Trump signs four executive orders for economic relief

On Saturday, President Trump signed four executive orders in order to extend economic relief and offer unemployment aid. The orders have been met with scrutiny from the Democrats, who are also facing questions from the Republicans as stimulus deal went unmet for its deadline. Yahoo Finance’s Jess Smith joins The Final Round panel to break down the latest news on the stimulus front from Washington, D.C.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: Let's turn our attention now to what's going on in Washington DC. A very busy weekend for the president. Jess Smith joins us now. I guess, Jess, for what we know has happened or has been signed so far, I will say, I know it's my job to know everything that's gone on, but I'm not 100% sure where things stand on this Monday afternoon.

JESS SMITH: Well, let's just recap what happened over the weekend first. President Trump signed four different measures aimed at granting some economic relief, because talks in Congress have just come to a standstill. So the first one addresses the jobless benefits. He'd like to put $400 extra a week on top of unemployment benefits, but the catch here is that states are supposed to cover $100 of that. And there are just a lot of questions about how this program would actually work, whether there would be huge delays for people who are depending on these unemployment benefits, how states could afford that money, and how they could actually put the mechanisms in place. So a lot to work out on that front.

There's also this memo on evictions. Now, it does not extend the eviction moratorium, the eviction ban, but it directs agencies to look at whether that ban is needed and whether there could be any existing funds to help renters and homeowners. Student loans, this memo did extend the relief that was putting the CARES Act, so payment deferral and 0% interest rates, that is extended to the end of the year. And then, of course, you have the payroll tax holiday deferring the payroll tax for workers who make less than $104,000 a year.

Now, Democrats have called these proposals weak, unworkable, illusions of being productive, and we've also heard some harsh words from people like Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican who called this unconstitutional slop. The White House Press Secretary defended the move today when she was talking to reporters, and she also says that the White House still wants to negotiate. Here's what she said the president would like to see in negotiations in the next piece of legislation if they can get it done.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY: School funding is very important, and he's been for second round of direct payments, so we encourage Democrats to really negotiate with us in good faith. So far, they have not done so. In fact, moving further away from us rather than towards us. Negotiations work by coming towards one another, and it's incumbent upon Democrats to do that.

JESS SMITH: Now, of course, Democratic lawmakers put the blame on Republicans and the White House saying they have not done enough to meet them halfway, they have not taken this pandemic seriously and put forth any ideas that meet the scope of this problem. We have heard that they're open to continuing talks, but at this point, it doesn't look like the two sides are even in contact.

MYLES UDLAND: Well, and Jess, it's interesting. It's almost like there's three sides now, because it seems that the Trump administration is really not in line with Senate Republicans or even house Republicans. And House doesn't really matter, because they don't have votes, but they're not in line with their caucus in really any way, shape, or form. And so everyone is now just talking past each other, and I think that it kind of goes back to what we said last week, which is Nancy Pelosi is sitting there saying, we passed a bill. Here's the bill. Here's what we agreed to. Someone else has to-- it's on someone else at this point to make a credible move.

JESS SMITH: Yeah, I think so. And the fact that so many Republicans in the Senate don't want to do any additional help. We've talked about it before, that just really gives democratic lawmakers the leverage, at least that's the way they see it, if Republicans can't get onboard among their own party. I mean, the fact that President Trump took executive action on the payroll tax holiday.

I mean, he had to do that, because there was really no chance that even his party was going to get onboard with that. That was an idea that just got no steam on Capitol Hill at all. So we'll see if they can really start talks up again. But at this point, it just looks like more growth block.

MYLES UDLAND: All right, Jess Smith, with the latest on what is not going on down in the capitol.