Sen. Lindsey Graham: Next Congress Should Vote on Standalone Bill on $2,000 Payments

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) speaks in Washington on Oct. 14, 2020. Susan Walsh/Pool/AP Photo

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said a standalone bill that approves $2,000 stimulus payments should be passed during the next session of Congress.

“I'd like a stand-alone vote in the new Congress on the $2,000 check,” the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee told Fox News on Thursday. “We have seven Republicans who have already said they would vote for it. We need five more.”

Graham said that liability protections for social media firms like Facebook and Twitter should be repealed. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

Graham, however, said that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should provide a “standalone vote in the new Congress after Jan. 3 on all three measures,” which would include the $2,000 payment bill, repealing Section 230, and creating a commission to investigate election fraud.

McConnell earlier this week rolled all three provisions into one bill. Democrats, who said they would support only the $2,000 stimulus payment bill, remarked that McConnell’s bill has no chance of passing the Senate as no Democrats would support it.

Speaking to Fox News, Graham said that most Republicans in the Senate don’t want to pass the $2,000 stimulus payment bill because it would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the Treasury’s debt. However, President Donald Trump specifically called for the $2,000 payments last week, saying that it wasn’t the fault of Americans, but the fault of the Chinese Communist Party for failing to provide transparency when COVID-19 spread in China early in 2020.

“They’re not wrong to be concerned about the expense,” Graham said. “But I’ve seen with my own eyes the destruction of small businesses in South Carolina ... I think a family of four, if they got $8,000, it would help our economy. I think they need the $8,000.”

Meanwhile, Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.), who are facing runoff elections next week, have both supported the stimulus payment bill. Trump is scheduled to hold a rally for the Senate runoff election, where he will promote both Perdue and Loeffler.

“If we lose the Senate, and (Democrats) have control of the House and the Senate and the White House, they’re going to send over a monster of a bill, and will make this bill look cheap,” added Graham to Fox News. “If we lose Georgia, everything goes by the wayside.”

On the Senate floor Thursday, Republicans again blocked a request for unanimous consent after it was proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). McConnell later said Democrats are attempting to pass a bill that provides “socialism for the rich.”