Hillary Clinton attacks Trump’s new executive orders as ‘a stunt’ and ‘a big diversion’

Former candidate warned that president’s ‘most likely unconstitutional’ actions are a smokescreen for an upcoming assault on social security and medicare

Hillary Clinton has laid into Donald Trump over the presidential orders he issued this weekend – and has warned that the possibly unconstitutional actions are a signal of something worse to come.

“It’s a stunt,” Mr Trump’s former presidential rival told MSNBC. “There’s no doubt about it, it’s most likely, as even Republican senators have said, unconstitutional, bypassing the Congress, trying to spend money that he has no authority to direct.

“But it’s also meant to be a big diversion from the hard work that Congress should be engaged in to provide the kind of relief that tens of millions of Americans need.”

Ms Clinton was referring to the fraught congressional negotiations over extending and strengthening coronavirus rescue efforts from the federal government. Small businesses and millions of newly laid-off Americans have so far been supported to a degree by more than a trillion dollars’ worth of assistance.

But much of what has so far been allocated is expiring, and Capitol Hill’s Democrats and Republicans still say they are “trillions of dollars apart” in their efforts to reconcile their proposals for what comes next.

Into this situation came Mr Trump, who on Saturday issued an executive order and three memoranda which he said would temporarily cut the payroll tax, impose an eviction moratorium for the rest of 2020, offer a holiday on student loan repayments, and send $400 a week in assistance to unemployed Americans.

Some queried whether the orders would actually do what Mr Trump claimed, while others pointed out that the president is almost certainly prohibited from making tax policy by fiat.

One Republican senator, Trump critic Ben Sasse, declared that “the pen-and-phone theory of executive lawmaking is unconstitutional slop” and pointed out that Republicans would never have endorsed such a move by Barack Obama.

Ms Clinton, however, had another concern besides: that Mr Trump was signalling his new agenda for America’s welfare system for those who would like to see it cut back or dismantled.

“Basically he signalled that he’s going after Social Security and Medicare,” she said. “I don’t know if he understood that – you never know what he knows or doesn’t know about how the government operates – but basically, he was talking about ending the financial contributions we all make into Social Security and Medicare through the payroll tax.

“So yes, it was a stunt, most likely unconstitutional, he doesn’t really have the authority to do what he tried. But he sent a signal to voters that if you are unfortunately unlucky enough to have him be president again, you can watch what he’s going to do to Social Security and Medicare, and it’s going to hurt not just elderly Americans but every American.”

Meanwhile, as Ms Clinton issued her warning on MSNBC, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro was speaking to NBC’s Chuck Todd. He defended the legality of the executive orders, saying he is confident that all of them are within Mr Trump’s authority to issue.

He also defended Mr Trump’s decision to repair to his golf club in New Jersey for the weekend instead of intervening in Washington to help broker a deal.

“Look, you have to understand, this is the hardest working president in history, he works 24/7. He can be in Bedminster, Mar-a-Lago, the Oval Office, or anywhere in between. He can be at the Whirlpool factory like we were on Thursday, celebrating working men and women benefiting from tariffs. He’s working 24/7.

“The problem here is Capitol Hill, the swamp.”