Pandemic Stimulus Checks Expected to Be Delayed to Add President Donald Trump's Name to the Memo Line

The Treasury Department is ordering President Donald Trump‘s name printed on stimulus checks from the Internal Revenue Service amid the global health crisis, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday (April 14).

The process of adding Trump‘s name to the checks “is expected to slow their delivery by several days, senior agency officials said.”

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The decision means that the $1,200 paper checks scheduled to be sent to 70 million Americans will read “President Donald J. Trump” on the left side in the memo line of the payment. It will also be the first time a president’s name appears on an IRS disbursement.

“Trump had privately suggested to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversees the IRS, to allow the president to formally sign the checks, according to three administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly,” the Washington Post also reported.

“The decision to have the paper checks bear Trump’s name, in the works for weeks, according to a Treasury official, was announced early Tuesday to the IRS’s information technology team. The team, working from home, is now racing to implement a programming change that two senior IRS officials said will probably lead to a delay in issuing the first batch of paper checks. They are scheduled to be sent Thursday to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service for printing and issuing.”

That said, a representative for the Treasury Department denied any delay and said the plan was always to issue the checks next week.

“Economic Impact Payment checks are scheduled to go out on time and exactly as planned — there is absolutely no delay whatsoever,” the representative said in a written statement.

“In fact, we expect the first checks to be in the mail early next week which is well in advance of when the first checks went out in 2008 and well in advance of initial estimates.”

One celebrity recently came out in support of Trump‘s pandemic response, saying he’s doing a “good job.”