House Republicans will stop President Donald Trump’s demand for $2,000 relief checks, saying they won’t support Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Christmas Eve proposal to get more money to Americans struggling in the coronavirus pandemic.
House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy told his fellow Republicans on a conference call Wednesday that the unanimous consent request Pelosi plans for the $2,000 checks will not go through.
He called the speaker’s move a ‘stunt’ and said Republicans would work on their own proposal regarding relief checks.
The Republicans convened the Wednesday afternoon call after President Trump’s implied threat to veto the COVID bailout, which came in a surprise video announcement via Twitter from the president on Tuesday night.
Trump’s demand for additional relief money blindsided all of Washington – members of both parties on Capitol Hill and several of his White House staff alike.
McCarthy told the lawmakers on the call that he’s spoken to Trump and the president has not committed to vetoing the 5,593-page legislative package that includes $600 COVID relief checks from Americans plus funding for the government, which runs out at midnight Monday.
Meanwhile, Pelosi threw down the gauntlet to President Trump, telling him he should get his own party to back his demand for $2,000 checks – and mocked his sudden move in a letter sent Wednesday to fellow Democrats.
‘Just when you think you’ve seen it all,’ the Speaker wrote in a letter to her Democratic colleagues, ‘the President said that he would possibly veto the bicameral agreement negotiated between Republicans and Democrats.’
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