Bipartisan group of legislators embraces Trump's call for direct $2,000 stimulus payments

Congressional Democrats moved quickly Tuesday night to embrace President Trump's call for larger direct individual payments in the recently approved coronavirus relief bill, while at the same time blaming Senate Republicans for the failure to provide the higher amount in the current package.

After the president demanded that direct individual payments be raised from $600 to $2,000, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tweeted: "Republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the President wanted for direct checks. At last, the President has agreed to $2,000 -- Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent. Let's do it!"

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote: "We spent months trying to secure $2,000 checks but Republicans blocked it ... Maybe Trump can finally make himself useful and get Republicans not to block it again."

In a video message posted to his Twitter page on Tuesday evening, President Trump excoriated the recently passed, 5,593-page relief bill that lawmakers had just a few hours to read prior to voting on it.

"It's called the Covid relief bill, but it has almost nothing to do with Covid," said Trump as he called on Congress to amend the bill, which requires his signature to become law. 

Citing the stimulus package's billions of dollars in foreign aid and examples of wasteful spending like $40 million for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the president said: "Despite all of this wasteful spending, and much more, the $900 billion package provides hard-working taxpayers with only $600 each in relief payments and not enough money is given to small businesses -- and in particular restaurants, whose owners have suffered so grievously." 

Progressive leaders and vocal critics of the president Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont also concurred with the president's $2,000 suggestion. Each lawmaker claimed credit for having crafted legislation that included the same proposal earlier. 

"I first introduced a bill to provide a $2,000 direct payment with @SenKamalaHarris & @EdMarkey 7 months ago. Now, Mr. President, get Mitch McConnell and your Republican friends to stop opposing it and we can provide working class Americans with $2,000. Let's do it," tweeted Sanders in response to Pelosi.

Ocasio-Cortez wrote that she and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) were responsible for writing an amendment to the bill for $2,000 checks, "so it's ready to go."

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who has been consistent in his drive to secure higher direct payments to individuals, welcomed the president's support in a tweet Tuesday night:

Pushing back on the notion that Trump was slow to call for larger checks, Hawley clarified in a second tweet that the president had told him on multiple occasions that he wanted more money to go directly to struggling American workers.