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Presidential Transition Live Updates: $2,000 Stimulus Checks in Limbo as Senate

Turns to Military Bill
President Trump continued his pressure campaign for the larger checks, but a measure by Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority
leader, tying them to other demands left their fate uncertain.

Hereʼs what you need to know:

Fate of $2,000 stimulus checks in limbo as Senate instead turns to veto override of military bill.

A newly elected House member from Louisiana dies of Covid-19 complications.

A State Department proposal to put Cuba on a terrorism list could be a complication for Biden.

Jon Ossoff became a symbol of Democratic resistance in his 2017 election. Now his party faces another test.

Get email alerts with live updates about the U.S. presidential transition.

Fate of $2,000 stimulus checks in limbo as Senate instead turns to veto override of military bill.
The fate of legislation before the Senate that would increase stimulus checks to $2,000 remained uncertain on Wednesday even as
President Trump continued to push for larger payouts.

With just four days left in the legislative session, Senate Republicans have shown little interest in turning the president’s demand for
larger stimulus checks into a reality. Instead, on Wednesday, the Senate will meet to advance the military policy bill Mr. Trump vetoed,
setting up what is poised to become the first veto override of his presidency. Senators are expected to be able to muster enough votes
for an override, with a final vote potentially coming on New Year’s Day.

On Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, blocked a long-shot attempt by Democrats to hold an
immediate vote on increasing stimulus checks to $2,000 from $600, and instead introduced his own competing bill that combined the
measure with two other issues the president had demanded Congress take up: election security and the removal of legal protections
for social media platforms.

Mr. McConnell has not indicated whether he plans to put the legislation to the floor for a vote. But the additions to the bill, which would
create a bipartisan commission to study election practices used in the 2020 election and repeal outright the most consequential law
governing speech on the internet, are widely viewed by Democrats as poison pills and would most likely doom the effort.

“If Senator McConnell tries loading up the bipartisan House-passed CASH Act with unrelated, partisan provisions that will do
absolutely nothing to help struggling families across the country, it will not pass the House and cannot become law,” Senator Chuck
Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said in a statement. “Any move like this by Senator McConnell would be a blatant attempt
to deprive Americans of a $2,000 survival check.”

Mr. Trump continued his push on Wednesday to increase the direct payments. “$2000 ASAP,” he wrote on Twitter.

A vast majority of Senate Republicans have long resisted the idea of larger stimulus checks, pointing to concerns about their cost and
effectiveness. But that position was undercut after Mr. Trump held a $900 billion stimulus package and government spending bill
hostage for days, insisting that lawmakers increase the direct payments while also demanding they address the election integrity and
social media provisions.

— Catie Edmondson

A newly elected House member from Louisiana dies of Covid-19 complications.

Luke Letlow, a Republican who was elected to the House of Representatives this month to represent Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional
District, died Tuesday evening of complications from Covid-19, a spokesman said. He was 41.

Mr. Letlow was set to take office on Sunday. His death was confirmed by several politicians, including Representative Garret Graves
of Louisiana, who said in a Facebook post that the death of his friend and “former co-worker” was “a huge loss to Louisiana and
America.” Mr. Letlow died at the Ochsner L.S.U. Health medical center in Shreveport, La., the spokesman, Andrew Bautsch, said.
Mr. Letlow said on Dec. 18 that he was isolating at home after testing positive for the coronavirus. He was hospitalized a day later in
Monroe, La., before being transferred to the hospital in Shreveport on Dec. 22. Mr. Bautsch said on Dec. 23. that Mr. Letlow had been
receiving the antiviral drug remdesivir and steroids to treat his infection.

On Dec. 21, while he was hospitalized in Monroe, Mr. Letlow urged people who had recovered from Covid-19 to donate plasma. “Your
plasma is ESPECIALLY needed by those who are suffering,” he wrote in a tweet. “I cannot stress this enough. Please consider saving
lives by going out and donating at your local blood bank.”

He did not have any underlying conditions that would have increased his chances of dying from Covid-19, Dr. G.E. Ghali, a doctor at
the Shreveport hospital, told The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La.

In a runoff this month against another Republican, Mr. Letlow was elected to succeed Representative Ralph Abraham, under whom
Mr. Letlow had served as chief of staff.

Mr. Letlow is survived by his wife, Julia, and their two children, Jeremiah and Jacqueline.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement, “Tonight, the United States House of Representatives sadly mourns the passing of
Congressman-elect Luke Letlow.

“Congressman-elect Letlow was a ninth-generation Louisianian who fought passionately for his point of view and dedicated his life to
public service,” she said.

Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, said, “Our hearts break tonight as we process the news of Congressman-elect Luke
Letlow’s passing.”

Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana said Tuesday evening that Covid-19 had “taken Congressman-elect Letlow from us far too soon.”
Mr. Edwards, a Democrat, said he had ordered flags to be flown at half-staff on the day of Mr. Letlow’s funeral.

Representative Mike Johnson, a Republican who represents the state’s Fourth Congressional District, issued a statement on behalf of
the state’s six-member congressional delegation: “We are devastated to hear of Luke Letlow’s passing. Luke had such a positive spirit,
and he had a tremendously bright future ahead of him. He was looking forward to serving the people of Louisiana in Congress, and we
were excited to welcome him to our delegation where he was ready to make an even greater impact on our state and our nation.”

Bobby Jindal, the former governor of Louisiana whom Mr. Letlow had previously worked for when Mr. Jindal was a congressional
candidate, representative and governor, said the congressman-elect “had talked in recent days about his excitement about the
opportunity to serve” his district.

“I first met Luke when he was still a college student, and spent countless hours with him in his truck driving the back roads of
Louisiana,” Mr. Jindal said. “His passion for service has been a constant throughout his life.”

According to Ballotopedia, Mr. Letlow is the first elected federal official to die from the coronavirus; the first member of the federal
government to die from it was a judge.

Other elected officials to die from Covid-19 include several state legislators: a Republican state senator from Minnesota, New
Hampshire’s new Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, and in North Dakota, David Dean Andahl, a Republican known
as Dakota Dave, who was elected posthumously to the State House of Representatives after dying from the virus.

— Bryan Pietsch

A State Department proposal to put Cuba on a terrorism list could be a complication for Biden.
State Department officials have drawn up a proposal to designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, a final-hour foreign policy
move that would complicate plans by the incoming Biden administration to relax increased American pressure on Havana.

With three weeks left until Inauguration Day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo must decide whether to sign off on the plan, according
to two U.S. officials, a move that would also serve as a thank you to Cuban-Americans and other anti-communist Latinos in Florida
who strongly supported President Trump and his fellow Republicans in the November election.

It is unclear whether Mr. Pompeo has decided to move ahead with the designation. But Democrats and foreign policy experts believe
that Mr. Trump and his senior officials are eager to find ways of constraining President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s initial months in
office and to make it more difficult for Mr. Biden to reverse Trump-era policies abroad.

The Biden administration could move quickly to take Cuba back off the list. But doing so would require more than the stroke of a
presidential pen. The State Department would have to conduct a formal review, a process that might take several months.

A State Department spokeswoman said the agency does not discuss “deliberations or potential deliberations” regarding terrorism
designations. The White House did not provide a comment.

The State Department removed Cuba from its list of terrorism sponsors in 2015, after President Barack Obama announced the
normalization of relations between Washington and Havana for the first time since the country’s 1959 communist revolution.
Mr. Trump denounced the agreement as “terrible and misguided” and has rolled back many of its provisions. As a candidate, Mr.
Biden pledged to again change American policy, saying he would “promptly reverse the failed Trump policies that have inflicted harm
on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights.”

— Michael Crowley, Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt

Jon Ossoff became a symbol of Democratic resistance in his 2017 election. Now his party faces another
test.
In early 2017, Angelika Kausche was frustrated, demoralized and looking for somewhere — or someone — to help her channel the rage
she had recently expressed at the Women’s March.

Then Jon Ossoff appeared. A political newcomer, he announced his congressional bid two weeks before President Trump’s
inauguration. He seemed even younger than his 29 years, dressed in suits that might have fit him on his high school graduation day.
Liberal mothers in the Georgia suburbs joked that he would make a dream son-in-law, but they settled on him as a symbol of the
growing Democratic resistance to the Trump administration.

Ms. Kausche, 58, who taught business communication and lived in the Atlanta suburbs, had never participated in a political campaign
since moving to the United States from Germany decades earlier and had never seen herself as particularly political.

But soon she was joining other suburban women volunteering, organizing, knocking on doors and planning events for Mr. Ossoff’s
special election campaign to replace Tom Price after he was tapped by Mr. Trump to be secretary of health and human services.

Since then, Ms. Kausche herself flipped her traditionally red suburban district when she won a seat in the Georgia House of
Representatives in 2018.

“I always tell Jon, it’s all his fault,” Ms. Kausche said.

Much rides on whether Mr. Ossoff wins the race next month, one of two in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate and the
scope of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s early agenda as president. Yet Mr. Ossoff’s bid is also a symbolic coda of the Trump era. His first
congressional race helped mobilize a generation of grass-roots activists, offering disheartened progressives a way to channel their
fury against the new administration into electoral opposition.

Now, as Mr. Ossoff runs again, the Democratic activism that grew alongside his political career faces its own moment of reckoning:
What happens to the anti-Trump movement now that Mr. Trump has been defeated?

Mr. Ossoff frames the predicament in optimistic terms: “The opportunity that we have is to ensure that this grass-roots political
movement that emerged as opposition to Trumpism is nurtured and sustained and grown to stand for a positive vision and a positive
policy agenda,” he said in a recent interview.

— Lisa Lerer and Reid J. Epstein