President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he was exploring executive action to offer Americans some level of relief from the coronavirus pandemic.
“If Democrats put partisan demands aside, we would reach an agreement very quickly,” Trump said at the White House during a press conference on Wednesday evening.
Trump noted that Republicans were ready to negotiate “in good faith,” but Democrats were demanding a trillion-dollar bailout for “poorly run” Democrat cities.
“We can’t go along with the bailout money, we’re not going to go along with that, especially since it is not Covid-related,” Trump said.
The president floated the idea of a “term-limited suspension of the payroll tax” using his executive power and also previewed an executive order to stop home evictions.
Economist Steven Moore illustrated in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Sunday how Trump could order the Treasury Department to refrain from withholding payroll taxes from a worker’s paycheck – temporarily suspending the payroll tax with executive action.
Trump spoke after White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on CNN that it was unlikely that Democrats would budge on a deal to provide more coronavirus relief.
“The president is prepared to take executive action,” Meadows said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
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