US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has reportedly resigned following yesterday’s violence at the US Capitol. An Acting Secretary has not been named. Information here.
Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has also resigned effective Monday, for the same reason. Steven Bradbury will serve as Acting Secretary of Transportation until the end of President Trump’s term. See here.
Check back for updates.
On Friday, the Senate followed the lead of the House by voting to override Trump’s veto of the NDAA. The Senate margin was 81 to 13, more than enough necessary to overcome the 2/3 majority requirement. This was the first Congressional veto override of the Trump Administration.
Read more here.
President Trump has signed both the $900 billion COVID relief package, as well as the $1.4 trillion FY21 omnibus appropriations bill, into law. His signature will avert a government shutdown.
More details here.
With a video in which he called it a “disgrace,” President Trump yesterday blasted the COVID/omnibus spending package that was only adopted on Monday. His biggest complaints seem to be that the stimulus checks of $600 per person for families making less than $75,000 a year is not big enough and that the bill contains too much “wasteful” spending. He wants the checks to be at least $2,000.
Smaller checks were pushed by Congressional Republicans and his own Treasury secretary. Democratic leaders have, at least publicly, seized on the remarks to try to make another push on larger stimulus checks. Not surprisingly, the video is now leading many to wonder whether Trump will veto the measure, which took six months to craft.
Trump must sign the measure by next Monday in order to prevent a shutdown.
Read more about the developments here in Politico, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Axios.
After making the text available earlier in the day, both chambers of Congress cleared the massive $2.3-trillion COVID/FY2021 appropriations package last evening. The measure now goes to the White House for the President’s signature, although it is uncertain when that would exactly happen.
Because the printing and processing of the official text of legislation for the President’s signature takes time– and the size of yesterday’s package was unusually large– Congress also passed and Trump signed yesterday another continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown while the legislative package was being readied.
Office of Federal Relations will continue to provide updates about the bill on its blog.