Lawmakers Press Trump on Relief Bill as Jobless Aid Expires

 

Lawmakers Press Trump on Relief Bill as Jobless Aid Expires

President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington before boarding Marine One. Unemployment benefits for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet were set to lapse at midnight Saturday night unless Trump signed an end-of-year COVID relief and spending bill that had been considered a done deal before his sudden objections. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File) The Associated Press

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump appeared no closer to signing an end-of-year COVID relief and spending bill Sunday as unemployment aid expired, the government barrels toward a mid-pandemic shutdown and lawmakers implored him to break the impasse he created after Congress approved the deal.

The fate of the bipartisan package remained in limbo after Trump blindsided members of both parties with a demand for larger COVID relief checks and complained about “pork” spending, even as help for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet lapsed overnight. The federal government will run out of money at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday if Trump refuses to sign the bill as he spends the holidays in Florida.

In the face of economic hardship and spreading disease, several lawmakers urged Trump to sign the legislation immediately, then have Congress follow up with more relief.

 

“What the president is doing right now is unbelievably cruel,” Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said Sunday. “So many people are hurting.”

 

Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania also said Trump should sign the bill, then make the case for more. “We’ve got a bill right now that his administration helped negotiate,” he said. “I think we ought to get that done."

 

That point was echoed by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who's criticized Trump's pandemic response and his efforts to undo the election results. “I just gave up guessing what he might do next,” he said. Hogan and Sanders spoke on ABC's “This Week," Toomey on “Fox News Sunday.”

 

In South Bend, Indiana, Lanetris Haines, a self-employed single mother of three, stood to lose her $129 weekly jobless benefit unless Trump signed the package into law or succeeded in his improbable quest for changes.

 

“It’s a chess game and we are pawns,” she said.

 

Trump was spending Sunday golfing at his West Palm Beach course.

 

He has given no indication he plans to sign the bill as he spends the last days of his presidency in a rage. Indeed, his dissatisfaction with the legislation seems only to have grown in recent days as he has criticized it both privately to club members and publicly on Twitter.

 

“I simply want to get our great people $2000, rather than the measly $600 that is now in the bill,” he tweeted Saturday. “Also, stop the billions of dollars in ‘pork.’"