Lauren Boebert claims Trump’s veto of safe drinking water bill is retaliation | Donald Trump
Republican representative Lauren Boebert fired back at Donald Trump for vetoing a bill that would have funded a drinking water project in her Colorado district, implying the president is playing a game of political retaliation.
The bill was intended to fund a decades-long project to provide safe drinking water to 39 communities in Colorado’s eastern plains, where groundwater is high in salinity and wells sometimes release radioactivity into the water supply.
Trump vetoed the bill on Tuesday, writing: veto letter He told Congress that his administration was “committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies” and that “ending the massive cost of handouts to taxpayers and restoring fiscal health is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the Nation.”
Boebert criticized the move, calling the bill “completely uncontroversial” and noting that it passed the House and Senate unanimously earlier this year.
Trump’s veto came after Boebert pushed the administration to release the government’s files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Boebert, a longtime Maga ally and supporter of the president, said in a speech: statement made to a local news station: “I sincerely hope that this veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for calls for corruption and accountability.”
Trump also vetoed a second bill on a project in Florida on Tuesday. The measure sought to spend $14 million to protect an area within the Everglades national park known as Camp Osceola, where members of the Miccosukee Tribe of Native Americans live. The tribe battled Trump’s makeshift immigrant detention center, “Alligator Alcatraz.” A federal judge has now ordered the detention center to be closed.
Trump said the tribe was never allowed to live on the Osceola Camp reservation and that his administration would not support projects for special interests, especially those “incompatible” with his immigration policies.
Trump’s vetoes were the first two of his second term.
The veto of the Colorado bill comes after Trump vowed to retaliate against Colorado despite its attempt to pardon his ally Tina Peters earlier in the month.
Peters, a former Colorado county clerk, is serving a nine-year prison sentence after being convicted on state charges of illegally tampering with voting machines in the 2020 presidential election. The charges against Peters were brought under Colorado state law and thus were exempt from the Trump pardon, which can only cover federal charges.
It remains to be seen whether Republican leaders in Congress will allow a vote to override Trump’s veto in Colorado. Boebert, along with Marjorie Taylor Greene, was one of four Republican lawmakers who played a key role in the release of the Justice Department files on Epstein. Trump fought for the release of the files for months before ending his opposition.
“There’s nothing more ‘America First’ than denying clean drinking water to the 50,000 people in southeastern Colorado, many of whom enthusiastically voted for her in all three elections… But hey, if this administration wants to leave a legacy of blockage projects that provide water to rural Americans, that’s their business,” Boebert told 9News in Colorado.
Boebert did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
