Trump’s first vetoes hit bipartisan infrastructure projects
President Donald Trump issued the first veto of his second term on Tuesday, blocking bills that would support bipartisan infrastructure projects in Colorado and Florida.
Trump vetoes Colorado bill Finish the Arkansas Valley Pipe ActThe law, which Congress unanimously approved in early December, outraged lawmakers in the state. The bill would reduce payments that local communities must provide to the federal government for construction of the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a pipeline poised to provide clean drinking water to rural communities in Colorado.
One Message to Congress After vetoing the legislation, Trump said the bill would “continue the failed policies of the past by forcing federal taxpayers to bear even more of the massive costs of a local water project that, as originally conceived, must be paid for by the localities that use it.”
“Enough is enough. My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from financing expensive and unreliable policies,” he said.
Bipartisan lawmakers from Colorado who advanced the bill erupted after the veto and vowed that Congress would override it. Some have argued that Trump was fulfilling his vow of revenge after Colorado refused to release former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted last year of crimes related to breaches of voting machines after the 2020 election.
Trump said earlier this year that if he wasn’t released he would “take drastic action!!!” He warned. In Real Social to post.
Trump issued a pardon for Peters in December, but it was largely symbolic because Peters was convicted in a state court.
“This is not an administration. This is a revenge tour,” said Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who is also running for governor of Colorado. A post to X. “This is unacceptable. I will continue to fight to ensure rural Colorado has the clean water they deserve.”
Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., also claimed Trump’s veto was partisan.
“Donald Trump is playing partisan games and punishing Colorado by causing rural communities to suffer without clean drinking water,” Hickenlooper said. in x. “Congress should quickly overturn this veto.”
“This isn’t over yet,” GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert, a staunch Trump ally, said on the X account.
One expression Boebert stated that she donated to Colorado-based NBC affiliate KUSA and said, “I hope[s] “This veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for calls for corruption and accountability.”
Boebert was one of the Republicans who joined Democrats in pushing for the release of files on notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump did not mention Peters in his rationale for vetoing the legislation. But on Wednesday, she published a Truth Social Post that said: “God bless Tina Peters, who has now been sitting in the Colorado Maximum Security Prison for two years out of nine.”
“Hard to wish him a Happy Birthday, but to the Nasty Governor and the disgusting ‘Republican’ (RINO!) Prosecutor who did this to him (Nothing would happen to the Dems and their fake Mail Voting System that would make it impossible for a Republican to win an otherwise winnable state!), I only wish them the worst. May they rot in hell,” the President wrote.
Congress’ unanimous passage of the bill indicates that GOP leadership will have the votes in both chambers to override Trump’s veto if he allows it. A two-thirds vote of both the House of Representatives and the Senate would be required to override the veto.
Representative Jeff Hurd, another Colorado Republican, said in a speech: to post He told X he will “continue to fight for rural Colorado across party lines to get this project back on track and ensure our communities are not left behind.”
CNBC reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson’s office to ask if he would allow the chamber to override the veto.
Florida bill that Trump vetoed Miccosukee Reservation Amendments Actit also passed Congress by voice vote. The bill would expand the Miccosukee Preserve to include an area known as Camp Osecola, which is part of Everglades National Park.
Trump is a Message to Congress He said he vetoed the bill in part to prevent “American taxpayers from funding projects directed at special interests, particularly projects that are not consistent with my Administration’s policy of removing violent illegal aliens from the country.”
Trump vetoed a total of 10 bills in his first term. His first veto came in 2019, two years after his term ended, to defeat a congressional move to end the national emergency at the southern border. Congress could not override this veto.
