Trump allies convinced president to sign relief legislation by ‘playing to his vanity’, report says

Aides coddled ‘cranky’ president after his rejection of critically needed aid as unemployment payments expired, Axios reports

Donald Trump finally signed legislation deploying critically needed aid during the coronavirus crisis after his aides and allies reportedly promised him “wins” he could announce with his signature, following his empty threats to derail legislation and cut off relief for millions of Americans. 

After leaving the White House to spend Christmas at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after a last-minute announcement that he would not sign an omnibus government spending bill that his administration helped negotiate, the president spoke with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who golfed with the president in Florida over the weekend.

The men spent the last several days “playing to his vanity,” Axios has reported, citing a source familiar with calls, and “invoked his legacy” as they reminded him “he didn’t want to hurt people," as federal unemployment aid during the Covid-19 pandemic expired on 26 December. A federal eviction moratorium was set to expire on New Year’s Eve.

Axios reported that they convinced Mr Trump “that he had shown himself to be a fighter, and that he had gotten all there was to get.” The outlet compared holiday negotiations with a “cranky” president to “like being a hostage negotiator, or defusing a bomb.”

The president demanded that Congress amend relief legislation to include $2,000 direct payments, which had been rejected by congressional Republicans, who instead compromised with Democrats on $600 cheques.

His allies reportedly sweetened a deal for his signature with his statements claiming that in exchange, Congress “agreed to focus strongly on the very substantial voter fraud” during the 2020 presidential election as well as a vote to repeal Section 230 in the Communications Decency Act.

The president’s late approval on relief is likely to lapse benefits for millions of people receiving aid through federal programmes. The relief bill extended benefits for 11 weeks, through March. His delays likely cost Americans at least a week’s worth of aid.

After several weeks of negotiations before an eleventh-hour deadline on Monday, Congress sought to narrowly avoid a government shutdown by agreeing to the omnibus spending bill with a $900bn relief package that includes a $600 one-time direct payment to most Americans, along with an extension of $300 in federal weekly unemployment aid.

But on Wednesday, before he left the White House to spend Christmas at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the president released a video message calling the legislation a “disgrace” and demanded Congress “immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items” from the bill.

The president took issue with budget items that the White House sought months ago and that his Republican allies overwhelmingly approved. On Monday, 128 of 195 House Republicans voted to support the budget.

On Monday, House Democrats are poised to leverage the president’s demands to force Republicans to commit to $2,000 cheques in new legislation, after Democrats spent months arguing for larger payments.