President vetoes bill passed to cancel his edict on border
WASHINGTON — President Trump issued the first veto of his presidency Friday, after a bipartisan rebuke of the national emergency he declared to circumvent Congress and fund his long-stalled southern border wall.
A dozen defecting Republicans joined Senate Democrats on the joint resolution Thursday, which capped a week of confrontation with the White House as both parties in Congress strained to exert their power in new ways. And Trump made clear how he planned to respond, tweeting the word “VETO!” in all caps just moments after the vote.
Trump vetoed the bill at a ceremony in the Oval Office, flanked by law enforcement officials as well as the parents of children killed by people in the country illegally.
“Our immigration system is stretched beyond the breaking point,” Trump said, adding the congressional action was “dangerous” and “reckless.”
The 59-41 tally on Thursday, and the Senate’s vote a day earlier to end U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen, forced Trump into the first vetoes of his presidency as he faces a now-divided Congress. The House is planning a vote to override the expected veto on the national emergency, which is likely to occur on March 26 following next week’s recess. But it is unlikely that Congress will have the votes to override it.
Two years into the Trump era, a dozen Republicans, pushed along by Democrats, showed a willingness to take the political risk of defecting. The 12 GOP senators, including the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, Mitt Romney of Utah, joined the dissent over the emergency declaration order that would enable the president to seize for the wall billions of dollars Congress intended to be spent elsewhere.
“The Senate’s waking up a little bit to our responsibilities,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who said the chamber had become “a...