President Donald Trump signed Congress’ $1.3 billion omnibus spending bill Friday afternoon, despite threatening to veto the legislation earlier that day.
Trump cited the $26 billion increases in Defense Department spending as the major factor behind his decision, but he also vowed to “never sign another bill like this again.”
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“For the last eight years, deep defense cuts have undermined our national security,” POTUS said in a statement from the White House. “My highest duty is to keep America safe. Nothing more important.”
“Therefore, as a matter of national security, I have signed this omnibus budget bill,” he explained. “There are a lot of things that I’m unhappy about in this bill. There are a lot of things that we shouldn’t have had in this bill, but we were, in a sense forced — if we want to build our military — we were forced to have.”
“But I say to Congress, I will never sign another bill like this again. I’m not going to do it again. Nobody read it. It’s only hours old.”
![President Donald Trump speaks with Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at his side during an event to sign Congress' $1.3 trillion spending bill in the Diplomatic Room of the White House in Washington, March 23, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque](https://dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Donald-Trump-Omnibus-Spending-Bill-Reuters.jpg)
President Donald Trump speaks with Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at his side during an event to sign Congress’ $1.3 trillion spending bill in the Diplomatic Room of the White House in Washington, March 23, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Trump went on to call for the abolition of the filibuster rule in the Senate, which he blamed for the last-minute affirmative votes that sent the bill to his desk.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis reportedly pressured Trump not to veto the bill Friday morning.