Trump vows veto over base renaming

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump formally threatened to veto a $740 billion military spending bill Tuesday hours before the House passed the legislation by a veto-proof majority, heralding a potential showdown between the White House and Congress over a bipartisan effort to rename several Army posts that commemorate Confederate generals.

The president’s threat — and House lawmakers’ response — is a moment of reckoning for Senate Republican leaders, who must decide whether to allow votes on key bipartisan modifications to their version of the annual defense bill that might incur a similar veto warning, or attempt to tailor their legislation to stay closer in line with Trump’s wishes.

In a statement, the White House listed several provisions of the House’s legislation that the president considers objectionable, chief among them a directive to the Pentagon to rename the 10 bases within a year. While avoiding mention of the Confederacy, White House advisers nevertheless called the order “part of a sustained effort to erase from the history of the Nation those who do not meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct” and an attempt “to rewrite history and to displace the enduring legacy of the American Revolution with an ever-shifting standard of conduct.”

Senators are expected to vote on their bill next week. But in the meantime, they are waiting on leaders in that chamber — particularly Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla. — to indicate whether there will be votes on a series of proposed amendments.

Representatives for Inhofe did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Before any bill is sent to the president’s desk, the Senate and the House must work their separate versions into one product that can pass both chambers.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon banned displays of Confederate flags at military installations. The House’s defense bill seeks to expand that ban in statute to cover all Confederate symbols displayed on military facilities, except in museums and similar settings.