Last April, at the height of the first wave of the pandemic that's gone on to kill over half a million Americans, Congress passed a stimulus bill that allotted $1200 checks to most Americans making under $75 thousand per year.
But as the Americans to whom the checks were promised still struggled to make ends meet, former President Donald Trump faced backlash for further delaying them in order to ensure that his name appeared on the checks. For those who received direct deposits, Trump sent a letter making sure to credit himself with the long-awaited relief.
Now, the Democratic-led House of Representatives is set to pass the Senate version of the latest pandemic relief package—the American Rescue Plan—after months of wrangling.
The plan will include $1400 checks to millions of Americans—but they won't be signed by President Joe Biden.
When asked if Biden would follow Trump's precedent of delaying the checks to add his own signature, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had a heartening response.
Watch below.
Psaki said:
"We are doing everything in our power to expedite the payments and not delay them, which is why the president's name will not appear on the memo line of this round of stimulus checks. ... This is not about him. This is about the American people getting relief."
Many found the news to be a welcome change to the vanity displayed by Trump.
Twitter users claimed to know why Biden arrived at that decision.
Psaki alerted the White House correspondents that the checks would be signed by "a career official at the Bureau of Fiscal Service."
