Trump signs spending bill after threatening veto over immigration

Despite threatening a veto in a tweet Friday morning, President Donald Trump signed a $1.3 trillion omnibus bill on Friday afternoon. The bill increases funding to the military and averts a federal shutdown.

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.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2018

The bill did not include an immigration deal. Trump had wanted an agreement with Democrats on protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients for the sake of getting more funding for his border wall.

During his speech on Friday, Trump said he’ll “never sign another spending bill like this again.”

There was $1.6 billion earmarked for the wall to be built between the United States and Mexico.

Budget director Mick Mulvaney had said Thursday the president would sign the bill and Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said Trump was supportive.

White House officials said the plan, 2,232 pages long, included key administration priorities, particularly defense spending.

They argued they could not get everything they want because Democratic votes are needed in the closely divided Senate.

Mulvaney said the bill was not perfect, but “that’s not how the process works.”

Congress has already left for a two-week recess.

Trump had made note of his dislike of some parts of the bill earlier in the week, when he tweeted that money was wasted on Democrat “giveaways in order to take care of military pay increase. …”

He also accused Democrats of abandoning the 800,000 young adults brought to this country illegally by their parents.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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