Trump leaves town for Christmas at Mar-a-Lago as Democrats plan to vote on $2,000 stimulus checks
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President Donald Trump left Washington on Wednesday to spend the holidays at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
House Democrats, meanwhile, are set to vote on Thursday on providing $2,000 stimulus checks.
On Tuesday, Trump called on Congress to increase the size of the payments to $2,000 from the $600 included in the COVID-19 relief package he was expected to sign.
If Trump doesn't sign that stimulus package in the next several days, he will have effectively vetoed it, throwing it back to Congress.
President Donald Trump left Washington, DC, on Wednesday to spend the holidays at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as Congress prepared to consider $2,000 stimulus checks as part of COVID-19 relief efforts.
On Tuesday night, Trump sent Washington into a frenzy when he bashed the $900 billion bipartisan stimulus measure that Congress had just passed. On Wednesday afternoon, the lame-duck president vetoed a defense spending bill that both chambers had passed with overwhelming support.
USA Today reported that an alert from the Federal Aviation Administration indicated Trump was expected to leave Palm Beach by 6:45 p.m. on January 1. If he stays that long, he could end up vetoing the stimulus package by not signing it.
A White House representative did not respond to a request for comment on whether the president intends to veto the stimulus package.
The White House press office, however, insisted the president would keep busy, saying in a statement that "his schedule includes many meetings and calls."
Read more: A deputy to Eric Trump helped build a campaign shell company to protect the president from grift. But the secretive operation morphed into a mystery - even for top Trump campaign staffers.
In the meantime, Democrats are preparing to bring Trump's proposal for larger stimulus checks to the House floor on Thursday.
According to The Washington Post's Jeff Stein, Democrats will seek to approve $2,000 payments - up from $600 in the existing stimulus package - by unanimous consent. If that fails, they would hold a vote on stand-alone legislation on Monday, Stein said.
Trump said on Tuesday that the package, which he had been expected to sign, did not provide big enough stimulus checks.
Democrats first proposed $2,000 direct payments earlier this year. In May, Kamala Harris, now the vice president-elect, cosponsored legislation in the Senate that would provide the checks each month until the pandemic is over. House Democrats backed a companion measure, but the stimulus package the chamber passed in May included only one-time $1,200 checks.
Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have sought to limit the size of direct payments to Americans and now have to decide whether to oppose Trump or cave and save face politically.
Most Americans in a recent Insider poll said the $600 checks weren't enough: 76% of respondents said the payment should be $1,000 or more, and 43% said it should be $2,000 or more.
Have a news tip? Email this reporter at cdavis@insider.com.
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