Donald Trump looks sad in front of Mike Pence and the White House seal.

Donald Trump Seems to Want Coronavirus Bailout Money for His Own Company

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On Sunday, Senate Republicans failed to get the votes needed to pass their incredibly shady coronavirus relief package. Lawmakers have been debating the specifics of the package since Thursday and the version Mitch McConnell and other Republicans landed on is a massive $1.8 trillion stimulus plan that would include direct payments to millions of people, some protections for small businesses, and an increase in unemployment benefits. But it would also include $500 billion for the Treasury Department to disperse however it wants, with little to no oversight or transparency.

McConnell and Republicans obviously blamed Democrats for keeping money out of Americans’ pockets.

“The notion that we have time to play games here with the American economy and the American people is utterly absurd,” McConnell said following the vote. “The American people expect us to act tomorrow, and I want everybody to fully understand if we aren’t able to act tomorrow, it will be because of our colleagues on the other side continuing to dicker when the country expects us to come together.”

Democrats, however, say they just don’t want to create a “slush fund” for billionaires and corporations.

That concern isn’t unfounded. In addition to Republicans’ endless precedent of putting corporations above people and the extremely wealthy above everyone else, Donald Trump himself wouldn’t even commit to making sure that relief money wouldn’t go to his own company, the Trump Organization. Why? Because back when he declared he would refuse his presidential salary, we didn’t say “thank you” enough.

Trump’s hotels and golf clubs are not doing too well right now. This weekend, he closed Mar-a-Lago, where he has spent more than 100 days of his presidency and which had recently become a hub for spreading the coronavirus to foreign dignitaries.

There are a lot of businesses that are in jeopardy and need money this minute. Employees are being laid off (and losing their healthcare in addition to their income) and small businesses are struggling to stay afloat. If Trump’s treasury secretary has the ability to dole out $500 billion to businesses in need without disclosing the recipients to the public, what are the chances other businesses, even other hotel chains, will receive as much as the Trump Organization?

Trump says we should just “see what happens.”

(image: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.