Congress is preparing for Donald Trump to veto the National Defense Authorization Act. They expect Trump to draw out the process until the last day, December 23.
“It seems to me what he’s doing is waiting until the 23rd,” Jim Inhofe, Senate Armed Services Chair, said. “That’s just a suspicion that I have.”
The law has been passed every year for nearly six decades.
If Trump waits until the last minute, the House and Senate will only have a few days in December to go against his veto. If they don’t figure it out, they would pass the bill in the next Congress, but that would likely be seen as an embarrassment given it has passed each year for the past sixty. According to Politico, the vote will most likely be held on January 3, 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 time would be the third because we’re going to be back.”
Trump has said that he will veto the bill over provisions included in the bill to rename military bases that are named after Confederate leaders. In recent weeks Trump has also been pushing to include language to “terminate” Section 230, which is a part of the Communications Decency Act that provides legal protections to social media companies. He tweeted his latest veto threat just this week.
“I will veto the Defense Bill, which will make China very unhappy. They love it,” Trump tweeted. “Must have Section 230 termination, protect our National Monuments and allow for removal of military from far away, and very unappreciative, lands. Thank you!”
Both the House and Senate passed the bill with veto-proof majorities last week.
