WASHINGTON – The Senate overwhelmingly voted on Friday to override President Trump’s veto of the annual military policy bill, gathering bipartisan support to enact legislation despite the president’s objections and handing him the first legislative reprimand of his presidency.
The 81-13 vote, the last expected vote in this Congress, is the first time lawmakers have overturned one of Trump’s vetoes. It reflected the popularity of a measure that authorizes a salary increase for the country’s military and amounts to an extraordinary reprimand addressed to Trump in the final weeks of his presidency.
The margin surpassed the two-thirds majority needed to force the bill’s approval despite Trump’s objections. The House passed the legislation on Monday, also bringing together the required two-thirds majority.
Trump, serving a series of month-long threats, vetoed bipartisan legislation last week, citing an inconstant list of reasons, including his objection to a clause ordering the military to remove the names of Confederate leaders from the bases. He also demanded that the bill include the repeal of a legal shield for social media companies with which he was involved, a significant legislative change that Republicans and Democrats said was irrelevant to the legislation that dictates military policy.
These objections infuriated lawmakers, who worked for months to draft a bipartisan bill. They prided themselves on approving the military project every year for 60 years, and lawmakers from Trump’s own party ended up resolving their concerns and advancing legislation.
The last time Congress overturned a presidential veto was in 2016, the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency, after he vetoed legislation that allowed the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.