President Donald Trump’s initial resistance to signing a sweeping aid package that includes $900 billion in coronavirus relief roiled Georgia’s runoffs for control of the U.S. Senate, with Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock demanding that the Republican sign the measure immediately while their opponents largely skirted mention of the catch-all measure.
Trump signed the mammoth $2.3 trillion spending bill late Sunday as millions of Americans lost their unemployment insurance coverage, a federal government shutdown loomed, and fellow Republicans blindsided by his objection to the measure urged him to set aside his grievances and approve it.
Those Republican critics did not include U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who were stuck in a vexing position nine days before the Jan. 5 runoffs as Trump waffled over whether to sign the bill. Late Sunday, the two released a statement promising to continue to “fight alongside the president in his relentless pursuit to keep America great.”
“Make no mistake: a great deal of work remains,” the two said in the joint statement. “The coronavirus pandemic grinded to a halt the greatest economic turnaround in American history, and Democrats are hellbent on a socialist agenda that prioritizes wasteful, irresponsible spending over the wellbeing of the American people.”
Trump’s previous demands that lawmakers cut unspecified “pork” and raise the bill’s $600 direct stimulus checks to $2,000 put them in a complicated spot, and it’s not immediately clear if he’ll continue to push for more robust coronavirus relief.
On the one hand, the two incumbents each voted for the spending package that Trump called a “disgrace” and touted its benefits on the campaign trail. On the other, they believe they can’t afford to ostracize Trump or his supporters ahead of a high-stakes runoff that party leaders say might as well be a coin flip.
At a Saturday event in Milton, Loeffler steered clear of mentioning the fight over the stimulus plan, instead repeating her campaign mantra that she and Perdue are the “firewall to stopping socialism.” Earlier in the week, Loeffler told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she would support increasing stimulus checks “if it repurposes wasteful spending.”
Perdue didn’t take any public stance on Trump’s veto threat, though the first-term senator aired an ad last week extolling the virtues of the $600 direct payment checks included in the measure. Ossoff, his opponent, urged TV stations to pull down the 30-second spot, which he said takes “an unwarranted victory lap on COVID-19 relief that does not exist.”
After Trump signed the measure, Perdue aide Austin Copeland tweeted: “The ad stayed up. The ad is staying up. And help is on the way for Georgians. Ossoff campaign miscalculated - big time. Embarrassing.”
At separate campaign rallies on Sunday, both Ossoff and Warnock seized on the GOP waffling over the bill. Ossoff said the Republican senators have “no concept of how badly people are hurting.”
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
“Here’s how to solve this problem: President Trump needs to sign the bill immediately,” said Ossoff at a volunteer event in the heart of Atlanta’s funky Little Five Points neighborhood. “And then within 48 hours, the House and the Senate should pass the additional stimulus to add to the bill so that Americans get $2,000 per person.”
Though the legislation was negotiated with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trump leveled a series of complaints about the compromise: that direct stimulus checks weren’t generous enough, that there is too much unspecified wasteful spending, and that it includes excessive foreign aid, though the amount tracks closely with his administration’s budget requests.
The president’s resistance meant funding for vaccines, testing and safety net programs were in jeopardy. Had he refused to sign the measure, a government shutdown would also occur at midnight Monday, meaning thousands of federal employees would no longer get paid and many agencies would close down.
The fate of the relief package and the gridlock in Washington was a focus of Warnock’s speech Sunday at a drive-in rally at Impact Church in East Point. As cars honked in applause, Warnock urged Georgians not to forget the more than 300,000 American lives lost to the coronavirus pandemic when they cast their votes in the runoffs.
“After witnessing the devastating loss of lives and livelihoods and still witnessing the kind of dysfunction in our government — unable to move even now — to say that elections have consequences feels like a gross understatement,” he said. “Elections are a matter of life and death.”
