“Stimulus Negotiations Are Off,” But Maybe Trump Will Send You A One-Off Check

The White House said “stimulus negotiations are off” but they will consider standalone bills. Trump said, “If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (left); President Donald Trump (right) | Getty Images
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (left); President Donald Trump (right) | Getty Images

The Trump administration has further muddied the status of whether Americans will see another COVID-19 stimulus plan, as millions are out of work and more than 210,000 people in the U.S. are dead from the coronavirus.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told reporters Wednesday that “stimulus negotiations are off” but the administration will consider standalone bills if Democrats are “willing to look at those things on a piece by piece basis.”

This comes a day after Pres. Trump took to twitter to call off the stimulus bill talks “until I win” the 2020 election, after agreements couldn’t be met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers.

“I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business,” the president tweeted on Tuesday. The tweets also said he asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to “focus full time” on getting Amy Coney Barrett into the Supreme Court.

But then on Tuesday night, Trump tweeted: “If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?”

In an earlier tweet, the president accused Pelosi of “not negotiating in good faith.” Pelosi rejected an earlier bid from Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and the two had been in talks on a new COVID-19 relief plan but made minimal progress. Pelosi had proposed a $2.4 trillion bill, but Trump would not go higher than $1.6 trillion.

Pelosi said Trump’s refusal to work on a relief package until after the election “showed his true colors: putting himself first at the expense of the country, with the full complicity of the GOP Members of Congress.”

“Walking away from coronavirus talks demonstrates that President Trump is unwilling to crush the virus, as is required by the Heroes Act,” Pelosi said in a statement Tuesday. “He shows his contempt for science, his disdain for our heroes – in health care, first responders, sanitation, transportation, food workers, teachers, teachers, teachers and others – and he refuses to put money in workers’ pockets, unless his name is printed on the check.”

Meanwhile, Trump himself was temporarily hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment, but his doctors have not been transparent about the current state of his health. First Lady Melania Trump, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, Senior Adviser Stephen Miller, and former senior adviser Kellyanne Conway are among those in Trump’s orbit who have also tested positive for COVID-19. The Pences and the Bidens have reported multiple negative test results.