Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Tuesday night that he backs President Donald Trump’s push for $2,000 direct payments for COVID-19 relief, but the senator tied his support to repealing Section 230 and whether the GOP keeps control of the Senate after the Georgia runoffs.
Graham told Fox News that though the payments would be “expensive” and are “not the most efficient way to get aid to people who are suffering,” he agreed with Trump that the $600 relief checks in the newly passed COVID-19 stimulus package were “not enough.”
The senator then mentioned Trump’s demand to repeal Section 230, a provision in the Communications Decency Act that protects social media platforms like Twitter from punishment over content posted by their users. The President and his GOP allies have repeatedly claimed that Section 230 targets conservatives.
“The President has dug in. He wants a vote on a $2,000 payment. I support that,” the GOP senator said. “And he wants to repeal Section 230 to keep Big Tech from running the country and censoring conservatives. I support both of those, and I think we’re going to get a vote in the Senate if we control the Senate.”
However, Graham added, “If we lose Georgia, we’re never going to get a vote on repealing Section 230.”
“They’re going to send another bill over that’s going to make this bill look cheap,” the senator said, presumably referring to Democrats.
After Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) expressed support for $2,000 relief checks amid pressure to do so ahead of the runoffs next week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) crafted a package that seemingly attempts to torpedo the potential payment increases by tying them to Trump’s desired rollback of Section 230 and a committee to investigate the nonexistent voter fraud that the President falsely claims led to his defeat.
Watch Graham below:
Graham says he supports $2,000 relief checks. pic.twitter.com/2aGAhOYJG2
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) December 30, 2020
Lindsey, I’m sure I speak for everyone here. Could you kindly f***off, you toady?
Yeah, bullshit. Lindsey knows that McConnell is going to quash the higher stimulus amount by adding the Section 230 stuff, and he knows the Dems in the Senate won’t support that. The House isn’t coming back to consider a new bill either.
The three of them – Trump, McConnell and Graham – are relying on the public not understanding what Section 230 actually does, and what the impact would be. Trump just wants to hurt the social media companies because they’ve been mean to him. It has nothing to do with social media “censoring conservatives.”
The consensus among respected economists, including Krugman, is that $2000 payments based on current sliding scale numbers are a poor use of this money, and that it should be more targeted towards people who really need it, with a much lower set of sliding scale numbers. I.e. relief more than stimulus. It’s probably moot though since it doesn’t look like MM’s going to allow a vote on a bill that doesn’t have poison pill provisions.
An aside, since a lot of people end up using these payments to pay down debt (what I did), aren’t they “bad” for the financial industry, since it translates into fewer finance charges collected on outstanding debt? If so, has this been reflected in finance stocks? Or are they make up the losses elsewhere?
So, in Georgia, the Republicans are running calling their opponents “radical socialists” while they are supporting a measure pushed by Bernie Sanders…
It’s the Smucker’s law of US politics: If a Repub supports or does it, it has to be good.