Fox News contributor and The Dispatch co-founder Stephen Hayes said Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s demands on the stimulus negotiations and covid relief aren’t so much about those policy issues as his personal gripes about the 2020 election.

The president has called for $2000 checks to Americans struggling during the pandemic — something many Democrats and some Republicans support — but he has also been very focused on conspiracy theories about the election and has even roped his personal gripes about Twitter into his veto of the National Defense Authorization Act — demanding repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Hayes said on Special Report that Mitch McConnell’s gambit to introduce a bill that would give Americans those $2000 checks but would also include Section 230 repeal was him “cleverly adding poison pills… that track exactly with what President Trump said that he wanted.”

He added that the fight here is not really about policy:

“This is much more about Republicans having to respond to a temper tantrum from the president who’s trying to steal an election, basically. If you look at what President Trump is saying, this is about Donald Trump, it’s not about the future of the country. It’s not about the future of the Republican party. It’s not even really about covid relief. If relief were so urgent, one suspects that the president would’ve made this happen months and months ago.”

Some of the political calculus going on, Hayes noted at one point, is some Republicans having an “increasing willingness to distance themselves from Donald Trump as it becomes clearer he’s not going to be the one who’s controlling their immediate political future.”

You can watch above, via Fox News.

The post Stephen Hayes: Trump's Complaints Aren't Really About Policy, But About Himself and His 'Tantrum' to Steal Election first appeared on Mediaite.

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