The White House is touting President Donald Trump’s attempts to use executive orders to address the coronavirus pandemic, with administration officials pointing to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to use a non-socially distanced California hair salon.
Pelosi was caught on tape mask-less and receiving an indoor hair cut at a salon that opened specifically for her on Monday.
“It is stunningly hypocritical that Speaker Pelosi continues to hold up $1.3 trillion dollars in coronavirus aid while getting special access to the very businesses it would help,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews told the Daily Caller on Wednesday. “However, while she continues to abdicate in her most basic responsibility to the nation during this unprecedented pandemic, Americans can rest assured that President Trump will continue to deliver critically needed relief to the American people.”
With Congress still still out of session after having failed to come to an agreement on the next wave of coronavirus, White House officials told the Daily Caller that Trump was left no choice but to attempt to enact coronavirus relief via executive order. (RELATED: Mayor Of Philadelphia, Where You Can’t Dine Indoors, Spotted Dining Indoors Next State Over)
President Donald Trump delivers a speech in Wilmington, North Carolina on Wednesday, September 2, 2020. (Screenshot/YouTube/White House)
The message echoes that of White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who said on Fox News that Trump is the only person in Washington to have acted on the coronavirus “in the last four weeks.”
Trump has issued a number of executive orders and other measures in recent aimed coronavirus relief, including banning evictions, enacting a payroll tax cut, and extending paycheck protection for workers and small businesses.
It is unclear whether the orders will stand up in court, however, as many argue Trump doesn’t have the authority to sidestep Congress in such a drastic manner.
Trump’s Tuesday order on evictions would protect single tenants making less than $99k per year and couples making less than $198k from eviction, so long as that eviction would result in the tenants becoming homeless.
Trump first announced his executive action press in early August, signing four orders establishing a payroll tax cut through the the end of 2020, protecting renters, providing $400 weekly payments to workers, and granting student loan relief.