Trump suggests freezing evictions and payroll-tax collection through executive orders

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President Donald Trump on Monday raised the possibility of using executive orders to suspend evictions and freeze the collection of payroll taxes, as Democrats and Republicans reported slow progress in their negotiations over another big coronavirus aid package.

“I don’t want people to be evicted,” Trump said, while speaking at a news conference on Monday evening. He said it’s “not their fault” that “they’re thrown out viciously.”

“They oftentimes will go to a shelter with tremendous numbers of other people, and the virus will spread, and we don’t want that.”

He added that he could suspend the collection of payroll taxes through executive order.

“So we’ll be talking about that, but we’re having a very good discussion with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” the president said, referring to the top Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate.

While March’s $2 trillion CARES Act established a temporary moratorium on evictions for all rental units that were backed by some form of federally financing, that moratorium ended last month.

Trump has been pushing for a payroll-tax cut, but hardly any GOP senators have supported the idea.

Earlier Monday, the president suggested the U.S. government should get part of the proceeds of any sale of Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok, and he signed an executive order that aims to prevent federal agencies from replacing U.S. workers with overseas staff.

U.S. stocks SPX, 0.22% DJIA, 0.49% closed higher Monday as investors tracked the talks over the next aid package, while also digesting better-than-expected readings on manufacturing.

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