President Trump threw a potential wrench into congressional budget discussions Friday morning, threatening to veto the omnibus package that Republican leaders pushed to his desk just hours before to avoid a government shutdown.
I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2018
With a shutdown looming this weekend, Republican leaders unveiled the 2,232-page, $1.3 trillion spending bill Wednesday, hoping to jam it through Congress at breakneck speed. Many conservatives protested at being railroaded into voting for a bill that they had not had time to read and that they described as fiscally and politically irresponsible. But leadership in both houses shut down the dissenters, with House speaker Paul Ryan telling reporters Thursday, “We have a deadline.” And after an intense Thursday session that stretched into the early hours of Friday morning, Senate Republicans okayed the package. The question seemed settled—until Trump’s tweet.
The president apparently dislikes the package for a different reason than congressional conservatives—he griped that the massive package, one of the last must-pass bills of the year, did not address the immigration issues the White House has been trying and failing to get through Congress for months. This was a startling complaint: After all, it was the White House that put a preemptive end to congressional discussions about trading three years of funding for border wall construction for a three-year extension of the DACA program. “The White House opposes a so-called three-for-three deal,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said last week.
Friday’s tweet is not the first time Trump has expressed displeasure with this spending package: he reportedly grumbled about its lack of funding for border security after the bill was released Wednesday as well. Speaker Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell managed to talk him into it that afternoon.
A similar scenario is likely to play out Friday morning: Ryan and McConnell will rehash their arguments to Trump about why a shutdown would be so catastrophic and why this spending bill is the best they can give him under the circumstances, making an actual veto unlikely. But it won’t be the reposeful beginning to the Easter weekend congressional leaders went to bed last night looking forward to.
