Trump signs spending bill, after a little drama
Ultimately, threats to veto were empty
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump jolted Washington on Friday when he began the day tweeting that he might veto a massive spending bill needed to prevent a government shutdown — and then appearing in front of cameras five hours later to say that he had signed the legislation.
Trump ripped into the $1.3 trillion funding package in remarks at the White House shortly after 1 p.m., calling it a “ridiculous situation,” filled with overspending yet lacking enough money for his border wall or a deal to resolve the future of young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers. He said he was only signing the bill because it contained a boost for the military.
“I looked very seriously at the veto,” Trump told reporters. “I was thinking about doing the veto. But because of the incredible gains that we’ve been able to make for the military, that overrode any of our thinking.”
Friday’s five hours of confusion showed once again nothing is certain in Trump’s Washington and that any deal is at risk of being blown up by the mercurial president. Just Thursday, administration officials and congressional leaders
said the president would sign the bill — even though for days he privately complained about the package in late night phone calls and early morning rants — and the White House issued a news release touting its accomplishments.
It also highlighted Trump’s desire to be seen as his own political entity and still an outsider, separate at times from the Republican Party he leads. During his remarks at the White House, Trump sought to distance himself from a bill unpopular with his base but that his aides helped craft and the GOP-led Congress passed. At times he went so far as to portray himself as being almost helpless and having little choice but to accept the spending package.
“As a matter of national security, I’ve signed this omnibus budget bill,” he said. “There are a lot of things that I’m unhappy about in this bill. There are a lot of things that we shouldn’t have had in this bill, but we were, in a sense, forced — if we want to build our military — we were forced to have.”
The president’s unhappiness was fueled Friday morning how it often is, with Trump in the residence watching Fox and Friends. For days, he heard Republicans were getting rolled in the spending negotiations and that message was now being delivered by his favorite morning show.
“This is a swamp budget, this is a Mitch McConnell special, this is a dysfunctional Senate,” Fox News personality Pete Hegseth vented, referring to the Senate majority leader. “There’s no wall. Ultimately the Democrats controlled the process in the Senate. That’s why Chuck Schumer was so happy.”
Trump had confided to several advisers that he was tired of watching Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., crow on TV — or hearing that he was being snookered by Democrats. He gets particularly agitated by Schumer, two of these people said.
He also heard from Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., Friday morning, who said he shouldn’t sign the spending package. Trump seemed to agree. The president had already talked to a number of other conservatives and friends, including Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., the leader of the hard right House Freedom Caucus.
None of the reviews coming in from his favorite media outlets, including Fox News and the conservative website Newsmax, about the massive funding bill were positive, even with a big uptick in military spending that Trump so prized. The president was told about radio show host Rush Limbaugh’s rant against the bill.
“The president was really sold a bill of goods here,” said Christopher Ruddy, Newsmax’s CEO, who speaks frequently to the president. “Conservatives look at this omnibus bill and say, this is not why they elected Donald Trump. This is not a good bill for him to sign.”
The spending bill is widely expected to be the last major piece of legislation that Congress will pass before the November midterm elections, which increased pressure to jam it full of legislative odds and ends, such as provisions ranging from gun safety to combating invasive carp. The bill funds the federal government through Sept. 30 and provides $700 billion for the military and $591 billion for domestic agencies.
Conservatives and some of Trump’s top supporters found plenty they didn’t like about the package. The House and Senate both passed it just over 24 hours after it was released, drawing complaints there was little time to review its contents. Overall, critics on the right said it spent too much money, yet only included a pittance for Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.Mexico border.