CNN’s John Harwood Suggests Trump Could Have Ulterior Motive for Upending Covid Relief Bill: ‘He’s Trying to Take Other Republicans Down With Him’

CNN White House correspondent John Harwood suggested that President Donald Trump’s last-minute gambit to demand changes to the Covid relief bill could jeopardize its passage while political sabotaging Congressional Republicans who backed it.

Speaking with guest host John Berman on the Tuesday night episode of Anderson Cooper 360, Harwood warned that the impact of having lost the 2020 election has Trump “choking psychologically on that defeat.”

“What is the president doing here?” Berman asked, after the last-minute, ransom-like video where Trump made a number of misleading statements and issued an implied veto threat about a $900 billion stimulus that the White House has avoided any role in negotiating since Election Day.

“It is a blow to his ego and reputation, the idea he’s a loser to Joe Biden,” Harwood said. “He basically vacated the Oval Office for most purposes. You finally had both chambers of congress coming together on a $900 billion compromise. The president has put out a statement tonight, a video tape statement, completely dishonest, and he read a bunch of provisions and said they were in the Covid relief bill.”

“That’s false,” the CNN reporter explained. “They’re in the omnibus spending bill which was attacked to the Covid relief bill. They moved together as one piece of legislation. He was dishonestly suggesting that Congress had put these wasteful items in… If he vetoes it, I think it is highly unlikely if not impossible that Congress would alter the bill to his liking. Congress may override the veto. If he vetoes it, many of these Republican Congressman who were so scared of him may not vote to override the veto of the bill that they just supported.”

Harwood then speculated why Trump might risk killing such a critically important bill by sandbagging the negotiating position of his own party — and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in particular, which had worked for months to reduce the size of the stimulus as well as the direct payment amount received by Americans struggling durign the pandemic.

“It would be a terrible blow to those Senate candidates in Georgia who Mitch McConnell was trying to help with this bill,” Harwood noted, referring to the two Senate runoff races next month. “The president, when he was asking about Republicans downballot… he said, ‘All these Republicans won and I am the one who lost,’ that offended him. It is possible that he has embarked on a course where he’s trying to take other Republicans down with him by criticizing the bill they just voted for.”

Further proof of Harwood’s hypothesis came on Twitter at almost the exact same moment, when Trump lashed out at the Senate GOP leadership and derisively referred to the second-highest ranking Senate Republican, John Thune (SD), as “Mitch’s boy.” The president also warned Thune that he would be primaried in 2022, presumably by a pro-Trump Republican, and declared his “political career over.”

What’s more, House Democrats leapt at the unexpected opening Trump just offered them, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling the Republicans’ bluff, immediately endorsed Trump’s demand to more than triple the direct payout. “Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent. Let’s do it!” she tweeted out just minutes later.

Republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the President wanted for direct checks. At last, the President has agreed to $2,000 — Democrats are ready to bring this to the Floor this week by unanimous consent. Let’s do it! https://t.co/Th4sztrpLV

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 23, 2020

Both Mitch McConnell and the entire Senate Republican leadership, notably, were silent on Trump blindsiding them with his demand to expand the stimulus.

Watch the video above, via CNN.