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reMonday night’s result could hardly have been clearer: With 332 to 87 votes, the US House of Representatives rejects Donald Trump’s objection to the defense budget. A two-thirds majority was needed. But in the end, just under four out of every five MPs vote against the veto of the incumbent president. Among them a clear majority of Republicans. The override of a Trump veto was the first time. It is a bitter defeat for the president-elect three weeks before the end of his term.
But the last word has not yet been said. The Senate will also vote on the veto, here too a two-thirds majority is required. The second chamber of Congress is also expected to outnumber the incumbent president. That would also be the first. For Republicans, voting is extremely delicate and inconvenient. Because: Whoever enters the budget of 740 billion dollars (about 610 billion euros) must break with Trump on this issue. Traditionally, the powerful windfall for the Pentagon is conveyed non-partisan. A presidential veto is unusual.
Three weeks ago, 43 of the 52 Republican senators had voted for the military budget. Do you now support your vote and oppose Trump? Or do they loyally follow the lame duck president, overturn their own decision, and alienate the military? The vote of two senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who will have a runoff in Georgia in a week, is particularly spicy. Loeffler praises herself, saying she always voted “100 percent” in the spirit of Trump. And now?
Trump has never built a resilient relationship with the military beyond rhetoric. Neither he nor his sons served in the army. With his veto, he wants, among other things, to prevent military institutions from losing their names after the prominent Confederates of the American Civil War.
Trump also called the budget law a “gift to China and Russia.” Trump is also angry that he is blocking the withdrawal of American soldiers from Germany that he has announced for the time being.
Notably: in the House debate just before the vote, Republican Mac Thornberry fervently defended the law, opposing Trump. “Our soldiers, the country and the world are watching to see what we will do, if we can hide the differences and still unite to support the men and women of the US military and national security,” Thornberry said. The leadership of the Republican parliamentary group refrained from letting a member of parliament with the opposite position to the president speak immediately before the vote.
But Trump is making his own party even more uncomfortable about another matter. After the House of Representatives accepted his proposal for a one-time Corona aid package payment of $ 2,000 instead of $ 600 for nearly all Americans, the ball is in the Senate court.
Monday’s vote was a masterpiece of the political power of the Democrats and their Speaker in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. He had accepted Trump’s sudden idea of the $ 2,000, knowing full well that most Republicans would not like this blessing. Some of them thought that the $ 600 check that Congress negotiated with Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, was a socialist devil.
Republicans’ discomfort with the $ 2,000 check that every adult earning less than $ 75,000 a year is supposed to receive was made crystal clear Monday on Capitol Hill: Only 44 Republicans voted for Trump’s idea, 130 voted against. . But given that 231 Democrats voted yes (and only two no), it was enough for the required two-thirds majority.
In the pre-vote debate, Republican Kevin Brady had taken on Trump’s measure. The $ 2,000 injection will cost half a billion dollars. Brady argued that he wasn’t on target either. During the months of negotiations on the Corona aid package, Republicans were meticulous to make sure it cost no more than a trillion dollars. The end result was a sum of 900 billion dollars (about 730 billion euros). Republicans rhetorically invoke a lean state, little government intervention, and citizen responsibility.
But Trump has long since broken with the fiscal conservatism of the Big Old Party. He was already there before the crisis of the Crown and was a huge indebted, and that in the middle of a good economy. Does anyone remember Trump’s 2016 election promise that he would reduce the entire national debt in eight years? Meanwhile, the national debt rose under the Trump presidency to more than $ 27 trillion, more than 100 percent of economic output, a record.
It was not initially clear Tuesday night when the Senate would vote on the $ 2,000 check. Republicans have a majority in the Senate, they set the agenda. Its majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has so far been silent on Trump’s renewed spending mood. Such a vote in the coming days would also be extremely inconvenient for the two Senators Loeffler and Perdue, who are campaigning in Georgia.
The two billionaires present themselves as fiscally conservative on the one hand, and staunch Trump supporters on the other. Regardless of how they vote, their votes could alienate (regular) voters in Georgia. Loeffler’s challenger, Democrat Raphael Warnock, recently recorded on Twitter: When Loeffler, who praises himself for having supported “100 percent” the Trump bill in the Senate, “why doesn’t he support the $ 2,000 help? “
And what does Trump say about all this? The incumbent president has been on his property in Mar-a-lago (Florida) since December 23 and initially did not comment on the two votes in the House of Representatives. Trump had already played golf on Christmas Day and did so on Monday. He left his property at 9.22 a.m. and drove to Trump International Golf Course, where he stayed until 2:07 p.m.
In the late afternoon, Trump tweeted a blatant autocratic-style video suggesting he had received the Nobel Peace Prize, a clear case of fake news. He also spread misinformation about the November 3 presidential election, in which he was defeated by Democrat Joe Biden.
It was only Sunday night that Trump signed the nonpartisan crown aid package after a lockdown that had lasted for days.
However, he waived a solemn signing ceremony. He was the only one to announce “good news” on Twitter, along with a hint that more information would follow. More than 24 hours later, Trump had yet to deliver on that promise. His term of office will end on January 20, 2021.
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