I never liked reality television shows that didn’t involve cute animals, like “Dr. Chris: Pet Vet.” But now we’re all stuck in one. I am not happy.

Along with yesterday’s shameful and disgraceful pardons, Trump apparently threw a fit over the frustrating relief bill and threatened to not sign it. Jordan Weissmann writes at Slate that Trump’s threat revealed he has no clue what the bill is.

So Donald Trump took a breather from plotting history’s most ineffectual coup on Tuesday night in order to toss a grenade into Washington’s holiday plans, tweeting a surprise video in which he announced he did not support the crucial coronavirus relief bill Congress passed earlier this week. Calling the legislation a “disgrace,” he complained that the $600 checks it included for most households were “ridiculously low” and asked Congress to increase them to $2,000.

It would have been nice if he’d done that several days ago.

Echoing deceptive criticisms that have circulated online over the past couple of days, Trump also criticized the coronavirus package for including unrelated spending like foreign aid to Egypt and Belize as well as funding for Asian carp removal. “It’s called the COVID relief bill, but it has almost nothing to do with COVID,“ he said. This is blatantly misleading; what actually happened is that for procedural reasons Congress inserted the coronavirus deal into a larger end-of-the-year spending bill necessary to keep the government open, which contains money for basic government efforts like fishery management. Unfortunately, our president is fundamentally a low-information Twitter and Fox News junkie, and according to the Washington Post, some of his aides who disliked the bill used the foreign provisions “as a way to turn Trump against the measure, knowing that American money going to other countries raises the president’s ire.” History, as usual, is playing out as farce.

My sense of things is that Trump’s cognitive abilities have deteriorated since the election, and of course they weren’t that great before the election. I wouldn’t call this a psychotic break; it’s more like dementia mixed with paranoia.

Sorry you killed the impeachment now, Mitch? See also Jonathan Chait, Trump Has Reached the ‘Railing Against Mike Pence’ Bunker Phase.

So how much damage can Trump do? Back to Jordan Weissmann.

In theory, lawmakers passed the COVID relief and government funding bill with enough votes to override a veto from the president. The problem is that it appears Trump could kill the legislation through a so-called pocket veto, which cannot be overturned, simply by choosing not to sign it before Congress ends its term in January. The next House and Senate would have to start over with a new bill, which could be a lengthy process.

This would not have been a concern if Capitol Hill had actually gotten its act together and sealed a relief deal earlier. Under Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution, the president has 10 days, not including Sundays—so basically the 18^th century equivalent of 10 business days—from the time he receives a bill to either sign or veto it. After that period, the legislation automatically becomes law unless Congress has already adjourned, in which case the bill dies. The problem is that the current Congress is set to end by noon on Jan. 3, meaning that even if lawmakers sent him the bill tomorrow, they will have to adjourn before the 10-day window runs out. Trump can kill the bill permanently without lifting a finger while he sits in bed at Mar-a-Lago binging on Newsmax. (And no, Congress can’t delay the end of its term; that would require passing a law.)

Yes, this would be just the time to fail to pass a spending bill and shut down the government. Greg Sargent:

Trump’s threat not to sign the deal makes a government shutdown more likely, and it puts congressional Republicans who supported it in a terrible spot. As one GOP observer noted, Trump “just pulled down the pants of every Republican who voted for it.”

There might be a silver lining to this, eventually, which is that it could help Democrats in the Georgia runoff elections.

Republican Senate candidates Perdue and Loeffler have run on being loyal to Trump and have refused to acknowledge that he lost the election. Will they now support the $2,000? Or go against Trump and stick with $600?

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi seized on Trump’s announcement to call for a stand-alone bill that would provide the $2,000 direct payment. The House plans to bring it up tomorrow, Christmas Eve.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, in a letter to Democrats, challenged Republicans to block the measures and said top Democrats were waiting to hear from Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, to see if there would be an objection from a House Republican. Any lawmaker willing to return to Washington in person can block the bill from moving forward by denying unanimous consent.

Make ’em be on the record, in other words.

Within minutes of Mr. Trump’s public opposition to the bill, Ms. Pelosi declared her agreement with the president’s call for $2,000 checks, as did Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, and some of Congress’s most liberal members.

“We need to send a clean bill with just $2,000 survival checks and a separate spending/covid relief bill,” Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and a frequent target of Mr. Trump’s ire, wrote Tuesday evening on Twitter, adding, “since Trump wants to sign a bill with survival checks, let’s send one to his desk right away.”

Of course, this measure will probably die in the Senate, because Mitch. But this is a great opportunity for Democrats to show America that Republicans killed it. And again, this has put Republicans in a real box.

The two Republican candidates in Georgia, Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, were already proclaiming passage of the coronavirus relief bill as a triumph, but they have also pledged fealty to the president, who called the bill a “disgrace.”

Still, a number of Republicans are likely to resist increasing the amount of direct payments after months of insisting that a relief package should be as small as possible. In the days before a bipartisan deal was struck, Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, blocked attempts to raise the payments to $1,200.

Unemployment benefits are about to expire. Evictions are going to start. People are desperate. Mnuchin has been prancing around saying that people could start getting their $600 next week, but now that’s all in the crapper. Things could get really ugly really fast.

“Most working Americans don’t need a check right now,” said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, on “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning. “It’s a really foolish, egg-headed left-wing socialist idea to pass out free money to people.”

If this is a reality TV show, and we have to vote somebody off the island, let’s make it Kentucky.