At signing, Trump mum on McCain
President doesn’t mention namesake of $716B defense bill.
President Donald Trump has signed a $716 billion defense policy bill named for John McCain after delivering remarks that failed to mention the ailing senator, who has been among the president’s harshest Republican critics.
The measure Tr u mp signed Monday at New York’s Fort Drum will boost military pay by 2.6 percent, the largest hike in nine years.
The bill weakens a bid to clamp down on Chinese telecom company ZTE. It allows Trump to waive sanctions against countries that bought Russian weapons and now want to buy U.S. military equipment. The bill provides no money for Trump’s requested Space Force but authorizes the military parade he wants in Washington in November.
The measure also addresses child-on-child sexual assault at U.S. military bases world- wide. The issue was revealed this spring in an Associated Press investigation.
McCain, a former GOP presidential nominee, Vietnam War hero and POW, is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a supporter of most of the priorities contained in the legislation.
The bill setting policy priorities for the Pentagon for the coming year is formally named the “John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2019.”
McCain, 81, has been mostly absent from the Senate this year as he is undergoing treatment for brain cancer. He has kept up his criticism of the president from his Arizona home, includ- ing calling Trump’s performance alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin at last month’s summit in Helsinki “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”
Trump frequently publicly disparages McCain, although usually not by name. Instead, he recounts in detail how McCain voted against the Senate Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act 13 months ago.
McCain helped kill the GOP bill with a thumbs-down vote.
The overwhelmingly bipartisan spending plan, which was approved by the Senate in June on a 85-to-10 vote, represents an $82 billion increase over the current year. The 2019 figure is one of the biggest defense budgets in modern American history despite concerns from some economists and lawmakers about the rising federal deficit.
The military has called the additional funding necessary to improve the response to international crises.
About 17 percent of America’s $4 trillion federal budget goes to the military, according to the Congressional Budget Office.