President Trump looks to be expressing support for another round of direct payments for Americans — though the specifics are far from clear.
Trump in an interview with Fox Business on Wednesday was asked if he supports more direct payments for individuals in another coronavirus relief bill. He said, "I do. I support it. But it has to be done properly. And I support actually larger numbers than the Democrats."
But Trump said that he thought that "last time," Americans were given "disincentive to work," and so going forward, "we want to create a very great incentive to work."
His comments, Reuters notes, seemed to suggest Trump will oppose renewing the additional $600 a week in unemployment benefits as supported by Democrats but that Republicans have argued disincentivizes work. But The Washington Post noted his phrasing left some amount of uncertainty, including as to whether he was indeed talking about more, larger stimulus payments, "or some other form of federal help." After all, when directly asked whether he wants direct payments or unemployment benefits to be larger, Trump just said, "I want the money getting to people to be larger."
When also asked in the interview if he supports the $600 figure for supplemental unemployment benefits, Trump said this was still being determined. "It's going to be a good number, a substantial number," he said. Trump "previously told congressional lawmakers he opposes extending the $600-per-week increase to unemployment benefits," the Post reports.
Trump also said he's "all for masks" after recently facing growing criticism over declining to wear one in public, adding he would wear one in a "tight situation." Still, he said "I don't know if you need" a national mandate to wear a mask in public. Brendan Morrow
The second and final presidential debate was supposed to have a section devoted to national security, and perhaps that's what a few unilluminating questions about North Korea and foreign election meddling were intended to be. Or perhaps, as I first assumed given the topical order, that section was cut for time. Either way, this bare minimum of attention to foreign policy is inexcusable for an examination of the two candidates running to be commander-in-chief in a country addicted to perpetual war.
Our Constitution assigns power to initiate military conflict to Congress, and Congress, as a matter of habit, does its best to abdicate that responsibility in favor of unaccountable executive war-making. The Constitution also gives the president authority to prosecute wars already underway. As it happens, we have several.
The war in Afghanistan is our nation's longest ever, now in its 19th year and long since lost to any sort of American "victory." It was given no substantive attention tonight, nor was it discussed in the first debate.
The war in Iraq was also not addressed. That failed regime change project has cost us about $2 trillion, created the power vacuum that led to the rise of the Islamic State, and has a civilian death toll estimated in the hundreds of thousands. Too boring for a debate, perhaps?
Yemen, where the United States is enabling the world's worst humanitarian crisis, was ignored. So too recent (and in some cases ongoing) U.S. military interventions in Syria, Libya, Somalia, and more than two dozen locations in North and Sub-Saharan Africa.
These are literally matters of war and peace, life and death. They are also matters in which one of these men soon will have considerable discretion to leave or stay the course of two decades of inhumane and counterproductive foreign policy. That discretion requires interrogation. It didn't get it tonight. Bonnie Kristian