McConnell blocks efforts to pass $2,000 stimulus checks
Mitch McConnell bucked two attempts to pass bigger stimulus checks. Yahoo Finance’s Jessica Smith shares the details.
Video Transcript
MYLES UDLAND: But we begin today in Washington with those efforts to get a $2,000 check through to most Americans. Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith joins us now with the latest on this story. And Jess, we've got $2,000 checks through the House, no vote yet in the Senate. Where do things stand at this hour?
JESSICA SMITH: Myles, things are still very much up in the air in the Senate at this point. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has introduced a bill that would include $2,000 checks, but it would also include a repeal of Section 230 in the establishment of an election fraud commission. Now, those are the priorities that President Trump has pushed for in recent days. But wrapped together, they really have no chance of actually becoming law at this point.
Democrats have been blasting McConnell, saying that he is just trying to kill the $2,000 checks. He objected to voting on them yesterday. And then now, he's put out this bill. We did hear from Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
And he says that this is a cynical gambit. He called it a blatant attempt to stop the bigger checks. He went on to say, if Senator McConnell tries loading up the bipartisan House-passed CASH act with unrelated partisan provisions that will do absolutely nothing to help struggling families across the country, it will not pass the House and cannot become law.
We've also heard from some Republicans in the Senate who aren't on board with wrapping all of these ideas together. So it's not exactly clear what McConnell plans to do next. He could bring up the House-passed bill just increasing the checks to $2,000. Or he could put this bill forward. We'll see what happens.
Right now, he's focused on overriding President Trump's veto of the defense policy bill, the NDAA. Today later this afternoon, early evening, they'll start voting on procedural moves to move forward with that override. But again, it doesn't look like that vote is necessarily going to happen until Friday or Saturday. But timing is still very much up in the air.
- We know that members of Congress, like most of us, don't like working on a holiday. In the meantime, Jess, there-- it's early days, but there have already been some questions and concerns about the speed of the vaccine rollout. And President-elect Biden is already calling on Congress to do more next year. What exactly is he pushing for?
JESSICA SMITH: Right. He has said that the stimulus deal, even though it does include money for vaccine distribution, is just a down payment. He says that Congress is going to have to do more next year. He also says that he'll use the Defense Production Act to speed up production of the materials needed to make vaccines. He said yesterday that the US needs to ramp up vaccinations.
And at its current pace, it could take years to get Americans fully vaccinated. He's trying to get 100 million people vaccinated in the first 100 days of his presidency. He did say yesterday that if Congress comes through with more funding, then that could still happen. So as we've been saying, we're going to get past this round of stimulus debates, but there is definitely another one waiting just around the corner.
MYLES UDLAND: All right, Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith with the latest on where things stand it down in Washington, and just a couple of weeks away from a transition of power. We'll see how that goes as we get into the new year.
