Trump is about to hold a press conference announcing his decision on whether to veto the massive $1.3 trillion spending bill
- President Donald Trump will make an announcement about the bipartisan omnibus spending bill at 1:00 p.m. ET.
- Trump threatened to veto the bill Friday morning in a tweet.
- If Trump vetoes the bill, the government will almost certainly go into a shutdown at midnight.
President Donald Trump is expected to announce his decision on whether or not to veto a massive $1.3 trillion spending bill at a 1 p.m. ET news conference.
If Trump vetoes the bill, the federal government will almost certainly shut down at the midnight deadline.
Trump threatened to veto the bill on Friday morning in a tweet, decrying the lack of funding for his promised wall along the US-Mexico border.
"I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded," Trump tweeted.
The omnibus bill includes $1.6 billion in new funding for border security, but only allows the funding to be used to build fencing similar to what exists on the border now. It wouldn't fund anything resembling Trump's envisioned 30-foot wall.
Additionally, the bill does not include a codification of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program, or DACA.
The program protects from deportation nearly 700,000 unauthorized immigrants who arrived in the US as minors. Trump ended the program in September but gave Congress until March to pass a law codifying protections for DACA recipients. A federal judge recently blocked the Trump administration from ending the program, however, so the program has continued.
Talks over a deal fell apart Tuesday after the Trump administration only offered a three year extension of protections for the current DACA recipients, instead of a path to citizenship for the roughly 1.8 million people that qualify for the program. In exchange for the full DACA protections, Democrats were reportedly set to give Trump all $25 billion that the administration requested for the wall.
The threats also come after members of the president's administration praised the bipartisan omnibus bill, which provides funds for everything from the military to low-income housing projects.
"The president supports the bill, looks forward to signing it," Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Thursday.
"This omnibus bill, the priorities that are being funded here, are going on the heels of the president's fiscal and economic accomplishments," Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president, said Friday morning just minutes before Trump's tweet.