[ad_1]
The Vermont independent, who joins Democrats, is forcing the Senate to navigate a maze of procedural hurdles before taking a final vote to undo the presidential veto on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It does so because McConnell refuses to vote as a stand-alone bill a measure passed by the House that raises $ 600 to $ 2,000 Covid stimulus checks for some Americans.
Instead, the Majority Leader made clear during his opening speech to Wednesday’s session that he intends to keep the checks as part of a three-part measure that also includes Trump’s demands to repeal legal protections for social media companies and an investigation of their voter fraud. claim (es.
The Kentucky Republican defended his grouping of those issues as what the president “asked for” when he threatened last week to block a combined end-of-year spending bill and a Covid relief package.
McConnell called Sanders’ NDAA moves a “political stunt” because he is not allowed to force a vote on the independent checks measure “unless he can pass” the House-passed measure that the Majority Leader affirmed. “It would add half a trillion to the national debt.”
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in the room Tuesday that he did not “want to hear” complaints from the Republican Party about an aid measure to help Americans increase the deficit because they did so during Trump’s term.
“I don’t want to hear that we can’t afford it. I don’t want to hear that it would add too much to the deficit, ”Schumer said. “Senate Republicans added nearly $ 2 trillion to the deficit to give corporations a massive tax cut.”
Sanders’ temporary lockout means that the chamber will not be able to vote to end debate on the nullification measure until Friday. A final vote would come only after a 30-hour click reached zero, either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
“The Senate will not allow our national security to drift off course,” McConnell said, before adding this blow to progressive Sanders: “Not by members who have spent 30 years trying to gut our military.”
“We will stay in this bull” until it passes, he said, “one way or another.”
Sanders responded by criticizing McConnell’s home state for having 10 of the 25 poorest counties in the country.
“All we ask for is a vote, what is the problem with that?” he asked rhetorically, saying the Republican leader “might want to get on the phone and start talking to working families in Kentucky.”
McConnell has just been re-elected for another six-year term by his Kentucky teammates.
