So what makes Senate Republicans feel the urgency of acting immediately? What would make them Take It to the Limit? Continue reading.
Tag: Mitch McConnell
McConnell to Trump: Next coronavirus bill must be under $1 trillion
During a meeting at the White House on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stressed to President Trump that the next coronavirus relief package cannot exceed $1 trillion, and should be narrowly focused on getting money in people’s hands immediately, sources familiar with the meeting tell Axios.
The big picture: Senate Republicans’ backlash against House Democrats’ $3 trillion bill has been so severe that it has eased pressure on McConnell to act instantly on a “phase 4” bill, and McConnell is focused on ensuring that the next bill is much smaller.
Details: McConnell told Trump the bill needs to be tailored toward short-term economic relief and create incentives for people to get back to work.
- He said he worries that additional unemployment payments will discourage people from working, and instead suggested supplementing some workers’ paychecks. Continue reading.
McConnell’s GOP takes Trump’s election-year cues
Senate Republicans are embracing the president’s most explosive attacks after previously sidestepping them.
Mitch McConnell can’t afford any tension with President Donald Trump. So he’s doing everything he can to keep his fragile majority in sync with Trump and his explosive election-year playbook.
Just three days after Trump berated McConnell on Twitter to “get tough” with Democrats and probe the 2016 Russia investigation that ensnared Trump’s campaign, the Senate majority leader took to the floor to echo the president’s misgivings in a way he declined to do last week. Trump’s campaign “was treated like a hostile foreign power by our own law enforcement,” McConnell said Tuesday, subject to “wild theories of Russian collusion.”
In the days to come and with McConnell’s public blessing, GOP committee chairmen plan to follow Trump’s lead and approve a series of subpoenas for documents and testimony that could hit some of Trump’s favorite targets, including Hunter Biden and dozens of Obama administration officials. Continue reading.
McConnell taps Rubio as acting chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Monday that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will serve as the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee while a federal investigation into Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is ongoing.
The backdrop: Last week, the FBI seized Burr’s phone as part of an investigation into stock trades he made shortly before the coronavirus caused global markets to crash. The next day, McConnell announced that Burr would be stepping aside from his role as chairman of the committee during the duration of the investigation.
What they’re saying: “I am glad to announce that Senator Marco Rubio has accepted my invitation to serve as Acting Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,” McConnell said in a statement Monday. Continue reading.
McConnell Admits He Was ‘Wrong’ On Obama’s Pandemic Planning
In an online discussion on Monday with the Trump campaign, Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell launched a peculiar and factually challenged attack at former President Barack Obama.
“They claim pandemics only happen once every hundred years, but what if that’s no longer true?” McConnell said to Lara Trump. “We want to be early, ready for the next one, because clearly the Obama administration did not leave to this administration any kind of game plan for something like this.”
It was an odd argument to make because Trump had been president for three years when the pandemic began. That’s long past the time he can plausibly blame the previous administration for failing to prepare for a disaster. If there was a gap in Obama’s disaster preparedness plans, Trump had had enough time to fix it. Continue reading.
McConnell’s claim that Obama left behind no ‘game plan’ for the coronavirus outbreak
“They claim pandemics only happen once every hundred years but what if that’s no longer true? We want to be early, ready for the next one, because clearly the Obama administration did not leave to this administration any kind of game plan for something like this.”
— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in an online discussion hosted by the Trump campaign, May 11, 2020
There is little continuity in the top levels of the U.S. government when one political party replaces the presidential administration led by another. The natural inclination is to ignore much of the work left behind by the previous folks — and to reinvent the wheel all over again.
But former Obama administration officials cried foul after McConnell’s comments. “We literally left them a 69-page Pandemic Playbook…. that they ignored,” tweeted Ron Klain, the former “Ebola czar” in the Obama administration.
What’s going on? Continue reading.
Ex-RNC Chair Torches McConnell’s Claim Obama ‘Should’ve Kept His Mouth Shut’
Michael Steele noted that Trump “has yet to keep ‘his mouth shut’” about Obama.
Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele rebuked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday after McConnell labeled former President Barack Obama as “classless” for criticizing his successor’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
McConnell had declared Monday that Obama “should have kept his mouth shut” about President Donald Trump’s response to the health crisis. But Steele disagreed, tweeting that the former president is entitled to voice his view. He also noted that Trump has “yet to keep ‘his mouth shut’” about Obama.
The president has persistently attempted to blame Obama for testing failures and a shortage of medical supplies during the pandemic and has this week peddled a fringe theory accusing his predecessor of “the biggest political crime in American history” while declining to specify what that alleged crime would be. Continue reading.
McConnell brushes off Pelosi as she finalizes relief package
Republican senators say the speaker’s rush to complete a coronavirus bill doesn’t put pressure on them to act.
Hopes are fading on Capitol Hill for a deal on the next round of coronavirus relief before an approaching Memorial Day recess, raising the prospect that Congress won’t clinch a new spending agreement until June or beyond.
While the Democratic-controlled House is aiming to pass a multitrillion-dollar package as soon as this week without GOP or White House input, the Senate Republican majority has no timeline for delivering its own bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the party is still “assessing what we’ve done already,” referring to the nearly $3 trillion in aid delivered by Congress thus far.
“I’m in constant communication with the White House and if we decide to go forward we’ll go forward together,” McConnell told reporters on Monday. “We have not yet felt the urgency of acting immediately. That time could develop, but I don’t think it has yet.” Continue reading.
Fox News legal analyst slams ‘dangerous’ McConnell plan to shield businesses from coronavirus lawsuits
Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said on Thursday that a Republican plan to shield businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits is “dangerous.”
Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suggested that he would not support additional relief funds to households and businesses unless the package also includes a measure shielding businesses from liability for coronavirus infections.
But Napolitano argued that the provision would be anti-conservative and violate states rights. Continue reading.
McConnell under mounting GOP pressure to boost state aid
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is facing growing calls within his own conference to increase financial assistance to state and local governments, something the GOP leader shut down during recent coronavirus relief talks with Democrats.
Support for more state aid is coming from Republican Sens. Mitt Romney(Utah), Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (La.), John Kennedy (La.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Dan Sullivan (Alaska) and Shelley Moore Capito(W.Va.).
The boldest push has come from Cassidy, who teamed up with Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to propose a $500 billion fund that would “make sure state and local governments can maintain essential services.” Continue reading.