U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, USA, on Friday, December 18, 2020.
Sarah Silbiger | Bloomberg | Getty Images
WASHINGTON – The House was due to vote on Monday over whether to overturn President Donald Trump’s veto of an annual defense spending bill.
An annulment would be a bipartisan rebuke to the Republican president in the last days of his government.
The Chamber, led by spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Is due to meet at 2 pm Eastern Time. The vote to overturn Trump’s rejection of the massive defense bill, which authorizes a $ 740 billion top line in spending and describes the Pentagon’s policy, is expected around 5 pm. If approved, the annulment measure will go to the Senate.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said his chamber would vote to overturn the veto on Tuesday.
The bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, passed the House on December 8, with the support of more than three-quarters of the House. A large majority of the Republican-controlled Senate also approved the bill, giving both chambers a greater share of yes votes than the two-thirds needed to defeat a presidential veto.
The broad defense bill is usually passed with strong bipartisan support and veto-proof majorities when funding the United States’ national security portfolio. It was signed into law for almost six consecutive decades.
Passing the bill at the very least guarantees soldiers’ salary increases and keeps crucial defense modernization programs in place.
Trump offered a variety of reasons to oppose this year’s 4,517-page NDAA, questioning the bill for both what it contains and what it lacks.
The president demanded that the bill include a wording that removes the protections of social media companies under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which prevents them from being held responsible for what users say on their platforms. Trump, who used Twitter prolifically during his presidency, has long accused the media of bias.
In his veto message to Congress, Trump wrote that the NDAA failed “to make any significant changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act”. He asked Congress to revoke the measure.
The president said earlier that the move posed a serious threat to the United States’ national security as well as electoral integrity, but gave no further explanatory details.
Trump’s ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., wrote on Twitter that he would not vote to override the president’s veto. Graham did not vote in favor of the project for the first time.
Graham, who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, introduced legislation on December 15 that would end, on January 1, 2023, the protections of Section 230.