It wouldn’t be the Trump presidency if we’d known the president’s position on the year’s most important bill before it passed.
Last week, Trump reportedly thought about demanding $1,200 or even $2,000 stimulus checks in the COVID-relief bill. But his aides advised him this would blow up the negotiations, so he didn’t.
Instead, he waited until after the bill passed — with $600 checks — and released this video last night. He is asking Congress to add $2,000 checks to the relief bill, extend a tax break for business meals, and remove the foreign aid and pork (most of which is actually in the omnibus appropriations bill that funds the government, not the relief bill itself, though the two were combined and passed as one). He doesn’t quite use the word “veto” but heavily implies it.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2020
This is going to cause chaos, and I’m not sure where it will end up.
Maybe Trump is bluffing and will end up signing the bill, perhaps in exchange for some face-saving promises from Congress.
Maybe he’ll veto it, in which case Congress will have the votes to override him, unless too many politicians who supported the bill the first time around defect.
Maybe Trump will execute a “pocket veto,” in which he holds on to the bill for ten days (Sundays not counted) without signing it, and then can’t return it to Congress because the legislature has adjourned. This is a complicated procedural move that hinges on various technical and legal details — such as when Congress officially “presents” the bill to the president — but Chad Pergram, who covers Congress for Fox, says it’s in play. If that happens, the next Congress has to start over from scratch.
Maybe Congress will cave, sending Trump another piece of legislation tacking on more money. Many Republicans wanted to keep the bill below a trillion dollars, and the higher checks would blow past that threshold. But Democrats and a few Republicans have wanted bigger Santa checks from the beginning, and maybe Trump’s gambit will push some Republicans to his side.
Oh, and the government is funded only through December 28, so there’s a shutdown in the mix here too.
I guess it wouldn’t be the Trump presidency if this went any other way.