WASHINGTON -- The Senate was in turmoil Thursday as it tried to deal with expanding stimulus payments and a defense authorization act veto override vote.
Opening the day's session, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the House-passed bill matching President Donald Trump's request "socialism for rich people."
Trump has pushed Congress to increase covid-19 aid checks from $600 to $2,000.
Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., a top Trump ally, sought to bridge the divide Thursday, saying Congress could try again to approve Trump's push for bigger covid aid checks in the new session, which opens Sunday.
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"I am with President Trump on this," Graham said on Fox News.
"Our economy is really hurting here," he said. "There's no way to get a vote by Jan. 3. The new Congress begins noon Jan. 3. So the new Congress, you could get a vote."
The stalemate was expected to drag into the weekend.
"After all the insanity that Senate Republicans have tolerated from President Trump -- his attacks on the rule of law, an independent judiciary, the conduct that led to his impeachment -- is this where Senate Republicans are going to draw the line -- $2,000 checks to the American people?" Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer said this week.
McConnell has shown little interest in Trump's push to bolster the $600 relief checks just approved in a year-end package, declaring that Congress has provided enough pandemic aid, for now, as he blocked repeated Democratic attempts to force a vote.
Trump's push for larger checks gained momentum when dozens of House Republicans joined Democrats in approving the measure Monday, but the effort fizzled in the GOP-led Senate.
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Democrats embraced Trump's demand, but his own party split between those few joining his push for more aid and others objecting to more spending that they said was not targeted to those who need it most.
Liberal senators, led by Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who support the relief boost, are blocking action on the defense bill until a vote is taken on Trump's demand.
McConnell offered an alternative aid bill, linking the $2,000 checks with Trump's other priorities, including a repeal of protections for tech companies like Facebook or Twitter and the establishment of a bipartisan commission to review the 2020 presidential election.
But the GOP leader has scheduled no votes on his measure, and it would be unlikely to have enough support in Congress to pass.
For now, the $600 checks are being sent to households. Americans earning up to $75,000 qualify for the payments, which are phased out at higher income levels, and there's an additional $600 payment per dependent child.
TRUMP MESSAGE
Meanwhile, Trump delivered a year-end video message Thursday after returning early from vacation.
Trump cut short his stay at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and got back to the White House a day ahead of schedule.
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Trump's video message released over Twitter underscored his administration's work on the covid-19 vaccine, economic stimulus checks and America's "grit, strength and tenacity" in the face of challenges.
The White House didn't give a reason for Trump's early return.
The abrupt change in the president's schedule was announced late Wednesday, hours after Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he would raise objections next week when Congress meets to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the November election.
Trump has attributed his election defeat to widespread voter fraud, despite nonpartisan election officials saying there wasn't any. He has pushed Republican senators to pursue his accusations even though the Electoral College this month cemented Biden's 306-232 victory and multiple legal efforts to challenge the results have failed.
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., called the effort in Congress to reverse Biden's Electoral College victory a "dangerous ploy," underscoring the challenge Trump faces in persuading even members of his own party to join it.
In an open letter to constituents, Sasse wrote that there is no evidence of fraud so widespread that it could change the results and said he has urged his colleagues to reject "a project to overturn the election."
"All the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world won't change the fact that this January 6th effort is designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone in a different party," Sasse wrote on Facebook shortly before midnight Wednesday. "We ought to be better than that."
McConnell and other leading Republicans had discouraged their members from challenging the Electoral College vote, conceding that the move would fail.
Given the narrow majority in the Senate, Trump would need to persuade nearly every Republican in the chamber to side with him. Several have already acknowledged Biden as the president-elect. In his letter, Sasse said there is a constitutional basis for what is being attempted but that it is "absolutely not" warranted in this case.
"For President-Elect Biden's 306-232 Electoral College victory to be overturned, President Trump would need to flip multiple states," Sasse wrote. "But not a single state is in legal doubt."
More than 90 federal and state judges have rejected challenges to the November vote, finding allegations of fraud to be without merit.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he was "curious to see" the evidence driving the objection but expressed skepticism at the effort.
"There's a lot of things I don't want to happen that happen," Cornyn said. "So you just got to learn to deal with it. And I think this is one of them."
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who has questioned whether Biden fairly won the election, said he was supportive of Hawley's effort but would not join him in objecting. He left open the possibility that he would vote to support the objection.
Graham said he'll listen to Hawley's objection to the certification but doubts it will succeed.
Late Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence asked a judge to reject a lawsuit that aims to expand his power to use a congressional ceremony to overturn the presidential election, arguing that he is not the right person to sue over the issue.
The filing will come as a disappointment to supporters of Trump, who hoped that Pence would attempt to reject some of Biden's Electoral College votes and recognize votes for Trump instead when Congress meets next week to certify the November election.
The filing came in response to a lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and a number of Republicans in Arizona, who argued that an 1887 law that governs how Congress certifies presidential elections is unconstitutional. The suit argues that the Constitution gives the vice president, in his role as president of the Senate, sole discretion to determine whether electors put forward by the states are valid.
It asks a federal judge to take the extraordinary step of telling Pence that he has the right, on his own, to decide that the Electoral College votes cast in December for Biden are invalid and to instead recognize self-appointed Trump electors who gathered in several state capitals to challenge the results.
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Mascaro, Darlene Superville, Mary Clare Jalonick and Aamer Madhani of The Associated Press; by John Wagner and Rosalind S. Helderman of The Washington Post; by Catie Edmondson of The New York Times; and by Elizabeth Wasserman of Bloomberg News.
