LIVE: Biden Signs the $1.9 Trillion Covid Stimulus Into Law in the Oval Office

(Mar. 11) Watch live as President Joe Biden on Thursday signs the $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief bill into law, capping his first major legislative achievement and allowing aid to flow to tens of millions of individuals, businesses and local governments.

The White House announced Biden will sign the bill in an Oval Office ceremony at 1:30 p.m. alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, one day sooner than expected. Congress sent the measure to Biden’s desk on Wednesday after the House passed it on a 220-to-211 vote along party lines. No Republicans supported the bill in the Senate either.

Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, said the bill was sent to the White House on Wednesday night, so the decision was made to move up the signing from Friday. He said a separate ceremony would take place on Friday with congressional leaders.

“We want to move as fast as possible,” he tweeted.

By advancing the signing, Biden will be able to tout the benefits of the new law during his prime-time address to the nation later Thursday to mark the one-year anniversary of the day the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, and Covid-19 restrictions sent the U.S. into an economy-crushing lockdown.

The relief bill’s passage marked a significant political victory for the new president, who showed his command over a Democratic Party that controls Congress by razor-thin margins. Biden engaged in tough negotiations in the Senate, where he served for close to four decades, to win approval for the measure during a two-month long push to pass it into law.

Biden’s attention will now turn to a longer-term recovery package featuring infrastructure and climate measures that could cost trillions of dollars more -- a program he touted during his 2020 campaign as crucial to pull the U.S. out of its pandemic-triggered recession. But the partisan divisions over the relief bill show the difficult road he faces in passing the next bill into law.

Under the just-passed law, most Americans will begin receiving $1,400 direct payments, with disbursal starting within days. The measure provides child-tax credits and new health-insurance subsidies while extending a $300 per week supplemental unemployment benefit into September. State and local governments will get more than $360 billion, cash-strapped union pension funds get a rescue, schools are set to receive money to speed re-opening and funds will go to ramp up vaccinations.

Democrats said the plan provides crucial relief, while Republicans blasted it for what they said was its excessive cost and focus on liberal priorities rather than direct pandemic assistance.

The Biden administration and Democrats are launching a campaign to tout the bill, including events headlined by the president, vice president and cabinet secretaries, White House deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a Wednesday memo.

Biden will visit the Philadelphia suburbs next Tuesday, while Harris plans to travel to Las Vegas and Denver on Monday and Tuesday, according to the White House. Biden and Harris plan to travel to Georgia next Friday.

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