“I think he’s looking forward to what he’s been doing until the 23rd,” Senate Armed Services Chairman Jim Inhoff (R-Okla.) Told reporters. “It’s just a suspicion I have.”
Depending on the vote in both the House and the Senate, Trump will soon formally reject the bill. A senior White House official said the veto “could be a little earlier” than the Dec. 23 deadline.
If Trump runs the clock, he will give the House and Senate a few days in late December to deliver a historic historic rebuke of his veto. If they get shortened, legislators could pass the bill quickly in the next Congress, but it would be a humiliating failure after the law has been in force every year for nearly six decades.
House leaders are discussing bringing members back in the weekend of Dec. 28, but will not make final plans until Trump vetoes them on a formal formal basis, which he has threatened for weeks. The most likely scenario in the Senate, meanwhile, is to vote on Jan. 3, just hours before the new Congress is sworn in.
“You have to find a time when people are coming here,” Inhof said. “And the clear time will be the third because we’ll be back.”
His vote was discussed on Saturday, January 2, a day before legislators initially considered returning to the House. But many House aides said voting override that day, if successful, would not leave enough time for the Senate to vote the next morning if a senator tries to disrupt proceedings.
According to an aide, the official veto override will need to be submitted to the Senate by December 29 to ensure the upper chamber can “remove any procedural hurdles”.
Another senior White House official said people had advised the president not to veto the bill, but specifically did not elaborate on who tried to remove him from the veto or if Trump would hold a hearing.
Inhoff, Trump’s top aide, tried to get Trump to veto the bill in a phone conversation last week. Inhof said he has not spoken to Trump since and expects him to knock down the bill.
However, waiting until January 3 for an override vote could also cause some problems in the implementation of the annual defense policy bill – possibly issues with certain rights, such as bonuses for soldiers or the start of military construction projects. Many key provisions expire at the end of December each year, making legislators eager to finalize legislation before the holidays.
Other members and senior aides denied the effects of the vote until Jan. 3, saying it would not have a fundamental impact on military operations.
Either way, House leaders probably. At least some legislators will have to rely on proto-voting to get the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto. Dozens of retired or recently defeated legislators are likely to travel to Washington in the last days of their terms, especially in the wake of the epidemic. Those votes could be decisive, especially if some House Republicans refuse to veto Trump over the veto override even though they supported the bill a few days ago.
With time running short, congressional leaders have few choices if they can’t override Trump’s veto. House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash) told reporters last week that the legislators would try to pass the same defense agreement if the override fails after Biden takes office. But Smith and other defense leaders have warned that doing so would be procedurally and politically difficult.
It would also be a shame for members of Congress to fail to pass a bill to increase salaries for soldiers and to promote national defense, especially after months of fighting Trump over his opposition to renaming military bases in honor of federal leaders. That provision was eventually included in the final bill.
Trump has also forced lawmakers to repeal the use of the defense bill for social media companies, known as Article 230, but Republicans and Democrats alike have said it falls outside the jurisdiction of the Armed Services Committee.
Trump, meanwhile, reiterated his veto threat on his favorite social media platform on Thursday.
“I will veto the defense bill, which would make China very unhappy. They love it.” Trump tweeted. “Article 230 must be repealed, our national monuments must be protected and the military allowed to be removed from afar, and very unappreciated, lands. Thank you!”
Both the House and Senate passed the Compromising Defense Bill last week, which received more than enough votes to meet the veto, including strong support from Republicans. But the G.O.P. Legislators are still wary of overtaking Trump and could cite the bill if they switch their votes enough – although dozens of Republicans will have to.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, for example, said he would not vote to override Trump’s veto despite supporting the defense bill.
Sen. Lindsay Graham (RSC.), Who has backed Trump’s efforts to use the Defense Bill to repeal Section 230, said she would stay with the president if he vetoed the move.
“I will stick with the president and his efforts to do something about 230,” Graham told reporters. “If it takes advantage of the NDAA, be it.”
Graham spoke with Trump on Wednesday about the defense bill. The South Carolina Republican, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has introduced legislation to repeal Section 230 and speculated on the vote “sufficiently” to avoid a veto showdown, although the G.O.P. Leaders currently have no plans to keep this.
“He likes my bill in Sunset Section 230,” Graham said of Trump. “It simply came to our notice then. I do not know.”
Daniel Lippman and Andrew Desiderio contributed to this report.
