Here's what Trump's attempt to upend the stimulus deal means
First, some facts
The White House was fully aware of what was in the bill and what was agreed upon, though White House officials acknowledged late Tuesday that Trump himself had not received a detailed briefing on the package before its passage.
Most of the items the President listed off as problematic in his Tuesday night video weren't from the Covid relief piece of the package. They were from the omnibus. Most, if not all, of those items were similar to items in past spending packages the President has signed.
Most notably, two people involved with the matter say, the President is fired up about the foreign aid in the package. Again, that has been part of each spending package he's previously signed -- but Trump was riled up in part by commentators on conservative media who complained about the aid, according to people familiar.
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But at the moment, aides on both sides of the aisle are mostly just dumbstruck.
"It's a weird thing where I'm not at all surprised because of course he'd do this, but also kind of stunned because he's been so preoccupied with everything else that this seemed in a good place," one senior Republican aide told CNN.\
Democrats pounce
Democrats, however, have seized on the President lobbing up a belt-high fastball for them. Speaker Nancy Pelosi will move on Thursday to pass legislation for $2,000 direct payments by unanimous consent.
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This will almost certainly be blocked -- it only takes one member to block a unanimous consent request and there are plenty of Republicans opposed to the direct payments at that size. But it will present an immediate split between Republicans and Trump at a time the party is in the midst of simmering war and just days before the crucial Georgia Senate runoff races.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called on Trump to sign the package passed this week -- and then work with Congress on enlarging the direct payments.
Trump has long sought bigger direct payments
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As to the size of the direct payments, that's been an issue Trump has talked to aides about for several weeks, according to two officials who spoke with him. The $600 level was actually the proposal of his Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, his lead negotiator on this entire deal -- both the Covid relief and the omnibus. Mnuchin was on television Tuesday selling the merits of the deal. While Trump had advocated for higher payments, he never explicitly threatened to torpedo the bill if they weren't included, a person familiar with the matter said.
Finally: at any point, the President could have entered these talks himself and, without question, had a major effect. He simply never did. He tweeted. He'd occasionally comment in gaggles. He was briefed on them by Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, but he never directly engaged. He was a passive player at most, and more often than not, completely absent, according to senators and aides in both parties. Trump has been almost exclusively fixated on his efforts to overturn the election, paying attention to little else in recent weeks.
One other note: the package passed with a veto-proof majority, but it's not clear what that means if Trump decides to go nuclear on it. House Republicans tend to move wherever Trump moves, so the original vote count may not be operative. Still, it's too early for that. Right now, everyone is in wait-and-see mode.