Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, it’s important to remember that no matter how incompetent or dangerous he was, Republicans in the House and Senate fell in lockstep with his attempts to extort a foreign country and overturn a democratic election, which are just two among many other bad policies and actions they supported that came from the White House. With Trump just 30 days from leaving office, Republicans have finally come together to stand against Trump for the first veto override of his presidency.
Mitch McConnell implored the president on the Senate floor not to veto the new defense spending bill, and said that December 29 will be reserved for a vote in Congress to override Trump’s veto, if it comes. For his part, Trump has insisted repeatedly that he will definitely veto it, and for reasons no one can really explain.
According to POLITICO:
‘The House on Monday locked in a Dec. 28 veto override on the National Defense Authorization Act. And early on Tuesday morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the upper chamber will return to session on Dec. 29 to tackle the veto if the House vote is successful.
‘A veto override of the defense policy bill would be the first of Trump’s presidency and deliver one last legislative rebuke to the president in his final weeks in office.’
McConnell said that his “intention was and is to ensure the Senate continues fulfilling our obligation to the men and women of our armed forces.” An override of Trump’s veto would be the most bipartisan act of Trump’s political career should he decide to make good on his threat to veto the bill.
‘Trump has until Wednesday to sign or veto the bill or permit it to become law without his signature. Lawmakers anticipate he’ll wait as long as possible to veto the legislation.’
The bill actually doesn’t benefit China at all, although Trump has cited that as a reason for his decision to veto it. None of Trump’s people can explain why he thinks that it does. They do know, however, that Trump has insisted that Section 230 which protects internet providers from being sued over the things that users post, meaning that “online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do,” be repealed. He wants Big Tech punished for daring to fact-check him and take down articles containing personal, identifying information about his challenger’s adult son.
According to The Washington Post:
‘Neither his top national security officials nor the Republicans who are shepherding the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) through Congress even claim to understand why Trump is invoking China in this way…we do have some idea of why Trump doesn’t like the NDAA, which is one of the last remaining examples of bipartisanship to have survived Trump’s tumultuous term. Trump has fallen out with the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, James M. Inhofe (Okla.), who led the Senate passage of the defense bill Friday (84-13) without jamming in a last-minute repeal of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Act, as Trump had demanded.’
