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The new year began with a tough defeat for the president of the United States, Donald Trump. After the House of Representatives, the Senate approved the $ 741 billion military budget on Friday, despite the president’s veto. It is the first time in Trump’s term that both houses of Congress override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority. Trump’s Republican Party holds the majority of Senate seats. However, 81 senators voted in favor of passing the budget, only 13 voted against.
This vote is probably the clearest sign that Trump’s departure from power is near. At the beginning of the week, the House of Representatives had already decided with a majority of 322 to 87 votes to approve the legislative package. The Senate and the House of Representatives had worked together for months to draft the budget law. However, the president had brusquely rejected the project and thus alienated many of his friends from the party.
Trump had vetoed it for several reasons. In particular, he disliked the fact that the law stopped his plans to withdraw soldiers from South Korea, Afghanistan and Germany without further scrutiny. For US soldiers stationed in Germany, the passage of the law means that nothing will change for now.
Another point that bothered Trump was the fact that the law prevents him from using Pentagon funds for any other purpose at will, specifically, building a wall on the border with Mexico. Trump had repeatedly promised in the election campaign that he would build this wall, and Mexico would pay for it. Not much has happened about it in his four-year tenure, and now the project is off the table.
The pattern could repeat itself if the Senate votes on increased emergency aid for those in need.
On Capitol Hill, there was a complete lack of understanding that Trump wanted to include a relaxation of social media protection in the law. This request is due, among other things, to his anger that, for example, Facebook or Twitter recently added ads to his lies. Trump believes both organizations have a conservative bias.
Ultimately, Trump wanted to avoid changes in the names of military institutions with names of Confederate members of the Civil War, as provided in the law. He always emphasized this point because he knows it will go well with his foundation.
It is noteworthy that many Republicans have not followed him on any of these points, on the contrary, a large number have opposed him. This pattern could repeat itself if the Senate still votes on Trump’s desire to increase emergency aid for those in need in the recently approved Corona relief package from $ 600 to $ 2,000 per person. Most Republicans are against it, so they could vote against the president. But they are even more likely to just play for time and calmly wait until Trump’s term ends on January 20.
