- Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell on Wednesday said he would not consider a standalone bill on additional economic relief for millions of Americans. - The Republican leader said a bill on $2,000 direct payments, passed by the House on Monday, "has no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate."
- McConnell proposed a bill Tuesday that tied the direct payments to two other priorities pushed by President
Donald Trump that are unrelated to the pandemic. - Democrats have already criticized McConnell's so-called poison pills, which make distribution of $2,000 checks to Americans increasingly unlikely.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday signaled he would not bring a standalone bill on $2,000
The Republican leader said the larger direct payments, which were proposed to curb some of the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic and are backed by President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats, had "no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate."
"Here's the deal. The Senate is not going to split apart the three issues that President Trump linked together just because Democrats are afraid to address two of them," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "The Senate's not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrats' rich friends who don't need the help."
His comments come after a turbulent week in Washington in which Democrats and Republicans passed a long-awaited roughly $900 billion package of economic relief that was attached to a $1.4 trillion spending bill to keep the government running through the next fiscal year.
Following its passage, Trump unexpectedly demanded Congress raise the already-negotiated $600 direct payments to $2,000, a stance quickly embraced by Democrats but rejected by Republicans.
Trump ultimately signed the bill as-is on Sunday night, yet repeated his calls for higher checks. The Democratic-controlled House then passed a bill Monday that would increase the size of the direct payments to $2,000. The aid is aimed at Americans earning up to $75,000 individually.
Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, urged McConnell on Tuesday to bring the House bill, known as the CASH Act, for a vote on the Senate floor. The GOP leader objected, and later in the evening he introduced a new bill that tied the supplemental relief to two other Trump priorities that are unrelated to the public-health crisis.
The issues consisted of investigating voter fraud in the 2020 US election and removing legal protections for social-media companies - items that have come to the top of Trump's agenda during his final days in office.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud or voting irregularities in the 2020 race, won by Joe Biden. Trump has waged and lost dozens of legal battles in an attempt to overturn the election results in his favor.
The other part of McConnell's bill involves a repeal of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields tech companies and allows them to moderate content on their platforms. Trump has long accused Facebook and Twitter of anti-conservative bias, and he's ratcheted up attacks on the social-media platforms since they have begun labeling his misleading or false posts on the election with warnings to prevent misinformation.
Democrats slammed McConnell for bundling the $2,000 checks with the extra Trump proposals, so-called poison pills that are likely to quash efforts for more aid to Americans.
On Wednesday, McConnell argued his case against the larger payments, reiterating the GOP's traditional concern with keeping the national debt low, a position criticized by Democrats.
"These Republicans in the Senate seem to have an endless tolerance for other people's sadness," House Speaker
The Democratic leader did not say whether she'd bring up a new bill for $2,000 checks in the next Congress, scheduled to begin Sunday.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Tuesday that the $600 direct payments were already on their way to Americans.