Claim: Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden said at the Town Hall on ABC Thursday that President Donald Trump took no action when the Congressional authorization for enhanced unemployment benefits expired this summer.
“When the first round of money for enhanced unemployment went by, he didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything,” Biden said.
Verdict: FALSE.
Trump initially called on Congress to renew the enhanced unemployment benefits. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Democrats refused to do so, in what now appears to be a strategy of denying any legislative accomplishments to the Trump administration, Trump signed an executive order extending enhanced unemployment benefits and suspending the collection of payroll taxes. In effect, Trump raised the aid available by extending it to both the employed and unemployed.