President Donald Trump signed Congress’ $1.3 billion omnibus spending bill Friday afternoon, despite threatening to veto the legislation earlier that day.
Trump cited the $26 billion increases in Defense Department spending as the major factor behind his decision, but he also vowed to “never sign another bill like this again.”
“For the last eight years, deep defense cuts have undermined our national security,” POTUS said in a statement from the White House. “My highest duty is to keep America safe. Nothing more important.”
“Therefore, as a matter of national security, I have signed this omnibus budget bill,” he explained. “There are a lot of things that I’m unhappy about in this bill. There are a lot of things that we shouldn’t have had in this bill, but we were, in a sense forced — if we want to build our military — we were forced to have.”
“But I say to Congress, I will never sign another bill like this again. I’m not going to do it again. Nobody read it. It’s only hours old.”
President Donald Trump speaks with Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at his side during an event to sign Congress’ $1.3 trillion spending bill in the Diplomatic Room of the White House in Washington, March 23, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Trump went on to call for the abolition of the filibuster rule in the Senate, which he blamed for the last-minute affirmative votes that sent the bill to his desk.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis reportedly pressured Trump not to veto the bill Friday morning.