Trump’s Orders on Coronavirus Relief Create Confusion – The New York Times

But there was some acknowledgment that the measures could face legal challenges and were not as potent as congressional action.

A number of critical provisions are also left unaddressed without a broader deal, including a lapsed federal program for small businesses, another round of stimulus checks, aid to schools confronting the beginning of the academic year and funds for state and local governments reeling from the toll of the pandemic.

“The downside of executive orders is you can’t address some of the small business incidents that are there,” Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, said in a pretaped interview that aired Sunday on Gray Television. “You can’t necessarily get direct payments, because it has to do with appropriations. That’s something that the president doesn’t have the ability to do.”

The White House lawyers had been crafting the executive actions over the past two weeks. By Friday, after the talks remained at a stalemate, it became clear that they would need to move forward with the plan. Mr. Trump was eager to sign the payroll tax order on Friday evening, according to a senior administration official, but after his legal team said it was not yet ready, he opted to do so on Saturday at his Bedminster golf club.

Officials in recent days had been debating which measures to employ, with Mr. Mnuchin resistant to the payroll tax suspension and Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, arguing in support of it, according to a senior administration official. Although White House officials believe the executive actions have given Mr. Trump the upper hand, his advisers continue to say that more support for schools and another round of stimulus checks are needed to keep the economic recovery on track.

Among the most complicated measures is the president’s intention to revive lapsed weekly federal unemployment payments of $600 through the repurposing of other federal funds, including from a pot of disaster relief aid, to create a $400-a-week bonus payment. That payment, however, is contingent on states providing $100 per week and establishing an entirely new program — called a “lost wages assistance program” — to distribute the aid.

But states are also facing plunging revenues because of the pandemic. They have already struggled to allocate the original $600 payment because of overwhelmed and often antiquated systems, and some experts warn that the revised benefit could last for only five weeks.

Mr. Trump responded on Sunday to criticism of the $100 requirement. “It will depend on the state,” he said. “They’ll make an application. We’ll look at it and make a decision. It may be they’ll pay nothing in some instances.”

The president went golfing on Saturday with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who had tried to nudge the president toward higher weekly subsidies to supplant lost income. Mr. Trump joked that they would simply have to run the printing presses faster to make up the additional amount it would cost, a person familiar with the discussion said.

Mr. Kudlow argued that states would be able to support the demand for $100 a week given that billions of dollars allocated in the $2.2 trillion stimulus law in March had not yet been spent. But when pressed during an interview on CNN, he acknowledged that it remained unclear how much states would be able to provide and when those benefits would be distributed.

While Mr. Mnuchin said on Sunday that states could waive the $100 fee and payments could start “immediately,” Mr. Kudlow said the payments could take a few weeks.

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, said he was studying whether his state government could afford to pay an extra $100 a week for unemployment insurance as required by Mr. Trump’s latest order.

“The answer is, ‘I don’t know,’” Mr. DeWine said.

He urged Congress to reach a deal that would provide a much bolder relief package, saying that “they really need to do it. They need to pull together.”

The effect the moves will have on the economy appears to be meager compared with the broader package that was under discussion, and it comes as job growth is already showing signs of slowing. The need for additional fiscal support from the government is clear, economists say, despite the fact that Democrats and Republicans are divided on how much money is needed and where to deploy it.

“Another support package is really incredibly important,” Charles Evans, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Mr. Trump’s move to curb evictions also remains murky, given that his directive does not outright ban them but instead would require agency leaders to review the necessity of such a moratorium and examine whether additional federal funds were available to provide rental assistance.

It also remains unclear whether Mr. Trump’s decision to suspend the payroll tax through December, deferring payments, would have any immediate effect. His push to suspend the tax has faced significant objections from both parties, with Senate Republicans ultimately leaving out the proposal altogether in the $1 trillion legislation they unveiled late last month.

Many companies are likely to decline to stop withholding money for payroll taxes since it is uncertain that they will ever be waived. But Mr. Mnuchin rejected suggestions from Democrats that deferring payroll taxes would lead to cuts in Social Security or Medicare benefits. The money that supports those programs would be backstopped by a transfer from the Treasury general fund, he said.

Still, he acknowledged that the payroll taxes would eventually have to be repaid unless Mr. Trump could reach a deal on legislation that would allow them to be waived or forgiven — an unlikely scenario — and that the deficit would continue to swell.

“We’ll deal with the budget deficit when we get the economy back to where it was before,” Mr. Mnuchin said.

Democrats have charged that Mr. Trump’s plans to cut or forgive delayed payments of the payroll tax, which funds Social Security and Medicare, could endanger the long-term health of those programs. By depriving the government of payroll tax funds, the move could mean Mr. Trump’s order contradicts his repeated pledge to leave Social Security untouched — which prompted harsh criticism from former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee.

“Unable to deliver for the American people in a time of crisis, Donald Trump offered a series of half-baked measures today,” Mr. Biden said in a statement on Saturday. “He is putting Social Security at grave risk at a time when seniors are suffering the overwhelming impact of a pandemic he has failed to get under control. And make no mistake: Donald Trump said today that if he is re-elected, he will defund Social Security.”

The president’s top aides also strained to defend his sweeping use of executive authority, which Mr. Trump derided when used by his predecessor, President Barack Obama.

Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Congress left the president with no choice but to resort to executive orders and memorandum.

“The Lord and the Founding Fathers created executive orders because of partisan bickering and divided government,” Mr. Navarro said.

Maggie Haberman and Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting.