President Donald Trump on Sunday finally signed the bipartisan pandemic relief package after his days of complaining about the bill allowed enhanced unemployment benefits to expire.
While appearing on CNN, Washington Post reporter Toluse Olorunnipa argued that Trump's needless delay in signing the bill was yet another example of the president wanting to take credit for ending a crisis that he created.
" This is like a hostage negotiation where President Trump is both the kidnapper and he wants to be the hero who comes in and saves the hostage at the end," he said. "It doesn't quite work that way in Congress."
Olorunnipa also said that it was likely that the president torpedoed any chance of getting broad bipartisan support for sending out $2,000 checks to Americans.
"There are a lot of Republican senators who are unhappy with the way that the president handled himself," he explained. "They are unlikely to go out on a limb and change their votes and their opinion about these $2,000 checks to appease him after he did not acknowledge them and he did not work with them during the actual debate."
CNN host Alisyn Camerota then commented that Trump is "the arsonist putting out the fire."
Watch the video below.
