McConnell thwarts Trump bid for $2,000 coronavirus economic relief checks

U.S. Senate leader Mitch McConnell dealt a likely death blow on Wednesday to President Donald Trump’s bid to boost coronavirus aid to Americans, declining to schedule a swift Senate vote on a bill to raise relief checks to $2,000 from $600.

McConnell said on the Senate floor that a bill passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, which sought to meet fellow Republican Trump’s demands for bigger checks, “has no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate.”

McConnell, who controls the Senate’s agenda and opposes the increase in aid, had introduced a competing bill combining the $2,000 checks with provisions unacceptable to Democrats, who could block it.

With a new Congress set to be sworn in on Sunday, the action appears all but certain to kill the effort to increase the amount of the $600 checks Congress has already approved.