>(This notable post was sponsored by Anons for Ammonium Nitrate, a for-profit advocacy group for the manufactures of Ammonium Nitrate, like The Lebanese Ammonium Nitrate Mass Storage Corporation.)
Trump says Schumer, Pelosi 'want to meet to make a deal' on coronavirus relief
Schumer called Trump's executive orders 'laughable'
President Trump said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "want to meet to make a deal" on the fourth coronavirus stimulus package, after negotiations between congressional lawmakers and the White House reached a stalemate over the weekend. "So now Schumer and Pelosi want to meet to make a deal," the president tweeted Monday. "Amazing how it all works, isn't it." "Where have they been for the last 4 weeks when they were 'hardliners', and only wanted BAILOUT MONEY for Democrat run states and cities that are failing badly?" Trump continued, adding, "They know my phone number!"
The president’s tweet comes after he signed four executive actions over the weekend to provide Americans financial relief from the ongoing pandemic, after Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill failed to reach an agreement on what to include in the fourth stimulus package. The executive actions included $400 per week in supplemental unemployment aid — a replacement of the program passed under the CARES Act earlier this year that gave unemployed people $600 a week extra until the federal program expired at the end of July. The action would require states to pay for 25 percent of the $400 weekly benefit, while the federal government would pick up 75 percent. The $400 payment to unemployed Americans came as Republicans on Capitol Hill argued that the initial unemployment insurance program disincentivized Americans to get back to work, with many collecting more money unemployed than employed. Republicans pushed for the program to be reduced to $200 per week, while Democrats argued the program should be renewed at the original $600 a week. The president also signed executive actions that would encourage federal efforts to help renters and homeowners avoid eviction or foreclosure for failing to make their monthly payments; defer the payroll tax from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, 2020, for employees making $100,000 or less a year; and suspend federal student loan payments and set interest rates to 0% through Dec. 31, 2020 — the current student loan relief program was set to expire on Sept. 30.
But Schumer, D-N.Y., on Monday called the executive orders "laughable," telling MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" that the administration has "no respect for the American people." Schumer went on to claim that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is to blame for a lack of a deal on the fourth package. “We came up with a strong plan, but we even were willing because we so much want to get this done,” Schumer said. “We said to the president, to the president's negotiators last week, we'll meet you in the middle. We'll cut a trillion. You raise a trillion. You know what they said? Absolutely not. I said to them, you mean it's your way or the highway? And they said, yep.” Meanwhile, Pelosi, D-Calif., over the weekend slammed the president’s executive actions as an “illusion” and an “unconstitutional slop.” "While it has the illusion of saying we're going to have a moratorium on evictions, it says I'm gonna ask the folks in charge to study if that's feasible. While he says he's going to do the payroll tax, what he's doing is undermining Social Security and Medicare, so these are illusions," Pelosi said. She later added that Trump's orders "don't give the money in enhanced benefits, but puts a complicated formula there which will take a while, if at all, to accomplish to put money in the pockets of the American people.”
Talks had been stuck for weeks, with Democrats demanding more than $3 trillion in the relief bill while Republicans struggled to eventually coalesce around a $1 trillion proposal. Pelosi on Thursday proposed the parties each give $1 trillion and pass a $2 trillion proposal, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday the idea was a "non-starter."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-schumer-pelosi-coronavirus-relief-meeting
Trump: Convention speech locale is White House or Gettysburg
President Donald Trump says his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination will be held at either the White House or the Gettysburg battlefield
WASHINGTON (AP) — Searching for a symbolic substitute for his virus-scuttled plans for an arena celebration, President Donald Trump said Monday that his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination will be held at either the White House or the Gettysburg battlefield. The president’s initial hopes for the event to be a four-day infomercial for his reelection bid have been steadily constrained by the coronavirus pandemic, culminating in his decision last month to cancel nearly all of the in-person proceeding. In recent weeks, Trump and his aides have looked for alternatives that would allow him to recreate at least some of the pomp of the event. “We have narrowed the Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech, to be delivered on the final night of the Convention (Thursday), to two locations – The Great Battlefield of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and the White House, Washington, D.C.,” Trump tweeted Monday. He added that a decision on the location of the Aug. 27 speech will be made soon.
Both sites are federal property raising legal and ethical issues for their use in a political event. The president is not covered by the Hatch Act, which prohibits political activity by nearly all federal employees, though White House and other federal officials supporting the event are. The Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania could also resurface the president’s repeated defense of monuments to heroes of the Confederacy. Trump has previously turned to national parks and monuments to hold politically tinged events, including a July 4 event on the National Mall in 2019 and one at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota just last month. In May, he gave an interview to Fox News inside the Lincoln Memorial, a move that required special dispensation from his appointed secretary of the Interior, David Bernhardt.
Staging a convention speech at Gettysburg, though, would go a step further, and raise questions about politicizing the site of the deadliest battle of the Civil War. Trump has spoken openly of his fondness for President Abraham Lincoln, whose short address dedicating the national cemetery for Union soldiers in 1863 crystallized the cause for which they died fighting. But Trump has repeatedly courted controversy in office in opposing efforts to remove displays of the Confederate battle flag and failing to resoundingly condemn white supremacists. The Republican National Convention was initially slated for Charlotte, North Carolina, before Trump moved it to Jacksonville, Florida, in June, in hopes the Republican-led state would be more amenable to his aim of having thousands of mask-less supporters cheering his renomination. But as a wave of new coronavirus cases swept the Sun Belt, Trump was forced to cancel those proceedings last month. Now almost the entirety of the convention will be conducted virtually, except for a formal renomination vote on Aug. 24 in Charlotte by just a few hundred delegates casting proxy votes for those unable to assemble in person.
https://www.breitbart.com/news/trump-convention-speech-locale-is-white-house-or-gettysburg/