After refusing as it stands the new stimulus plan for the American economy voted by Congress, President Donald Trump vetoed the country’s defense budget on Wednesday, December 23, approved by Congress ago. two weeks. The Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, accused the president of using “his last hours in power to sow chaos” by this “irresponsible act”, and announced that the deputies would return from vacation on Monday to “override the veto ”.
Four weeks before the inauguration of his successor Joe Biden, it would be a first, and a stain, in Donald Trump’s only term in the White House. This budget of $ 740.5 billion was approved by an overwhelming majority which allows, if most of the elected Republicans and Democrats confirm their initial vote, to bypass the presidential opposition by adopting it again by a qualified majority. .
A “gift to China and Russia”
“Unfortunately, this piece of legislation does not include measures critical to national security” and “runs counter to my government’s efforts to put America first in national security and foreign policy”, said the outgoing president in his official message to Congress, referring to a “gift to China and Russia”. The budget sent back to Congress on Wednesday provides for a 3% increase in the salary of defense personnel. But the Republican billionaire had threatened to veto it in particular because the text does not include the abolition of a law, known as “article 230”, protecting the legal status of social networks, which he accuses of being biased against him.
“Article 230 facilitates the spread of foreign disinformation online, which constitutes a serious threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections,” he laments in his message to parliamentarians. He also thunders against the fact that the Pentagon’s funding law plans to rename military bases honoring generals from the Confederate camp, which defended slavery during the Civil War. “From these bases, we won two world wars”, he justifies, denouncing a desire to “sweep history”.
Donald Trump also rejects provisions which “go against” his “efforts to bring our troops home (…) from Afghanistan, Germany and South Korea”. “For all these reasons, I cannot support this text” which “places the interests of the Washington establishment above those of the American people”, concludes the president, who still refuses to recognize his defeat in the November elections and appears more and more engaged in a scorched earth policy as his inevitable departure approaches.
Republicans in embarrassment
Unsurprisingly, his opponents immediately denounced his spectacular gesture against the defense budget, traditionally adopted in a consensus that transcends political parties. “Donald Trump has just vetoed an increase for our military in order to defend deceased Confederate traitors,” lamented the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer. “Democrats will vote to override this veto,” he promised on Twitter.
But the presidential opposition plunges its own camp into embarrassment. The chairman of the Senate Defense Committee, Republican Jim Inhofe, while welcoming Donald Trump’s record in favor of the military, thus reaffirmed his support for the text, “absolutely vital for our national security and our troops”.
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