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For the first time in his presidency, Republican lawmakers will join Democrats in reprimanding Trump.
The United States House of Representatives is poised to override President Donald Trump’s veto on legislation that establishes the annual budget for the US military.
The Democratic-controlled House is also set to pass a proposal to increase COVID-19 relief payments to be sent to U.S. citizens to $ 2,000.
Congress had approved direct payments of $ 600 to individuals as part of a $ 900 billion COVID-19 relief bill passed last week. Signing the COVID-19 relief bill on Sunday, Trump said he wanted to see more direct relief given to struggling Americans.
Increasing stimulus checks to $ 2,000 from $ 600 would cost an additional $ 464 billion, the Joint Committee on Congressional Taxes estimated.
The House vote on direct payments is largely symbolic as Congress nears the end of its session and a new Congress and President-elect Joe Biden are expected to begin debating a new round of relief legislation from COVID-19 early next year.
Meanwhile, a large bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate had backed the defense bill, which authorizes $ 740 billion in defense funding and provides salary increases for US troops and their families. Trump vetoed it on December 23.
Rejecting the president’s veto would be both a measure of his waning influence in Congress and the substantive disagreement lawmakers have with his rationale for opposing the bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had called Trump’s veto “an act of astonishing recklessness” when she announced last week that the House would return today to vote on an override.
The Republican-led Senate is scheduled to vote on the override on December 29. If the Senate joins the House in overriding Trump’s veto by more than two-thirds, the bill would become law without Trump’s signature.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, had urged Trump not to veto the bill, noting his strong bipartisan support in Congress.
The Republican-led Senate voted 84-13 to pass the bill after it passed the Democratic-controlled House by 335 votes to 78 on Dec. 8, both margins greater than the two-thirds needed to override the veto. presidential.
Trump had opposed provisions in the annual defense policy bill that will require his administration to report to Congress on potential risks to US national security from troop withdrawals Trump has announced in Afghanistan, South Korea. and Germany.
The president is opposed to a provision that would require the Pentagon to change the names of military bases named after former Confederate soldiers who fought in the US Civil War.
“I have been clear in my opposition to politically motivated attempts like this to erase history and dishonor the immense progress our country has fought for in realizing our founding principles,” Trump wrote in his veto message to the House of Representatives from the United States.
I will veto the defense bill, which will make China very unhappy. They love. It must have Section 230 termination, protect our National Monuments, and allow military removal from distant and highly unappreciated lands. Thank you! https://t.co/9rI08S5ofO
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2020
Additionally, the president was unhappy that Congress failed to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which protects social media companies from liability for content posted on their platforms by users.
“Your inability to end the very dangerous national security risk of Section 230 will make our intelligence virtually impossible to do without everyone knowing what we are doing at each step,” Trump had said.
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