With the deadline for a government shutdown looming, President Donald Trump said that he is considering a veto of the $1.3 trillion budget bill which was just approved by the House and Senate.
“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,” the president wrote on Twitter.
With assurances from Mulvaney and Republican leaders that Trump would sign the bill, most lawmakers had already left Washington for a two-week recess. If Trump doesn’t sign the bill by midnight on Friday, the government’s funding will expire.
The bill passed by the House on Thursday and the Senate early on Friday includes only $1.6 billion in funding for a border wall with Mexico, a signature promise that Trump campaigned on. The entire project is estimated to cost $33 billion. The provision also prohibits construction of the kind of structure that Trump demanded.
Trump has long reached out to Democrats to make a deal which would fund the wall in exchange for a concession for the 800,000 participants of the Obama-era DACA program, which granted a temporary legal status to aliens who entered the country illegally as minors. Trump ended the program in September but has offered to revive it if the Democrats agree to fund the wall and other immigration enforcement priorities.
“DACA was abandoned by the Democrats. Very unfair to them! Would have been tied to desperately needed Wall,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Friday, one hour prior to announcing that he is considering a veto.
If Trump vetoes the bill, Congress could choose to override the veto. The House and Senate would require two-thirds of lawmakers to do so. The bill passed with less than two-thirds in both the House and Senate.
Some conservative lawmakers applauded the president’s intention to veto.
“Please do, Mr. President. I am just down the street and will bring you a pen,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) wrote on Twitter. “The spending levels without any offsets are grotesque, throwing all of our children under the bus. Totally irresponsible.”
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