President Donald Trump has weighed in after negotiations over the second stimulus package reportedly fell apart on Friday. The Trump administration reportedly rejected an offer by the Democrats for the proposed HEALS Act to have a $2 trillion price tag, which was twice what Republicans planned on spending. Trump has since taken to Twitter to proclaim they “are going a different way.”
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who represented the Trump administration, had already said they were going to recommend Trump sign an executive order on extending unemployment benefits and a moratorium on evictions. “[We] will recommend to the President based upon our lack of activity today to move forward with some executive orders,” Mnuchin said Friday, via CNN. Meadows added that they’re “going to take executive orders to try to alleviate some of the pain that people are experiencing,” adding that “this is not a perfect answer.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
Pelosi and Schumer only interested in Bailout Money for poorly run Democrat cities and states. Nothing to do with China Virus! Want one trillion dollars. No interest. We are going a different way!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2020
Meadows and Mnuchin had been negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who had all given some mixed messages over their progress toward finding common ground on the bill itself. While they agreed on a second one-time payment of $1,200, unemployment benefits and an eviction moratorium, there was still too much contention to hammer out a deal before Congress’ August recess.
Schumer went so far as to say that they had been “making progress” with negotiations. “We really went down issue by issue by issue, slogging through them. They made some concessions, which we appreciated. We made some concessions, which they appreciated. We’re still far away on a lot of the important issues, but we’re continuing to go at it.”
Trump has very recently stated that he’s been considering signing executive orders on certain aspects proposed in the HEALS Act. “I’ve notified my staff to continue working on an Executive Order with respect to Payroll Tax Cut, Eviction Protections, Unemployment Extensions, and Student Loan Repayment Options,” the president tweeted Thursday, which came one day after Wednesday’s press conference when Trump said his administration is “exploring executive actions to provide protection against eviction” and “additional relief” to unemployed Americans. Trump told reporters he was “also looking at a term-limited suspension of the payroll tax.”
