Trump lashes out at Republicans after they override his veto

On Apr 25, 2023

But be warned: Following along could induce some whiplash.

The House of Representatives took a pair of votes Monday night with mixed results for the President: Conservatives joined Democrats in voting to increase coronavirus stimulus checks, but they also joined forces to override his veto of the massive defense spending bill, a solid rebuke and sign of his waning power.

In a series of Tuesday morning tweets, Trump simultaneously called on the Senate to uphold his veto of the National Defense Authorization Act while claiming that “Weak and tired Republican ‘leadership’ ” will allow the legislation to pass as-is.

If it were to pass, Trump said it would be a “disgraceful act of cowardice and total submission by weak people to Big Tech,” a stinging criticism of his Republican allies.

In another tweet, Trump called on the Senate to expand stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000, a measure also passed by the House Monday.

Trump attacked Republican leadership without naming names, saying, “Republican leadership only wants the path of least resistance. Our leaders (not me, of course!) are pathetic.”

Trump’s dithering over the size of stimulus relief checks has cost suffering Americans a week of more generous unemployment — but could also get them more generous relief checks. The gobsmacking part is he had the power all along to insist on larger checks and didn’t, until it seemed too late. He drew a line in the sand against his own negotiators and got a few Republicans to cross it.

Forty-four House Republicans voted, after the President’s badgering, to help Democrats approve more generous $2,000 Covid-19 relief checks. The party had rejected Democratic attempts to make the checks more generous before Christmas. It’s not clear if the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, will have a similar change of heart. For now, $600 relief checks are the law.

But Trump suffered a clear setback when more than 100 House Republicans, moments after approving the larger direct payments to Americans, voted for the first time to help Democrats override a Trump veto, passing the annual defense authorization over his objection and sending that, too, to the Senate.

Further thrusting defense and national security policy into the political sphere was President-elect Joe Biden’s allegation that his transition team has run into new roadblocks from the Trump administration as they try to read in.

“We just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas,” Biden said during an appearance in Wilmington, Delaware, after receiving a virtual national security briefing from aides.

“It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility,” he said.

Biden also outlined his view of threats at the appearance and placed climate change near the top of his list, the latest indication the US will have a very different posture after he is inaugurated.

But while the President-elect mentioned climate change as an existential threat, the relief checks feel more immediate, as does the news that the US may be falling behind on its goal of vaccinating tens of millions of Americans this year.

The relief bill also includes billions for vaccine distribution.

Empty threat

Trump had already blinked over the $2,000 checks Sunday. After lobbying from Republicans and intense backlash, he backed down on a promise to shut down the government and delay Covid-19 relief in part over the checks, which Capitol Hill Republicans had previously opposed.

Trump’s ability to get these few Republicans to buy into the $2,000 checks is notable since, as he prepares to leave office, many are beginning to find anew the gospel of fiscal responsibility they largely abandoned during his presidency.

His last-minute insistence on more generous relief checks, which temporarily threatened the possibility of any relief checks at all, seemed destined to fail.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scheduled a vote to put Republicans on the record against both the relief, which she supports, and their President, who she doesn’t. Because the process was rushed through the House, majority support wasn’t enough under House rules to pass the more generous measure. But just enough Republicans backed the measure to give Pelosi a supermajority and approve the proposal, which now heads to the US Senate.

Trump’s election objections are about to divide the party again. The tough votes are just getting started for Republican lawmakers. Stalwart conservatives could add an element of drama to the official counting of electoral votes January 6 on Capitol Hill, but the star-crossed effort is expected to end when lawmakers in both houses vote to accept the election results Trump baselessly denies.

The question of the day is whether the veto vote signals waning Trump influence among GOP lawmakers, who could face a reckoning from the committed base of followers for whom the President is a…

Politics Trump lashes out at Republicans after they override his veto - CNNPolitics

Trump lashes out at Republicans after they override his veto

Empty threat

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