A Republican congressman tore into President Donald Trump Wednesday night for finding fault with parts of the COVID-19 stimulus and government package that were also in the White House’s budget proposal.
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) specifically took issue with the President’s claims — which Trump made in the same secretly-filmed Tuesday night video in which he suddenly supported $2,000 stimulus checks — that Congress should not have designated certain funds for foreign countries in the package.
The stimulus bill was part of a broader omnibus spending bill, and as Gonzalez correctly noted, the White House had proposed some of the same funds that Trump attacked in his remarks Tuesday.
Also, the @HouseGOP has stood by him for 4 years. If he thinks going on twitter and trashing the bill his team negotiated and we supported on his behalf is going to bring more people to his side in this election fiasco, I hope he's wrong, though I guess we'll see.
— Anthony Gonzalez (@anthonygonzalez) December 24, 2020
“The covid deal had none of the pork that is being discussed,” the congressman said. “It was, however, combined with the omnibus. The omni had tons of pork. Again, though, this was Trump’s pork.”
Finally, people are conflating 2 things. The covid deal had none of the pork that is being discussed. It was, however, combined with the omnibus. The omni had tons of pork. Again, though, this was Trump’s pork.
— Anthony Gonzalez (@anthonygonzalez) December 24, 2020
The congressman didn’t say whether he supported increasing per-person checks to $2,000, as Democrats support and Trump recently announced he would as well.
Gonzalez also called Trump out for saying, in Trump’s words on Tuesday, that “the bill also allows stimulus checks for the family members of illegal aliens, allowing them to get up to $1,800 each. This is far more than the Americans are given.”
In fact, the bill merely allows for the citizen or green-card-holding family members of undocumented people to get stimulus money themselves.
The $1,800 figure Trump cited would be the same as what citizens get — the $1,200 allocated in the CARES Act earlier this year, plus the $600 in the new stimulus package. The CARES Act prohibited American citizens who have undocumented family members from collecting the $1,200 given to everyone else. The new stimulus bill would compensate for that, in the form of a tax rebate.
The House GOP “has stood by him for 4 years,” Gonzalez said of Trump.
“If he thinks going on twitter and trashing the bill his team negotiated and we supported on his behalf is going to bring more people to his side in this election fiasco, I hope he’s wrong, though I guess we’ll see,” Gonzalez said.
