In national news, all eyes are on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell today.
After the House overwhelmingly voted to both override President Donald Trump’s veto on the National Defense Authorization Act and to pass $2,000 stimulus checks, it’s Senate Republicans’ turn to navigate whether they’re willing to cross Trump in his final days in office.
McConnell, the majority leader notably has not made any public commitments about how he plans to handle $2,000 checks despite the fact that Trump insisted he’d obtained a promise that the process would begin in the US Senate.
McConnell’s floor remarks Tuesday could clarify just what direction Senate Republicans are headed.
If McConnell announces plans to bring the bill up for a formal vote, it could still take several days for that vote to occur given the procedural hurdles.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will ask for unanimous consent Tuesday to pass the measure increasing direct payment to $2,000. This is unlikely to pass, as any senator could object (Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin objected to more money for stimulus checks just days ago).
One of the biggest sticking points in the negotiations over the stimulus was how much the package would cost. Republicans didn’t want to spend more than $1 trillion. Some Republicans didn’t want to spend more than $500 billion. The COVID relief bill that was just signed into law cost around $900 billion.
