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Trump denied he wanted his name on stimulus checks. Here's how it happened.
Politics
Trump denied he wanted his name on stimulus checks. Here’s how it happened.
By Toluse Olorunnipa and Lisa Rein
April 15, 2020 at 7:43 p.m. EDT
When President Trump publicly denied on April 3 that he wanted his signature on stimulus checks that would be sent to millions of Americans struggling amid a pandemic, officials in the Treasury Department were already secretly working on a plan to get the president’s name on the payments.
Trump, who was reportedly musing about placing his signature on the checks as early as late March, defended the unprecedented move Wednesday.
“I don’t know too much about it. But I understand my name is there,” Trump said. “I don’t know where they’re going, how they’re going. I do understand it’s not delaying anything, and I’m satisfied with that. I don’t imagine it’s a big deal. I’m sure people will be very happy to get a big, fat, beautiful check and my name is on it.”
The effort to put Trump’s name on millions of “Economic Impact Payment” checks began shortly after the president on March 27 signed the bipartisan $2 trillion legislation aimed at stemming the financial fallout from a global pandemic that has halted much of the economy. It will be the first time a president’s name appears on an Internal Revenue Service disbursement.
{snip}
On Wednesday, working remotely on laptops in their homes across the country, the computer code developers and testers on the IRS’s technology teams raced to program the agency’s mainframe computers to add the president’s name to the template for millions of paper stimulus checks.
They’re the first batch to be issued to Americans whose banking information the IRS does not have. With many Americans struggling to pay their bills, making the change and testing the new system must be done under a time crunch. The process is supposed to start on Thursday. The IRS and the Treasury Department said the last-minute change would not delay the payments.
{snip}
Josh Dawsey and Erica Werner contributed to this report.
Toluse Olorunnipa
Toluse "Tolu" Olorunnipa is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. He joined The Post in 2019, after five years at Bloomberg News, where he reported on politics and policy from Washington and Florida. Follow https://twitter.com/ToluseO
Lisa Rein
Lisa Rein covers federal agencies and the management of government in the Trump adminstration. At The Washington Post, she has written about the federal workforce; state politics and government in Annapolis, and in Richmond; local government in Fairfax County, Va. and the redevelopment of Washington and its neighborhoods. Follow https://twitter.com/Reinlwapo
Trump denied he wanted his name on stimulus checks. Here’s how it happened.
By Toluse Olorunnipa and Lisa Rein
April 15, 2020 at 7:43 p.m. EDT
When President Trump publicly denied on April 3 that he wanted his signature on stimulus checks that would be sent to millions of Americans struggling amid a pandemic, officials in the Treasury Department were already secretly working on a plan to get the president’s name on the payments.
Trump, who was reportedly musing about placing his signature on the checks as early as late March, defended the unprecedented move Wednesday.
“I don’t know too much about it. But I understand my name is there,” Trump said. “I don’t know where they’re going, how they’re going. I do understand it’s not delaying anything, and I’m satisfied with that. I don’t imagine it’s a big deal. I’m sure people will be very happy to get a big, fat, beautiful check and my name is on it.”
The effort to put Trump’s name on millions of “Economic Impact Payment” checks began shortly after the president on March 27 signed the bipartisan $2 trillion legislation aimed at stemming the financial fallout from a global pandemic that has halted much of the economy. It will be the first time a president’s name appears on an Internal Revenue Service disbursement.
{snip}
On Wednesday, working remotely on laptops in their homes across the country, the computer code developers and testers on the IRS’s technology teams raced to program the agency’s mainframe computers to add the president’s name to the template for millions of paper stimulus checks.
They’re the first batch to be issued to Americans whose banking information the IRS does not have. With many Americans struggling to pay their bills, making the change and testing the new system must be done under a time crunch. The process is supposed to start on Thursday. The IRS and the Treasury Department said the last-minute change would not delay the payments.
{snip}
Josh Dawsey and Erica Werner contributed to this report.
Toluse Olorunnipa
Toluse "Tolu" Olorunnipa is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. He joined The Post in 2019, after five years at Bloomberg News, where he reported on politics and policy from Washington and Florida. Follow https://twitter.com/ToluseO
Lisa Rein
Lisa Rein covers federal agencies and the management of government in the Trump adminstration. At The Washington Post, she has written about the federal workforce; state politics and government in Annapolis, and in Richmond; local government in Fairfax County, Va. and the redevelopment of Washington and its neighborhoods. Follow https://twitter.com/Reinlwapo
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