Trump’s last laugh — the lame duck who won’t play dead

Donald Trump entered office nearly four years ago as a self-proclaimed political outsider willing to throw fireballs at members of his own party, and he’s leaving under the same pretences.

The outgoing president, who sees himself as a “fighter” unbeholden to the GOP establishment, threatened on Tuesday to upend the landmark $900bn Covid deal that eluded lawmakers for nine months until this past weekend.

His issue with the package that he has labelled a “disgrace”?

It only sends $600 stimulus checks to American taxpayers instead of the $1,200 ones they received in March.

As I wrote earlier this week, it was Republicans who negotiated that amount down to its new, reduced sum.

“I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000, or $4,000 for a couple,” Mr Trump said in a video posted to Twitter on Tuesday.

He also wants Congress to go back to the drawing board and cut billions of dollars in foreign aid from the $1.4trn government spending omnibus to which the Covid package was attached.

That $2.3trn dual package was passed with veto-proof majorities in both chambers earlier this week — 359-53 in the House and 92-6 in the Senate.

But Mr Trump, with a possible eye towards running for president again in 2024, is not rolling over and playing dead in the lame duck session.

If he indeed vetoes the $2.3trn “Coronabus” package, it will be the second major piece of veto-proof legislation he has tried to tank in the closing weeks of his administration.

The other is a $740bn military budget he opposes because it forces the Department of Defense to rechristen US bases named for Confederate figureheads.

Even though both chambers have the votes to override Mr Trump’s potential vetoes, it would force them to cut short their holidays for an early return to Washington — Mr Trump’s last laugh.

President-elect Joe Biden has taken the opposite rhetorical approach to the Covid deal, saying that while it is imperfect and will have to be improved upon when he takes office in January, “both parties” showed dignity in coming together to provide emergency relief for Americans.

“Leaders in both the House and Senate, both parties, deserve credit for making the hard compromises to get this done,” Mr Biden said of the Covid bill that extends unemployment aid, bolsters key small business lending programmes, and re-ups the nationwide eviction moratorium.

Mr Biden did not provide specifics on what he would ask for in the next Covid bill, although he did make one critical commitment: he will push for a third round of stimulus checks.

It will be quiet in Washington over the next few days.

The House and Senate are out of town through at least 29 December.

Mr Biden delivered his holiday address on Tuesday.

And Mr Trump’s Twitter video was staged in front of a Christmas tree, so it stands to reason that screed counts as his holiday address as well.