President Donald Trump’s grip over the Republican Party had weakened since the election. Denied a second term and abandoned by a party establishment eager to move on, he discovered a way to reclaim his most coveted trait of the presidency: attention.
While Trump’s path to overturning the results closed in the courts, a more fruitful event was occurring on Capitol Hill. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and establishment Republicans and Democrats hammered out a last minute COVID relief package and omnibus spending bill. Trump long ago delegated negotiation responsibilities to Mnuchin, supposedly on the basis of mutual trust. Whatever amounted of this mutual trust has since shattered, when President Trump blindsided his confidante and Congressional Republicans by calling the $900 billion deal a “disgrace.” In a truly confounding turn of events, Trump reasserted his role as chief negotiator and cast aside the Treasury Secretary, who had just before labeled the deal “fabulous.”
Trump admonished the COVID relief package, demanding stimulus checks be escalated from $600 to $2,000 per person. This move shocked Congressional negotiators who were privately assured by Mnuchin and the White House Office of Legislative Affairs that Trump would sign the bill. Mere intuition would warrant this perception, given the $600 stimulus checks were part of the White House’s submission to Congress as a key demand.
Trump’s abrupt effort to raise the size of stimulus checks to $2,000 frustrated many Republicans, who contended the $464 billion cost–up from $174 billion for the $600 payments–was a too broadly administered form of deficit spending. It is curious to see Republicans rediscovering the deficit issue, as just two weeks prior nearly every Senate and House Republican voted for the largest defense bill ever of $740 billion, surpassing the defense expenditures of the the next 10 nations combined.
Democrats were all too pleased to assist President Trump in driving a wedge between Congressional Republicans. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer immediately voiced their support for Trump’s demand, and the House promptly passed the stimulus check upgrade.
In forcing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s hand on a bill 78% of Americans support, Trump has put the Republican majority in jeopardy. Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue face tight election contests in Georgia on January 5th. For their own elections’ sake, these vulnerable incumbents reflexively expressed their agreement with Trump, even reversing former opposition to new stimulus checks. The House bill would later be blocked by Leader McConnell, despite likely filibuster-proof support, handing Democrats an awfully attractive message for Georgia: vote for us and we will send you $2,000.
At the core of Trump’s divisive intraparty fight is an infidelity to the party he presides over. The recent stimulus check debacle is smoke and mirrors for a larger grievance at play. Not only did the President thrust himself into the spotlight moments before vital relief services expired, he harnessed an opportunity to strike revenge against a party establishment that–in his view–did little to assist his reelection.
Before the election, Leader McConnell poured cold water on a second round of stimulus checks. He and the party leadership made unserious attempts at narrow stimulus, devoid of direct payments. They stood at odds with a White House eager to cut a pre-election deal. Interestingly, he changed his tune after the election and agreed to a new round of payments, rallying the rank and file members behind the cause. Why the about-face?
In a conference call with Republican lawmakers, McConnell cited the Georgia runoffs as his justification for major stimulus. He remarked, “Kelly and David are getting hammered.” With his majority status up in the air, McConnell summoned the will to pass comprehensive COVID relief. Where was this bold political tactic when the Republican president was “getting hammered?” McConnell could have drafted a massive COVID relief bill and forced the Democrats to play ball before the election. In an election decided by a combined total of 42,000 votes across three states, could a sizable stimulus check have made the difference? It is certainly plausible. Forget the disingenuous deficit hawkery. McConnell understands the nakedly political object that stimulus checks are. He cynically chose to ignore that before November 3rd and handicap the Republican president in the process.
The divide President Trump has sewed within the party at this critical moment is politically disastrous but wholly predictable. The man who ascended the Republican Party hierarchy by repudiating its most significant leaders is now exiting it in the same characteristic fashion.
