Trump, Hoping To Get People's Mind Off His Economic Disaster, Floated The Idea Of Postponing The Elections

Maybe he just wanted to get peoples' minds off the worst economic report in American history, but Trump's tweet (above) about postponing the election didn't go over well. Now every Republican running in November is being asked if they support Trump's call for postponing the election.

Meanwhile, back in the Senate, the Trumpist dysfunction has caused a breakdown in government's ability to meet the most basic needs of the American people. Late Wednesday evening, before the dire economic news broke, Washington Post reporters Erica Werner, Jeff Stein, Seung Min Kim and Rachel Bade wrote that "Negotiations on a new coronavirus relief bill hit an impasse on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, leaving no clear path forward even as millions of Americans face a sudden drop in unemployment benefits, and the economy teeters on the brink. A meeting between top White House officials and Democratic leaders ended with no agreement on extending emergency unemployment benefits that expire Friday or on reviving a moratorium on evictions that lapsed last week. That means some 20 million jobless Americans will lose $600 weekly enhanced unemployment benefits that Congress approved in March, which could send the economy reeling."

That, as much as anything, defines Trumpism for us... or against us. Though the House Democrats passed a $3 trillion package that would avert the coming catastrophe Trump and McConnell are leading the country into, "Each side," wrote The Post team, "said the other was to blame for the failure. Paying the price will be the unemployed at a moment of deep uncertainty and fear, with coronavirus cases spiking and states pulling back on reopening as deaths near 150,000 in the United States. The talks could get back on track in coming days, but the signs Wednesday were not promising. 'I don’t know that there is another plan, other than no deal,' said White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. 'Which will allow unemployment, enhanced unemployment, I might add, to expire... No deal certainly becomes a greater possibility the longer these negotiations go... We are nowhere close to a deal.'"

“Our Republican friends don’t seem to come close to meeting the moment. … They’ve put us up against the wall. We have two cliffs because they wouldn’t negotiate for months,” Schumer said.

“They’re tied in a total knot because of the disunity in their caucus, because of their inability to gather votes, because the president says one thing one day, he says another thing the other day,” Schumer added. "We want to come back and keep talking to them. But they don’t have anything to say.”

...Earlier Wednesday Trump had called for a quick fix to address the unemployment benefits and eviction moratorium, saying other issues could wait.

“The rest of it, we’re so far apart, we don’t care, we really don’t care,” Trump told reporters outside the White House, referring to divisions between the two parties.

But Democrats called that approach wholly inadequate.

“We don’t know why the Republicans come around here with a skinny bill that does nothing to address really what’s happening with the virus, and has a little of this and a little of that. We’re not accepting that," Pelosi said. "We have to have the comprehensive full bill.”

McConnell has not embraced the piecemeal approach either, insisting any bill must include a five-year liability shield for businesses, healthcare providers and others-- a non-starter for Democrats.

More than 20 million Americans remain unemployed and have been receiving a $600 weekly emergency unemployment payment that Congress approved in March, on top of whatever benefit their state offers. That extra federal benefit runs out Friday.

Democrats want to extend the extra jobless payment at its current level. The Senate GOP bill released Monday proposes cutting it to $200 weekly until states can phase in a new system that would aim to replace 70 percent of a worker’s wages before unemployment.

Underscoring the continued need, the head of the Federal Reserve said Wednesday that rising coronavirus cases since mid-June are beginning to weigh on the economy, based on consumer credit card spending and hotel occupancy data as well as some labor market indicators.

“On balance, it looks like the data are pointing to a slowing in the pace of the recovery," Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell said during a news conference Wednesday. "I want to stress it’s too early to say both how large that is and how sustained it will be.”

Powell said funding from the $2 trillion Cares Act passed in March was key to keeping people in their homes and jobs. He pointed to the success of the small-business Paycheck Protection Program for getting money directly to businesses that couldn’t necessarily have been saved through a Fed lending program.

“Lending is a particular tool, and we’re using it very aggressively, but fiscal policy is essential here," Powell said. “As I’ve said, more will be needed from all of us, and I see Congress is negotiating now over a new package, and I think that’s a good thing."

...Some Republicans don’t want to spend any more money at all, and there are deep divisions over the $1 trillion bill McConnell released Monday, which proposes to send a new round of $1,200 stimulus checks to individual Americans and inject more money into the Paycheck Protection Program, among other provisions. McConnell said in his PBS interview that there are about 20 GOP senators who would prefer to take no additional action because of deficit concerns.

Trump's only concerns seem to be personal-- legislating a 100% deduction for fat cat restaurant meals, which would result in millions of dollars added to his hotels' and restaurants' bottom lines, and a $1.8 billion fund that would keep the FBI in a building Trump fears would otherwise become a hotel that competes with his own. This guy should be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail-- and then brought back for a trial. And the pandemic that most of the world has gotten a handle on and that Trump has made into one of the worst catastrophe's to ever hit America... just keeps rolling on. Yesterday there were 68,569 more confirmed cases reported nationwide, bringing the U.S. total cases to 4,634,985. Most of the states with the worst daily reports, once again, are state with Trumpist governors who have followed his insane denialism and who seem to have embraced his tragic incompetence as though it was a policy-- while their constituents continue contracting the disease more rapidly than anyplace else on earth. These were the dozen governors-- actually 10 governors and 2 state legislatures-- who gave their states the worst one day new cases yesterday:

• Ron DeSantis (R-FL) +9,956 (21,482 cases per million Floridians)
• Greg Abbott (R-TX) +8,843 (14,943 cases per million Texans)
• Gavin Newsom (D-CA) +8,174 (12,503 cases per million Californians)
• Brian Kemp (R-GA) +3,963 (17,169 cases per million Georgians)
• Doug Ducey (R-AZ) +2,525 (23,465 cases per million Arizonans)
• The North Carolina Republican legislature +2,588 (11,499 cases per million North Carolinians)
• Bill Lee (R-TN) +2,049 (15,063 cases per million Tennesseans)
• Kay Ivey (R-AL) +1,980 (17,491 cases per million Alabamans)
• Tate Reeves (R-MS) +1,775 (19,347 cases per million Mississippians)
• Henry McMaster (R-SC) +1,726 (17,009 cases per million South Carolinians)
• The Louisiana Republican legislature +1,708 (24,626 cases per million Louisianans)
• Mike Parson (R-MO) +1,712 (8,043 cases per million Missourans)