Senate leader blocks Trump’s request for $ 2,000 checks

The Republican leader of the United States Senate has rejected calls from an unlikely alliance of President Donald Trump, Congressional Democrats and some Republicans to push for coronavirus aid.

Mitch McConnell said raising the aid checks from $ 600 (£ 440) to $ 2,000 would be “another borrowed money fire hose.”

The Democrat-controlled US House of Representatives had voted to increase payments to Americans.

The outgoing president’s intervention has divided his fellow Republicans.

Congress agreed to the smaller payments of $ 600 in a Covid government aid and funding bill that Trump sent back to Capitol before Christmas, and the president is seeking higher stimulus payments.

On Monday, Congressional Democrats, generally sworn political enemies of Trump, approved the measure for the $ 2,000 checks he requested.

Dozens of House Republicans, reluctant to challenge Trump, sided with Democrats to pass the package.

Trump reluctantly signed the original bill with the lowest payments on Sunday, but has continued to demand more money.

“Unless Republicans have a death wish, and that is also the right thing to do, they should approve the $ 2,000 payments as soon as possible,” he tweeted Tuesday.

The Kentucky senator rejected requests from Senate Democrats for the upper house to vote on the $ 2,000 check package approved by their counterparts in the House.

“The Senate will not be intimidated into giving more loaned money to rich friends of the Democrats who don’t need help,” McConnell said in the room.

Instead, he offered to move the $ 2,000 check proposal to another bill to include other measures that have been requested by Trump but raised objections to Democratic leaders.

One would end legal protections for tech companies, known as Section 230. The other would establish a bipartisan commission to investigate Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of systemic voter fraud.

Democrats said McConnell’s proposal was simply a legislative poison pill designed to eliminate higher stimulus payments.

Liberal Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who votes with Democrats, told the Senate floor: “All we ask for is one vote. What’s the problem?

“If you want to vote against the $ 2,000 checks to your state, vote against.”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said: “What we’re seeing now is Leader McConnell trying to clear the checks, the $ 2,000 checks that so many American families desperately need.”

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “These Republicans in the Senate seem to have an infinite tolerance for other people’s sadness.”

The party generally professes opposition to government spending as an article of faith, but some of its top Tory senators have rallied behind Trump’s request for $ 2,000 checks.

They include Marco Rubio of Florida and Josh Hawley of Missouri, both considered possible presidential contenders in 2024.

So have Georgia Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who are fighting for their political lives in the Jan.5 election against two Democratic rivals. The vote will decide which party controls the Senate next year.

But other Republicans have argued that the aid bill already provides a broader safety net once your unemployment benefits, rental assistance, and small business loans are taken into account to keep workers on your payroll.

Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey said he opposed “blind borrowing” billions of dollars to send checks to “millions of people who have not lost any income.”