My homeboy Lavelle and I had this thing we did when a kid wanted to fight me and I didn’t want to fight. I would act like I was taking off my shirt and Lavelle knew that was his cue to jump in and act like he was breaking it up. I was rail-thin growing up. I reached my full man height (6 foot, 2 inches) as a teen but was probably 150 pounds soaking wet, so the last thing I ever wanted was to be outside with no shirt on. If I really wanted to fight then I did so with my shirt on. For some reason, in junior high school I got into a lot of fights and Lavelle broke up his fair share. To me it was an opportunity to save face and it worked most of the time. Until one day this kid Andre moved Lavelle out the way. I was literally fake taking off my shirt when Lavelle did his whole routine and then out of nowhere came Andre, who was a few years older than us, like, “Nah Lavelle, let them fight.”
I kept my shirt on. We fought. I lost.
The larger point in this is that I know what the kids call “pump faking” when I see it. Hell, I was Charles Smith in Game 2 of the 1993 NBA Eastern Conference Finals all the way through junior high school, so let’s just say I’m a scholar.
So when news emerged that President Trump wanted to give the people a $2,000 stimulus check, I immediately called bullshit. The news literally sounded like Lavelle’s and my fake fight move, in which the president wanted to interrupt congressional haggling over a stimulus package while aides had to hold him back.
From the Washington Post:
White House aides intervened Thursday to prevent President Trump from issuing a statement calling for substantially larger stimulus payments for millions of Americans, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the private exchange.
On a phone call Thursday afternoon, Trump told allies that he believes stimulus payments in the next relief package should be “at least” $1,200 per person and possibly as big as $2,000 per person, the officials said. Congressional leadership is preparing a stimulus package that would provide checks of $600 per person.
Trump was in the middle of formally drafting his demand for the larger payments when White House officials told him that doing so could imperil delicate negotiations over the economic relief package, the officials said. Congressional Republicans have insisted that the relief bill remain less than $1 trillion, and it’s currently designed to cost around $900 billion. Larger stimulus checks could push the package’s total over $1 trillion.
The whole thing is self-serving AF. Trump gets to look like he wanted to give the people more money but it was stubborn-ass Congress that wouldn’t go for it. Look at how generous Trump wanted to be if only Congress would listen! And isn’t that just like Trump to run out in the eleventh hour to look like the hero?
The whole thing is bullshit. America has been without financial assistance for months and if this was truly at the top of Trump’s agenda, he would’ve made it happen. Trump has barely tweeted about it, besides the random: “Go big, or go home” Twitter blast.
The reality is that Congress, more specifically Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) with his Mitch-ass, has failed America and Trump doesn’t get to be the hero. Plus when is the last time that aides have held the president back? They can’t even take his cell phone from him at night to keep him off Twitter.
