Biden breaks promise to deliver $2,000 checks to Americans

The Biden administration now plans on sending $1,400 stimulus checks to Americans, breaking promises made by then-President-Elect Joe Biden while campaigning for Georgia Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

"If you send Jon and the Reverend to Washington, those $2,000 checks will go out the door," Biden said in early January. "And if you send Sens. Perdue and Loeffler back to Washington, those checks will never get there. It's just that simple. The power is literally in your hands."

"Put an end to the block in Washington on that $2,000 stimulus check, that money that will go out the door immediately to people who are in real trouble," Biden said in a separate campaign event.

Many considered the subsequent victories of Ossoff and Warnock to be in part a result of the promise to deliver a larger stimulus check than the $600 passed in the final weeks of the Trump administration.

While the $1,400 checks fall short of the $2,000 promised, the Biden administration rationalized the broken promise by insisting that in total, the stimulus checks will add up to $2,000.

"There was $600 payments, as you know, in the $900 billion package that passed in December. This is $1,400, together that's $2,000, so it would be delivering on the promise [Biden] made," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a press conference on Wednesday.

Delivering $1,400 checks on top of the previous $600 is not the promise that Biden made, however.

Ossoff and Warnock attained narrow victories in their Senate races against two incumbent Republicans, handing the Democrats a narrow majority in the Senate.