It’s the curious case of Donald Trump’s re-election strategy. Pull out of stimulus negotiations

It’s the curious case of Donald Trump’s re-election strategy. Pull out of stimulus negotiations 1 month before the election therefore definitely depriving millions of Americans support and almost guaranteeing that the economy will dip more. A curious case indeed. But the overall blame can be spread around.

A bit of background. We’re going through a global pandemic, in case you hadn’t heard. Every aspect of our lives has been impacted. Over 210,000 Americans have died from COVID 19. The economy, which went into a recession, had a decent recovery at first. That’s due to the stimulus that Congress passed. Because they were aggressive, providing businesses with support and providing generous unemployment benefits, the economy didn’t fall off the cliff. The unemployment rate had improved however recently job growth is sputtering. The head of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said that if there’s no additional stimulus, the economy could see tragic results.

Hours after Powell’s speech, Trump tweeted that he was pulling out of stimulus negotiations until after the election. Stocks fell, Trump blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Pelosi blamed Trump.

So how far apart were the 2 parties, who is to blame, and who will get blamed?

House Democrats were offering a $2.2 trillion package. The White House wanted a $1.6 trillion dollar package and the GOP in Congress didn’t seem to want much but were willing to do something between 800 billion and 1.5 trillion. Some of the major issues were aid to state and local governments – democrats wanted more, republicans wanted less. Legal liability protections for schools and businesses that reopened- republicans wanted more, democrats wanted less; federal unemployment benefits; democrats wanted more, republicans wanted less. There were other issues but overall there was still much more negotiating to do.

So is to blame? On this, you could argue everyone deserves some of the blame. Republicans don’t really want to pass another stimulus bill at all so Dems argue their offer is way too low. Democrats want to spend 2 trillion so Republicans think that’s too much. (Although their initial offer was a 3 trillion dollar bill but they’ve come down in an attempt to strike a deal.) Some of the Congressional democrats who are in tight re-election races wanted Pelosi to give in more to get something done. But Pelosi felt that she had the upper hand and as the economy sputters and Americans suffer.

Politically, Trump’s move to pull out of negotiations makes little to no sense. Sure, his base likes when he has something they think he can blame Nancy Pelosi for. But Americans don’t like it when politicians stop doing their jobs. And the economy, the 1 area where polling shows that more Americans approve of Trump’s economic policies, is suffering. No stimulus bill means the economy is expected to do worse over the next month, not better. As such, Trump’s re-election argument, that he’s the best guy on the economy, literally disappears. But even more than that, passing a huge stimulus bill would have actually looked GREAT for Trump. It would have helped his re-election. Walking away just sends the message that he gave up and doesn’t care. Not the electoral message you want to send. Not to mention, he’s now given Democrats an easy target in races down the ballot…they can now argue that Trump and the republicans walked away from helping Americans who are suffering.

Potentially seeing the political fallout, Trump tweeted that he’d be open to signing piecemeal legislation like a bill to help the airline industry. But last week Pelosi had suggested just that and Republicans said no.

Again, from a political standpoint, this moves just makes no sense. Some question whether the intense steroids he’s taking to fight his COVID virus can explain this erratic behavior. But either way, it’s likely he’ll ultimately get most of the blame, something that could hurt not only his re-election but Senate and Congressional re