Tag: Steve Mnuchin

Trump extended Secret Service protection to his adult children and three top officials as he left office

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In the days before he left office, President Donald Trump instructed that his family get the best security available in the world for the next six months, at no cost — the protection of the U.S. Secret Service.

According to three people briefed on the plan, Trump issued a directive to extend post-presidency Secret Service protection to his four adult children and two of their spouses, who were not automatically entitled to receive it.

Trump also directed that three key officials leaving government continue to receive the protection for six months: former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien, two people familiar with the arrangement said. Continue reading.

Mnuchin says new stimulus payments could go out next week as Congress readies relief bill vote

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House and Senate are rushing to approve the package on Monday

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday said millions of Americans could begin seeing stimulus payments as soon as next week as the White House and Congress work to rush a $900 billion spending package into law.

The House and Senate are planning to vote on the measure later in the day, though legislative text for the package was still in development on Monday morning. Final passage in the Senate could be delayed into Monday evening. Lawmakers reached a deal on the bill Sunday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday that lawmakers are “going to stay here until we finish tonight.”

Lawmakers are hoping to package the stimulus measure with other bills into a giant piece of legislation. It would include money to fund the government through September 2021 as well as the extension of various tax cuts, among other things. And lawmakers will only have a short period of time to review parts of the bill before voting on what could end up as one of the largest bills ever to pass Congress.

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin cuts off several Federal Reserve emergency aid programs, sparking unusual rebuke from Fed

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Though Mnuchin also asked the Fed to return hundreds of billions of dollars in unspent Cares Act money, Treasury alone does not hold that power

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday said he would not extend most of the emergency lending programs run in tandem with the Federal Reserve, a move the central bank immediately criticized, citing the fragile recovery.

The Fed’s exceedingly rare public response reflected a government divided on how to act as the pandemic surges across the nation, threatening a new wave of shutdowns and marking an inflection point of the economic recovery.

In a letter to Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell, Mnuchin not only said that several of the programs would wind down at the end of the year, but he also requested that unspent money allocated to the Fed under the first stimulus effort, the Cares Act, be reallocated by Congress. However, the Treasury Department does not have the sole authority to reallocate the funds and would need to secure Fed agreement. Continue reading.

How Trump, Mnuchin and DeJoy edged the Postal Service into a crisis

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Soon after Louis DeJoy arrived at the U.S. Postal Service’s L’Enfant Plaza headquarters in mid-June, Mark Dimondstein, the veteran leader of the agency’s largest union, called to get on the new postmaster general’s schedule.

He had urgent matters to discuss: The coronavirus pandemic was forcing widespread absenteeism among his 200,000 members. Protective gear was running low. The post office needed a plan to handle a historic crush of mail-in ballots.

Dimondstein had spoken weekly with DeJoy’s predecessor, Megan Brennan. But it would take six weeks for him to get an audience with the new boss, and by then, the labor leader had other priorities: to halt the rapid-fire cost-cutting moves DeJoy ordered that were degrading the delivery of mail, medicine, food and other staples to a country homebound as the virus was surging again. Continue reading.

‘It’s a cover-up’: White House accused of hiding Mnuchin’s role in recruiting postmaster general

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday accused the Trump White House of covering up the role Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin played in recruiting Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor with no prior experience working for the U.S. Postal Service.

In a letter to Robert Duncan, chairman of the USPS Board of Governors, Schumer wrote that as part of his investigation into DeJoy’s selection and unanimous appointment in May, his office “learned of the role Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had with the Postal Board of Governors, including through meetings with individual governors as well as phone calls with groups of governors, which has not been previously disclosed by the board.”

“This administration has repeatedly pointed to the role of [executive search firm] Russell Reynolds to defend the selection of a Republican mega-donor with no prior postal experience as postmaster general while at the same time blocking the ability of Congress to obtain briefings from the firm and concealing the role of Secretary Mnuchin and the White House in its search process,” the New York Democrat wrote. Continue reading.

Mnuchin Admits White House Held Back Assistance for Hungry Kids

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday admitted the coronavirus relief package Republicans released in late July as an initial offer to House Democrats did not include enough aid for food assistance programs, even as children go hungry in the United States.

Mnuchin made the comment on CNBC after host Jim Cramer asked whether there was any room for the Trump administration to increase their coronavirus aid offer to reach a deal with Democrats, as negotiations in Congress are currently stalled.

“I listened to the speaker over the weekend. She’s right. We started low on food, we realized there’s a lot of kids out there that — there’s an issue,” Mnuchin said, saying that adding more aid for food programs could be a “compromise” the Trump administration is willing to make. Continue reading.

Mnuchin suggests taxpayers will have to pay back COVID money unless Trump is reelected

AlterNet logoTreasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin suggested on Sunday that Americans will have to pay the government back for any payroll tax reduction unless President Donald Trump is reelected.

In an interview on FOX, host Chris Wallace noted that the president’s latest executive action on COVID-19 financial relief is “not a tax cut.”

“It’s a payroll tax suspension,” Wallace explained. “Isn’t there a danger that a lot of businesses won’t pass these saving through to workers because they’re going to hold on to the money because at some point, according to this executive action by the end of the year, those payroll taxes are going to be have to be paid anyway?” Continue reading.

TikTok’s fate was shaped by a ‘knockdown, drag-out’ Oval Office brawl

Washington Post logoTrump advisers Mnuchin and Navarro fought over TikTok as Silicon Valley dealmakers tried to get closer to Trum

Last week, as leaders in Silicon Valley, China and Washington raced to seal the fate of one of the world’s fastest-growing social media companies, a shouting match broke out in the Oval Office between two of President Trump’s top advisers.

In front of Trump, trade adviser Peter Navarro and other aides late last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin began arguing that the Chinese-owned video-sharing service TikTok should be sold to a U.S. company. Mnuchin had talked several times to Microsoft’s senior leaders and was confident that he had rallied support within the administration for a sale to the tech giant on national security grounds.

Navarro pushed back, demanding an outright ban of TikTok, while accusing Mnuchin of being soft on China, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions freely. The treasury secretary appeared taken aback, they said. Continue reading.

Millionaire Treasury secretary uses debunked GOP talking point to justify slashing $600 unemployment insurance

AlterNet logoTreasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Sunday recycled a debunked right-wing talking point to justify the GOP’s proposal to cut by more than half the $600-per-week federal boost in unemployment benefits that expired at the end of last week, depriving around 30 million Americans of a key economic lifeline as joblessness remains at historic levels.

In an appearance on ABC‘s “This Week,” Mnuchin claimed “there’s no question” that the $600 weekly boost in unemployment insurance (UI) created a disincentive to work.

When host Martha Raddatz pointed to a recent Yale study that found “no evidence that more generous benefits disincentivized work,” Mnuchin responded, “I went to Yale, I agree on certain things, I don’t always agree.” Continue reading.

Chris Wallace fact checks Steve Mnuchin’s lies on new stimulus bill: ‘Republicans rejected this’

AlterNet logoFox News host Chris Wallace reminded Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin that Republicans had “rejected” President Donald Trump’s call for a payroll tax cut after the Trump administration official blamed Democrats.

During an interview with Mnuchin on Fox News Sunday, Wallace noted that Trump had recently threatened to veto a COVID-19 stimulus bill “that did not include a payroll tax cut.”

“That now is gone from all the discussions,” Wallace explained. “Why did the administration cave on that so quickly?” Continue reading.