“President Trump signed a bill to extend unemployment benefits and avert a government shutdown,” Axios reports.
“While Trump signed the current bill, which provides for $600 checks for most Americans, he will continue his push to bring that amount to $2,000.”
President Trump announced plans to hold a rally in Georgia to seek support for the Republican candidates the day before the state’s two Senate runoffs.
“On Christmas Eve, staff at Mar-a-Lago made preparations for President Trump to sign the Covid-19 relief package and government funding bill, a holiday gift of relief to millions of Americans suffering in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic,” CNN reports.
“But the plan was scrapped at the last minute.”
One source said that Trump had “changed his mind.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports Trump appeared to suggest that he would be taking action on the pandemic relief bill, writing on Twitter, “Good news on Covid Relief Bill. Information to follow!”
“A bipartisan group of lawmakers from both chambers of Congress on Sunday reissued their call for President Trump to sign a nearly $1 trillion COVID-19 relief package – or to immediately veto it,” The Hill reports.
“If the president continues to refuse to take any action on the relief package, it would cause the legislation to die upon the start of the new legislative session in January.”
Earlier for members: How Trump Could ‘Pocket Veto’ the Relief Bill
Vice President Mike Pence is in Vail, Colorado for a ski vacation — even though CDC guidelines recommending against traveling for the holiday season — according to Real Vail.
A source briefed by White House officials on the relief bill told the Washington Post that President Trump — who has been frustrated by his election loss and the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic — is “just angry at everybody and wants to inflict as much pain on Congress as possible.”
The chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) should not challenge Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) in the 2022 Democratic primary, according to the New York Post.
Said Jay Jacobs: “I think it would be a primary driven by ambition more than by need.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper said he won’t interview certain pro-Donald Trump people because they’ve established themselves as liars for the president with “no value” being aired on TV, Mediaite reports.
Said Tapper: “Well, there are some people that are so mendacious, I just wouldn’t put them on air. Kayleigh McEnany, I never booked her. Jason Miller from the Trump campaign, I would never book him. These are just people who tell lies the way that most people breathe. There was no value in that.”
“As President Trump rapidly approached a Monday deadline to avert a government shutdown, aides and lawmakers appeared flummoxed about his strategy, left to interpret musings from his Twitter feed while he golfed and otherwise remained out of public view,” the Washington Post reports.
“A large spending bill that Congress passed last week must be signed into law by midnight on Monday in order to prevent many federal agencies from dramatically scaling back their operations. After Congress passed the bill, Trump posted a video on Twitter announcing his objections to it, claiming stimulus benefits were too small and that foreign aid was too excessive.”
New York Times: Lawmakers push Trump to sign the relief bill.
Wall Street Journal: “The November election reinforced a pattern showing that party affiliation is increasingly connected with where voters live. Rural voters across the country overwhelmingly supported President Trump, while American cities remained Democratic strongholds, and this year, once reliably Republican suburbs shifted to blue.”
“Black Americans have bucked those trends by largely supporting Democrats regardless of whether they live in big cities, suburbs or rural areas, according to voter surveys and a comparison of demographic data and election results.”
“That dynamic has taken on added importance in Georgia, where Black voters make up about a third of active voters in the Atlanta metropolitan area and about a quarter elsewhere in the state. The two Senate contests will likely come down to whether Republicans can run up the score in rural areas and hold off a surge of Democratic voters in the Atlanta metro area.”
Rep.-elect Cori Bush (D-MO) and Rep.-elect Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) declined to say Sunday whether they will vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, Politico reports.
“After bringing some 60 lawsuits, and even offering financial incentive for information about fraud, Mr. Trump and his allies have failed to prove definitively any case of illegal voting on behalf of their opponent in court — not a single case of an undocumented immigrant casting a ballot, a citizen double voting, nor any credible evidence that legions of the voting dead gave Mr. Biden a victory that wasn’t his,” Politico reports.
“Yet there are no signs that those defeats in the courts will change the trajectory of the ongoing efforts to restrict voting that have been core to conservative politics since the disputed 2000 election, which coincided with heightened party concerns that demographic shifts would favor Democrats in the popular vote.”
Associated Press: “One thing helping line voters up is the decision of the candidates in both races to run as tickets, with joint appearances and advertisements.”
“With the candidates running as tickets, it’s unlikely the parties will split the seats. Two wins would put Democrats in control of the U.S. Senate with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris breaking a 50-50 tie. A split or two GOP wins would keep Republicans in control.”
Playbook: “In the past, he turned on Congress when they ignored him — see the shutdown after the 2018 midterm election, when they left out money for his border wall. Trump didn’t make this ask until after the deal was cut.”
“And what about Steven Mnuchin, the eager-turned-scorned Treasury secretary, who seemed to revel in his prowess to make deals with Democrats. What a humiliating episode for him.”
“Millions of Americans lost their unemployment coverage on Saturday as President Trump resisted signing a sweeping $900 billion aid package until lawmakers more than tripled the size of relief checks, putting the fate of the measure in limbo,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump’s resistance to signing the bill risks leaving millions of unemployed Americans without crucial benefits, jeopardizes other critical assistance for businesses and families set to lapse at the end of the year and raises the possibility of a government shutdown on Tuesday.”
Playbook: “Unemployment benefits have already run out. But the president, comfortably enveloped at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, seems to be growing more indignant that the rescue package deal his treasury secretary cut with Congress is insufficient. He is showing no signs whatsoever that he is going to sign it.”
“The president’s aides and allies are working to try to get him to reverse his stance, with evidently little success.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called out President Trump’s response to the $900 billion COVID-10 relief bill passed in Congress last week “unbelievably cruel” in an ABC News interview.
Said Sanders: “What the president is doing right now is unbelievably cruel. Many millions of people are losing their extended unemployment benefits. They’re going to be evicted from their apartments because the eviction moratorium is ending. We are looking at a way to get the vaccine distributed to tens of millions of people. There’s money in that bill.”
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) expressed frustration with President Trump’s objections to the COVID-19 relief and government funding bill awaiting his signature, USA Today reports.
Said Toomey: “I understand he wants to be remembered for advocating for big checks, but the danger is he’ll be remembered for chaos and misery, and erratic behavior.”
“This is a scam.”
— Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), quoted by Politico, of continued efforts by President Trump and some House Republicans to overturn the election of President-elect Joe Biden.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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