Trump threatens to 'VETO' massive spending bill, which would push government into another shutdown

Advertisement
Trump threatens to 'VETO' massive spending bill, which would push government into another shutdown

donald trump

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Advertisement
  • President Donald Trump threatened to veto the omnibus spending bill in a tweet on Friday.
  • The bill passed the House and Senate on Thursday, a day before the deadline for a government shutdown.
  • If Trump does veto the bill, it almost certainly leaves no time for Congress to rework the bill before a shutdown.

President Donald Trump threatened to veto the massive $1.3 trillion omnibus funding bill, which would effectively push the federal government into its third shutdown this year.

"I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded," Trump tweeted.

The bill was passed by the House and Senate on Thursday, just a day before funding for the federal government was set to expire.

If Trump vetoes the bill, it would almost certainly not give Congress enough time to rework the bill and pass it before the shutdown went into effect.

Advertisement

Trump appeared to take issue with the fact that the spending bill does not include any funds for his promised wall along the US-Mexico border. The current bill only allocates funds to construct new fencing similar to what exists along the border currently, as well as replace some existing fence.

According to multiple reports, congressional leaders and the White House were trying to reach a deal in the run up to the spending bill's release that would have traded border wall funding for a codification of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program.

The DACA program protects from deportation nearly 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who arrived in the US as minors. Trump ended the program in September, but gave Congress until March to pass a law to protect the DACA recipients. A federal judge recently blocked the Trump administration from ending the program, so the deadline was pushed back for now.

Talks over a deal fell apart on Tuesday after the Trump administration refused to include a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, instead offering to extend the current protections for 3 years. In exchange, Democrats were reportedly set to give Trump the full $25 billion that the administration requested for the wall.

Some Republicans who were dissatisfied with the level of spending in the omnibus bill encouraged the president to go through with the veto.

Advertisement

"Please do, Mr. President. I am just down the street and will bring you a pen," Sen. Bob Corker tweeted. "The spending levels without any offsets are grotesque, throwing all of our children under the bus. Totally irresponsible."

This is a developing story, check back for updates.

{{}}