Senate rejects Schumer’s attempt to send Trump bill for $2,000 Covid stimulus checks

Senate must once again wiggle out of a tricky showdown with President Trump

Senators blocked Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s attempt to quickly send Donald Trump a House-passed bill providing an extra $1,400 payment to Americans struggling due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The New York Democrat wanted the chamber to approve a measure backed by his party and the GOP president to bring the total amount of a new round of stimulus checks to $2,000. He requested the Senate do so by unanimous consent, but he was shot down by his GOP counterpart.

The fate of the House legislation lies with the objecting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who could tee it up for floor votes later this week.

The GOP leader, should he schedule a vote on the bill, would be risking his nearly two dozen members up for re-election in 2022 to defy Mr Trump, who remains wildly popular among Republican voters.

The president tweeted this from his South Florida resort at around 2am on Tuesday: “$2000 for our great people, not $600! They have suffered enough from the China Virus!!!”

Mr Schumer said the chamber "should not adjourn” until the checks bill, and a measure to override Mr Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act, get up-or-down floor votes.

“Let the chips fall where they may,” he said of both requested votes. 

Mr McConnell said moments before that the NDAA override vote would occur on Wednesday as Republicans look to also defy the president on that massive policy measure.

“$600 is not enough,” the top Democrat said, saying many Americans are out of work and behind on their rent payments and other bills – like the “26m Americans who are struggling to put food on the table.”

“I don’t want to hear that we cannot afford it,” he said, hitting GOP members for, during Mr Trump’s term, running up the national deficit.

He claimed most Democrats and Republicans support the $2,000 amount. But it takes 60 votes to advance legislation to a final simple-majority vote in the Senate, and it appears Democrats need nearly 10 more GOP senators to endorse the House-passed measure.

Senator Bernie Sanders, the leading progressive in that chamber, spoke after Mr McConnell blocked the motion, saying the virus is spiking across the country.

“The House has done the right thing,” Mr Sanders said, noting both Mr Trump and President-elect Joe Biden support the larger amount.

“Do we turn our back on struggling working families or do we respond to their pain?” he asked rhetorically.

How the rest of the week in the rare holiday session plays out remains foggy.

Mr McConnell only said the NDAA vote would go down on Wednesday, adding senators are starting a “process” to vote on the checks issue and a Trump demand to repeal legal protections for social media, or “big tech,” companies that the president contends allows them to censor conservatives.