Second Stimulus Check: Did Donald Trump Promise Another 'Tremendous' Package 'Immediately After the Election'?

It has been months now since the first stimulus package, the CARES Act, was passed by Congress, though hope for another relief bill has not faded among the American people. In the months since President Donald Trump signed his approval on the first bill, which included the distribution of stimulus payments, negotiations on an additional package have come and gone, with numerous reports regarding its status and when it could potentially be approved. But did the president really promise a "tremendous" package "immediately after the election?"

According to Snopes, such reports attributing that quote to the president are correct. Speaking to reporters prior to boarding Marine One on Oct. 30, Trump made the claim when asked, in a final question from the media, "Stimulus. Are you, what about, what's happening here?" The president had responded by stating, "We will have a tremendous stimulus package immediately after the election."

"We're going to have a tremendous, we will have, do you want me to answer that one, Steve? We will have a tremendous stimulus package immediately after the election," he stated before going on to speak optimistically about the election. "And I think we're going to take back the House. I think we're going to do very well in the Senate, little bit more complex, frankly. And I think we're going to have a fantastic presidential election, because nobody has done more than this administration in the first three and a half years."

Those words echoed ones the president spoke just days earlier. Speaking to reporters at the White House just a week before the election, Trump indicated that a stimulus bill would come after Americans headed to the polls. Declaring that "our people should get it," the president, when asked about when a package would be approved, said that the "best stimulus package you've ever seen" would be approved "after the election." Earlier in the month, in a similar statement, he had declared that "immediately after" he won the election he would "pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business."

Despite those promises, the state of an additional stimulus bill remains hanging in limbo, and it has been suggested that the White House is sidelining itself from negotiations. Although Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had been negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as recently as the days leading up to the election, it has since been reported that those discussions have collapsed and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will instead take the lead going forward. Both McConnell and Pelosi have expressed a desire to pass another aid package by the end of the year.