[ad_1]
“It seems to me that what he does is wait until the 23rd,” Senate armed forces chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) Told reporters. “It’s just a suspicion I have.”
Voting in the House and Senate depends on when Trump officially rejects the bill. A senior White House official said a veto “could be a little earlier” than the December 23 deadline.
Should Trump fail, it would only give the House and Senate a few days at the end of December to deliver the historic rebuke of his veto. If they fail, lawmakers could quickly pass the bill in the next Congress, but that would be a humiliating failure after the law has been enacted every year for nearly six decades.
House leaders are discussing bringing MPs back the week of December 28, but will not make final plans until Trump formally vetoes the measure, which he has been threatening for weeks. The most likely scenario in the Senate, meanwhile, is to hold the vote on January 3, just hours before the new Congress is sworn in.
“You have to find a time when people are going to be here,” Inhofe said. “And the obvious moment would be the third because we’re going to come back.”
The House had initially discussed holding its vote on Saturday, January 2, a day earlier than lawmakers had already planned to return. But several House aides said voting to cancel that day, if successful, would not give the Senate enough time to vote the next morning if a senator attempted to disrupt proceedings.
The formal veto waiver would likely have to be handed over to the Senate before Dec. 29 to ensure the upper house “can overcome all procedural hurdles,” according to an aide.
Another senior White House official said people advised the president not to veto the bill, but did not specifically say who tried to veto him or if Trump l ‘would listen.
Inhofe, one of Trump’s main allies, tried to talk Trump out of opposing the bill in a phone conversation last week. Inhofe said he has not spoken to Trump since then and expects him to reject the bill.
However, waiting until January 3 for the priority vote could cause problems with the implementation of the annual Defense Policy Bill – potentially delaying some authorizations, such as bonuses for troops or the start of military construction projects. . Many key provisions expire at the end of December each year, making lawmakers keen to finalize legislation before the holidays.
Other members and senior officials played down the implications of waiting until Jan. 3 for a vote, saying it would fundamentally have no impact on military operations.
Either way, House leaders would likely have to rely on at least some proxy-voting lawmakers to get the two-thirds majority needed to overturn the veto. Dozens of retired or recently defeated lawmakers are unlikely to make the trip to Washington in the final days of their tenure, especially as the pandemic rages on. Those votes could be crucial, especially if some House Republicans refuse to challenge Trump on overturning the veto even after supporting passage of the bill just days ago.
Time is running out, leaders in Congress have little choice if they cannot overturn Trump’s veto. House Armed Services Speaker Adam Smith (D-Wash.) Told reporters last week that lawmakers’ “only option” if a waiver failed would be to attempt to pass the same defense agreement after President-elect Joe Biden takes office. But Smith and other defense leaders warned it would be procedurally and politically difficult.
It would also be embarrassing for members of Congress not to abide by a bill that increases troop salaries and aims to bolster national defense, especially after months of fighting Trump for his resistance to renaming military bases that honor the Confederate leaders. This provision was eventually included in the final bill.
Trump also pushed lawmakers to use the Defense Bill to repeal legal protections for social media companies, known as Section 230, but was pushed back because Republicans and Democrats said it didn’t was outside the competence of the Armed Services Committee.
Trump, meanwhile, on Thursday reiterated his veto threat over his favorite social media platform.
“I will veto the defense bill, which will make China very unhappy. They love it,” Trump tweeted. “Must have the termination of Section 230, protect our national monuments and allow the withdrawal of the military from distant and very little appreciated lands. Thank you!”
The House and Senate passed a compromise defense bill last week with more votes than enough to overcome a veto, including strong Republican support. But GOP lawmakers are still hesitant to cross Trump and could reject the bill if enough of them change their voices – although dozens of Republicans are expected to do so.
Minority House Leader Kevin McCarthy, for example, has said he will not vote to overturn Trump’s veto despite his support for the defense bill.
Senator Lindsey Graham (RS.C.), who has supported Trump’s efforts to use the Defense Bill to repeal Section 230, said he sided with the president if he opposed his veto the measure.
“I’m going to stick with the president and his efforts to do something on 230,” Graham told reporters. “If NDAA is to be used as leverage, so be it.”
Graham spoke to Trump about the defense bill on Wednesday. The South Carolina Republican, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation to repeal Section 230 and speculated that a vote on the measure “might be enough” to avoid a veto confrontation, although GOP leaders currently have no plans to hold one.
“He likes my bill suspending Section 230,” Graham said of Trump. “That might be enough, if we had a vote on it. I do not know.”
Daniel Lippman and Andrew Desiderio contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link