U.S. Senate wrangles over $2,000 stimulus checks, defense veto as deadline looms

The U.S. Senate will grapple on Tuesday with whether to increase payments to Americans reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and override President Donald Trump’s veto of a $740 billion defense bill, two measures set to lapse if lawmakers fail to act before a new Congress takes office on Sunday.

Democrats, with help from Trump’s Twitter feed, are pushing for a vote on the additional money, a step they believe could give them an advantage in two Georgia runoff elections next week that will determine which party controls the Senate under President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration.

The bill faces a tough path in the Republican-led Senate, with many Republicans pointing to hundreds of billions of dollars in added costs of COVID-19 relief.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to speak on the chamber floor at Noon (1700 GMT).

A combined $892 billion bipartisan coronavirus relief package and $1.4 trillion spending bill that Trump signed into law on Sunday contains $600 checks for people hit hard financially by a pandemic that has infected more than 19 million Americans and killed over 333,000.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives on Monday approved the increase in direct payments to $2000.

Trump’s signing of the package staved off a U.S. government shutdown but he also pushed for the stimulus checks. He reasserted that demand on Tuesday, tweeting: “$2000 for our great people, not $600! They have suffered enough from the China Virus!!!”