Congress overrides Trump veto for the first time

Source: The Hill | January 1, 2021 | Jordain Carney

Congress delivered a stinging rebuke to President Trump during a rare New Year’s Day session Friday, handing him his first veto override in the final days of his administration.

The GOP-controlled Senate voted 81-13 to override Trump’s veto of a mammoth defense bill, well above the two-thirds support necessary, underscoring the depth of disagreement between the two sides of Pennsylvania Avenue.

The House voted 322-87 earlier this week to nix Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which greenlights spending levels and lays out policy for the Pentagon.

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“President Trump tried to make this vote a loyalty test and an overwhelming majority of U.S. Senators demonstrated their loyalty to the common defense and to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who defend our nation. … This vote was undoubtedly a bipartisan rebuke of President Trump. He tried to use our troops as political pawns and distort what this bill is about. In the end, he lost,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said in a statement after Friday’s vote.

The president warned for months that he would veto the defense bill, which will now become law for the 60th year in a row, over language included in both the initial House and Senate bills requiring the Pentagon to change the names of Confederate-named military bases and installations.

As it became increasingly clear that Congress was moving forward with the bill, Trump also lashed out at the legislation because it did not include a repeal of Section 230, a legal shield for tech companies, which GOP lawmakers argued was not related to the defense bill.

Trump’s veto statement also took aim at other parts of the legislation, including restrictions on his ability to remove troops from Afghanistan and Germany.

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More than 100 Republican lawmakers in the House ultimately broke with Trump to support the veto override earlier this week. On Friday, only seven of the Senate’s 52 GOP senators voted to uphold Trump’s veto: Mike Braun (Ind.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Josh Hawley (Mo.), John Kennedy (La.), Mike Lee (Utah) and Rand Paul (Ky.).

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Cruz, Cotton and Hawley each initially voted for the Senate’s bill in July but flipped and opposed the final version, which is worked out as a compromise between the House and Senate. 

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House Democratic leadership had signaled for weeks that they expected to override Trump’s veto, marking the first time either chamber had a successful override vote. Before the NDAA fight Trump had issued eight vetoes, none of which had been successfully challenged by the House or Senate. 

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Including Friday, Congress has overridden 112 vetoes throughout U.S. history. The last time a president’s veto was overridden was in September 2016 when then-President Obama opposed a bill allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia.

Trump is the first president to get a veto overridden during his first four years since President Clinton.

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