Pritzker holds out hope for COVID relief
Drug-addled Trump throws negotiations with Congress into ‘disarray,’ says governor
A masked President Trump returns to the White House Monday evening after being hospitalized for COVID-19. He soon tore the mask off — and reversed course on his support for a coronavirus relief package. (Facebook/Donald Trump)
By Ted Cox
Gov. Pritzker is holding out hope for another federal COVID-19 relief package after the election, but in the meantime he accused a drug-addled President Trump of throwing negotiations with Congress into “disarray.”
“I still anticipate that Congress will step up to the plate with a support package for state and local governments,” Pritzker said during a Q&A session with reporters toward the end of his weekly coronavirus briefing Wednesday.
But negotiations between the White House and Congress were scuttled Tuesday when Trump abruptly called them off until after the Nov. 3 election. That came after Trump tweeted from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center while being treated for COVID-19 last weekend that “OUR GREAT USA WANTS & NEEDS STIMULUS. WORK TOGETHER AND GET IT DONE. Thank you!”
When Trump got out of the hospital and returned to the White House on Monday, stocks rose in the expectation that a new coronavirus relief package would follow. But he abruptly called off talks Tuesday and instead urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to rush to confirm his latest U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. When that sent stocks crashing, he reversed course again and called for Congress to send him stand-alone bills for renewed $1,200 stimulus checks and the Paycheck Protection Program, as well as a bailout for the airline industry.
The U.S. House passed the $3.4 HEROES Act, a successor to the original CARES Act, back in May, but McConnell and Senate Republicans have ignored it. More recently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly discussed a $2.4 trillion package with Trump administration Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, but McConnell has refused to budge from a far more conservative relief package in the $1 trillion range.
Some have attributed the president’s wild shifts to drugs he was treated with for COVID-19, including the steroid dexamethasone, which like many steroids not only diminishes the immune system, but also has side effects The Washington Post reported on, ranging from “blood clots, blurred vision, and headaches to ‘psychic derangements,’ such as insomnia, mood swings, and ‘frank psychotic manifestations,’ according to the drug label.”
Pritzker echoed those concerns Wednesday, saying, “The president has apparently thrown the (COVID relief) talks into disarray now that he’s on a cocktail of steroids.”
Trump tried to provide himself some cover by charging in a tweet that the more ambitious relief package sought by Pelosi, including aid to local governments, was meant “to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States,” but Pritzker dismissed that in no uncertain terms.
“States that are Republican-run and states that are Democratic-run still need help from the federal government that we haven’t received,” he said. All states are facing deep declines in tax revenue stemming from the economic collapse brought on by the coronavirus, and he cited that Texas, a state with Republican governor, is facing a record budget deficit, while Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeDeSantis warned back in June that he would potentially have to cut so many programs it would be what he called the “veto equivalent of the Red Wedding from 'Game of Thrones.'“
“We are going to need this kind of support,” Pritzker insisted, “and I do believe that, whoever wins the election, Congress and the president are going to have to stand up to the plate.” He cautioned that critical state funding for public safety and education would be jeopardized without it.
“I do anticipate that after the election there will be a real desire to get something done quickly,” Pritzker said.
Illinois has a little more wiggle room that many other states and cities, in that its fiscal year ends with June, allowing the state to wait longer to see if a new Congress — and perhaps a new president — can agree on providing COVID-19 relief to local governments in the new year.