Calling it a “ridiculous situation” that he would “never do again,” Trump signed the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill on Friday, a bill that is more than 2,000 pages long that Congress had just around 24 hours to read. His public statements regarding the bill wavered repeatedly throughout the week.
Trump threatened to veto the bill just hours before signing it, citing his grave concerns for DACA recipients who have been, in his estimation, ignored and unfairly treated by Democrats. At the same time, he’s failed to mention the bipartisan spending deal that Republican and Democrats handed him that included a path to citizenship for those protected by DACA that Trump rejected the same day he said he didn’t want immigrants from African countries, Cuba, and other “sh*tholes” coming into the United States.
SPECIAL REPORT: Pres. Trump will sign $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill after threatening to veto the measure https://t.co/5GwRepDIzr pic.twitter.com/Z3T7pGUDEH
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 23, 2018
Trump acknowledged the more libertarian members of his own party by acknowledging that $1.3 trillion in spending is not exactly to their liking, but dismissed it by saying we “have to fund our military” while “Democrats are not for that,” and “Obama signed bigger” ones. He also promised to never, ever sign another bill like it and demanded that the filibuster rule be rescinded so that bipartisan agreements would no longer be required for the GOP to get a blank check with taxpayer money for things like an unnecessary and ineffective border wall plan.
After Trump threatens omnibus veto, RNC chair says Dems want to shut down government https://t.co/2AhOrzDrm7 pic.twitter.com/PxugXNcZpu
— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) March 23, 2018
In the end, Trump signed the bill, which everyone knew he would probably do, anyway. His show of “strength” around DACA recipients, his insistence that the spending was too large in order to appease the segment of his voting base’s concerns about the deficit raised by lawmakers like Rand Paul (R-KY), and his threats to veto were all just scripted displays meant to give his supporters a good defense when arguing in favor of Trump’s decision to sign.
NEW: Pres. Trump on signing omnibus spending bill: "There are a lot of things that I'm unhappy about in this bill…I will never sign another bill like this again." https://t.co/AOcvn1OXF7 pic.twitter.com/fNZYRrDrhS
— ABC News (@ABC) March 23, 2018
Featured image screengrab via Twitter by @ABC