Pelosi Blasts Trump's Executive Order To Help US Workers: 'Absurdly Unconstitutional'
House Speaker slams President's decision to halt payroll tax
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Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed President Donald Trump's executive orders to halt payroll tax to give American worker relief in the light of the coronavirus.
Speaking during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Pelosi called the move “absurdly unconstitutional.”
“First of all, he is saying states have the money. No, they don’t," Pelosi said.
"They have expenses from the coronavirus. They have lost revenue. Because of that, they are firing health care workers, first responders, teachers, and the rest, sanitation, transportation because they don’t have the money," she added.
"Second of all, everything is left out — our assistance to the schools, feeding the hungry, helping people who are going to be evicted," Pelosi continued.
"The president’s moratorium, he just did a study to look at a moratorium. Something’s wrong," she added.
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"Either the president doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Clearly, his aides don’t know what he is talking about, or something’s very wrong here about meeting the needs of the American people at this time.”
“The fact is, is that whether they’re legal or not takes time to figure out," Pelosi said.
WATCH:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls Trump's executive actions on Covid-19 relief "absurdly unconstitutional" when asked if she would sue to block them https://t.co/SFbZwXXBkU pic.twitter.com/v9b97jvs5I
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) August 9, 2020
"I associate my remarks with what the senator who says, they’re unconstitutional slop. Right now, we want to address the needs of the American people," Pelosi argued.
"As my constitutional advisers tell me, they’re absurdly unconstitutional," the House Speaker stated.
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"Gut right now our focus —and that’s a parallel thing—right now the focus, the priority, has to be on, again, meeting the needs of the American people sufficiently allocating resources to send children to school, not threatening schools that if they don’t have actual attendance, they won’t get the federal dollars.”
Trump said on Friday the payroll tax break could be extended by the end of 2020.
"Hopefully, I’ll be here to do the job,” Trump said, hinting he will still be president after the election.
“If Democrats continue to hold this critical relief hostage, I will act under my authority as president to get Americans the relief they need,” he said.
Both Pelosi and Schumer are demanding a $2.5 trillion package that White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows described as a “blank check.”
