Trump Signs Spending Bill and Then Whines for Ages About How Much He Hated It

President Trump signed the $1.3 trillion spending bill passed by Congress on Friday, thus averting a government shutdown. Trump’s signature came despite his threatening to veto the bill, calling it a “ridiculous situation,” and complaining that no one had time to read it, which is true!

Speaking at a hastily assembled White House signing event on Friday, Trump said he signed the bill as a “matter of national security,” saying it “became so big because we need to take care of our military.” But he added that there were “a lot of things that I’m unhappy about” in the bill, and called on Congress to give him line-item veto power and to repeal the filibuster rule, saying legislation would “happen just like magic” without it.

He also said the following words: “tanker aircraft is very important, based on everything.”

Trump had indicated that he was considering a VETO of the bill because it did nothing for DACA recipients, who are only in this situation because he decided to cancel the program. At the news conference, Trump said “we wanted to include DACA in this bill” but Democrats refused.

After the conference ended, Trump said he was thinking “very seriously” about the veto, but had to sign the bill because of the military.

(Not to be That Guy, but it really should never have been a question whether Trump would actually veto this bill. This tweet quite clearly falls under the “Grandpa lost his slippers and he’s threatening to kill the dog again” category of Trump tweets: shocking, sure, but so at odds with the momentum and machinery of the entire Republican Party that you could be sure his advisers would soothe or trick him into thinking he never said this and in fact he said the opposite, and it was very good and smart of him to have said that, and here’s your Diet Coke, Mr. President.)

The bill was passed so quickly and is so big that no one really seems to know exactly what’s in it. Politico noted that the bill largely extends the status quo: It doesn’t “kill any of the programs or agencies Trump’s budget proposed to kill” and in fact boosts the budgets of some agencies that Trump’s budget would have cut.

The bill includes $380 million for strengthening election security, and even overrules a Department of Labor rule that would have allowed business owners to steal their employees’ tips. Hurrah!