up in arms & combating over the truth that the Democrats stole the rigged presidential election?” Mr. Trump tweeted Thursday.
“I’m going to NEVER FORGET!” he later added.
The president spent his Christmas golfing in Florida at his Mar-a-Lago membership.
The year-discontinuance kit is the made from months of bipartisan work. It would place a immediate $300 per week supplemental jobless profit, in conjunction with a brand new spherical of subsidies for laborious-hit companies, eating areas and theaters, and cash for colleges. Cash is included for properly being care companies and to serve with COVID vaccine distribution. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin boasted that the $600 tests would possibly per chance per chance be in the mail in per week.
Congressional Republican leaders win been left nearly speechless by Trump’s year-discontinuance sizzling of their work.
The president’s push to develop philosophize funds for many Americans from $600 to $2,000 for oldsters and $4,000 for couples splits Republicans. Many win adverse the larger tests as too costly and poorly focused.
“The finest manner out of right here is for the president to signal the bill,” Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri acknowledged Thursday. “And I collected hope that’s what he decides.”
Racing to salvage the year-discontinuance legislation, Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mr. Mnuchin are in talks on alternate strategies.
Democrats will buy Home lawmakers to Washington for a vote Monday on Trump’s proposal. A roll call would build all members on report as supporting or rejecting the $2,000 tests, though a vote to approve would be rejected by the Senate.
But another option is a Monday vote on a discontinuance-gap measure to no now not as a lot as avert a federal shutdown. It would maintain the authorities operating till President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20. Lawmakers will also be requested to override Mr. Trump’s veto of a must-high-tail bill to fund the Defense Department.
Associated Press author Jill Colvin in West Palm Beach contributed to this report.
This story became once reported by The Associated Press.