On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that he was ordering a halt to negotiations over a potential comprehensive Coronavirus-connected economic relief package. The announcement left millions of Americans suddenly without a clear path forward, since after months and months of the Coronavirus crisis, the economy is still struggling. Despite recent trodding gains in the job market, the most recently recorded unemployment rate is still over twice the pre-pandemic level. In September, the rate hit 7.9 percent — in February 2020, it was 3.5 percent. (Unemployment among black Americans was still at 12.1 percent in September.)
On Wednesday, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade criticized the president’s flippancy towards relief negotiations. After his initial announcement that he had ordered an end to the negotiations, Trump followed up on Twitter and insisted that actually, he was still in favor of prompt and specific measures, like support for the airline industry and direct support payments for Americans. It’s unclear what chance that there actually is of these proposals moving forward.
Trump’s initial announcement came before the stock market closed, and it promptly dipped in value. Kilmeade commented:
‘For the president to come out with a tweet like that with the markets still open just crashed the market and cost people a lot of money… They have to find a way to work out this thing behind closed doors, because riding the markets, it does nothing but have people lose money and gets people extremely stressed, and with the market closed, the president says, let’s do this again. I understand negotiating tactics, but not at this point. I actually think the president now has more pressure on him now than he had before his first tweet, because Nancy Pelosi clearly could turn around and say well it’s not my fault. I was having talks.’
Trump has faced a lot of criticism for ordering the end of Coronavirus relief talks, no matter his subsequent half-hearted attempts to backtrack.
On a Democratic call, reacting to the President abruptly breaking off stimulus talks, Speaker Pelosi questioned whether Trump taking a steroid was impacting his thinking, according to two people on the call.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 6, 2020
Nancy Pelosi insisted that the president “showed his true colors: putting himself first at the expense of the country, with the full complicity of the GOP Members of Congress.” She added:
‘He shows his contempt for science, his disdain for our heroes – in health care, first responders, sanitation, transportation, food workers, teachers, teachers, teachers and others – and he refuses to put money in workers’ pockets, unless his name is printed on the check… Clearly, the White House is in complete disarray.’
Reportedly, Pelosi reacted to the news of Trump’s order to end relief talks by suggesting that the president’s prescription drug treatment regimen following his recent Coronavirus diagnosis may be affecting his thinking.
President Trump has shown his true colors: walking away from coronavirus relief negotiations and refusing to give real help to poor children, the unemployed, and America’s hard working families. https://t.co/gic4yuVsTB
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) October 6, 2020
