President Trump Blasts COVID Stimulus Package, Wants More for the American People (Sekulow Recap)

By 

Jordan Sekulow

|
December 23, 2020

3 min read

Public Policy

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President Trump has blasted the COVID-19 stimulus package.

Today on Sekulow, we are discussing the news that President Trump has blasted the COVID-19 stimulus package passed by Congress. He wants more economic relief for the American people.

Here’s what President Trump said yesterday from the White House:

Throughout the summer, Democrats cruelly blocked COVID relief legislation in an effort to advance their extreme left wing agenda and influence the election. Then a few months ago, Congress started negotiations on a new package to get urgently needed help to the American people. It’s taken forever. However, the bill they are now planning to send back to my desk is much different than anticipated. It really is a disgrace.

The President may wind up vetoing this package. He can even possibly pocket veto it. You can make the argument that anything that comes out of this divided Congress is going to be flawed. But Congress MUST do better. Also, remember that it was Speaker Nancy Pelosi who made sure there wasn’t another stimulus package before the November 3rd election.

Unfortunately, I think what happened here is they combined the government funding bill with the COVID-19 stimulus. This package contained foreign aid and other things that would be in a normal spending bill so it wound up not being focused on COVID-19 relief for Americans and American businesses.

President Trump wants to raise the stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000 per person. Speaker Pelosi has endorsed that idea and said she is willing to hold a voice vote to amend the package to do just that. How will the Senate react to that? There were a number of Senators who thought the passed bill didn’t do enough to help the American people and included too much wasteful spending. Even Speaker Pelosi’s suggestion ignores the second half of the problem – the wasteful spending unrelated to COVID-19 relief.

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard hit the nail on the head when she called attention to the failures of the relief package:

I’ll tell you, in Hawaii that, in most cases, won’t even cover 25% of your rent. It is an insult and a slap in the face to every single American in the country who is struggling because of this COVID pandemic, who is concerned about not being able to pay the rent, about eviction, about whether you’ll have enough to buy groceries or medicine for yourself or your loved ones.

The American people need a COVID-19 stimulus package and we’ll continue to keep you updated as this situation develops.

The full broadcast is complete with much more analysis of the situation with the COVID-19 stimulus package and what may happen now that the President has weighed in publicly. We were also joined by Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to talk about her concerns with the stimulus package.

Watch the full broadcast below.