The House passed a defense licensing law on Tuesday with a veto-proof difference that dealt a blow to President Trump’s threat to veto the legislation. The House passed the annual defense package, which sets out the Pentagon’s annual budget and spending, with 335 to 78 votes, with one MP abstaining – easily above the two-thirds majority that would be needed to invalidate the presidential veto. The bill is now addressed to the Senate.
A majority veto in the House means that a piece of legislation received at least two-thirds of the vote, indicating that the Chamber would receive support to overturn the veto if Mr Trump decides to issue one. If the president annuls the laws that come before his desk, he goes back to the House and the Senate and has to get two-thirds support in every chamber to become law. Given the high band, vetoes are not often overridden.
The Office of Management and Budget formally recommended to the President that he veto the legislation if it hit his desk, and President Trump did the same. has already vowed to veto the legislation if it does not contain a provision that repeals the law protecting social media companies from liability, the so-called Article 230. Defense legislation does not currently provide for such a provision.
“I hope Republicans will vote against the very weak National Defense Licensing Act (NDAA), which I will implement with VETO. The abolition of Section 230 (for national security purposes) must be preserved, our national monuments preserved, and the 5G and reducing troops in foreign countries! ”Mr. Trump wrote on Tuesday earlier on Twitter.
Even Republicans have said they will return to Congress later in December if Mr. Trump vetoes the bill to invalidate the veto.
“We have to go to the NDAA and the president shouldn’t veto it. And we should overwrite it,” Republican Congressman Liz Cheney told reporters on Monday. Congressman Mac Thornberry, a prestigious member of the House’s Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Monday that Congress should return to overturn all vetoes.
“They would be rightly and fairly criticized when we can’t go back to dealing with military pay,” Thornberry said.
