‘Please Don’t Do This!’ MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Pleads With Tim Kaine to Stop Democrats from Means Testing Covid Relief

Chris Hayes issued a simple but urgent plea for Democrats: Just give everybody a check!

At the end of his Wednesday night show, the MSNBC host literally begged guest Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and other Senate Democrats not to compromise on the Covid relief package by setting taxable income limits on those who can receive $1,400 direct payments.

Speaking to Kaine right after Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated a flexibility to work with Republicans to best “target” who gets the relief checks, Hayes offered up his pitch.

“Here’s my pitch to you, senator. Then I’ll shut up,” a smiling Hayes said. “Don’t do this — a), b), if you have to do it, and you need 50 votes, so whatever, just give people checks and tax it back next year, if they had a good year and didn’t need it. This idea that you’re going to means test all 2019 income, which does not capture the need, please don’t do this. Okay. You respond. I’ll shut up now.”

Kaine, who had been laughing during much of Hayes’ riff, good-naturedly responded — and disagreed.

“I absolutely agree with the White House. We shouldn’t shrink the check amount,” Kaine insisted. “But I do think what the White House is talking about, the $1.9 trillion, that’s what we need to do. And look, if we target the check a little bit more in terms of the means, but we take the money we save and we put it into more vaccines, or more unemployment insurance, or more housing aid, or more SNAP benefits, we can meet the needs.”

“So the issue about the $1,400 check, it connects with a whole lot of other priorities in this bill that are about helping Americans,” Kaine added. “I think the targeting thing is not a bad discussion to get into. As long as we are going big and going prompt, because Americans are still suffering.”

Hayes still pushed back, however, pointing out that using tax statements from 2019 to determine who qualifies for aid could penalize millions of people who are struggling now or who have lost their job in the past year.

“All I would say is the tax code next year is a great means, and it will score the same, by the way, for CBO purposes, it will score the same if you just tax it back next year,” Hayes threw in.

“You could be a Budget Committee staffer, Chris, with that comment,” Kaine jokingly shot back, as Hayes cracked up.

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.