President Donald Trump signed multiple executive actions one day after coronavirus relief negotiations fell apart in Congress.
Trump on Saturday signed a memorandum that is supposed to provide $400 a week for additional unemployment insurance benefits — down from the $600 benefit that expired July 31. An executive order would extend a moratorium on evictions in addition to memoranda that would provide deferments for student loan payments and create a payroll tax holiday for those making less than $100,000 annually.
It remains unclear what legal authority Trump has to enforce the actions.
Trump called the $400 unemployment benefit — which Democrats had insisted remain at $600 — “generous.”
Asked about the payroll tax holiday, which was opposed by both Democrats and Republicans and doesn’t help the unemployed, Trump said, “It helps people greatly. It helps our country get back and anybody that would say anything different, I think, is very foolish. Everybody wanted it. By the way, the Democrats want it, the Republicans want it, they just couldn’t get it, they just couldn’t come to an agreement but everybody wants it. And the very important thing is, the people want it and the people need it, actually.”
Trump said he had intervened in the negotiations, in part, because Democrats had padded their bill with provisions that had nothing to do with coronavirus. He said they were demanding “bailout money” for “states that have been badly managed by Democrats” and that the bill included “measures designed to increase voter fraud” and “stimulus checks for illegal aliens.”
Talks on a path forward for a COVID-19 relief bill collapsed Friday, with both parties leaving negotiations citing no measured progress toward an agreement and no plans for a future meeting.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had been in daily discussion with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Earlier this week, Mnuchin and Meadows set a deadline for an agreement to be reached by Friday.
Pelosi and Schumer had criticized the use of executive orders in a press conference on Friday and said they were committed to negotiations.
