President Trump on Sunday defended signing the $1.3 trillion spending bill and said the amount of money allotted for his border wall “is just a down payment.”
Conservatives had criticized the the size of the bill and questioned the lack of funds devoted towards building the president’s border wall, a top campaign promise.
“Because of the $700 & $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!” Trump tweeted on Sunday.
“Much can be done with the $1.6 Billion given to building and fixing the border wall. It is just a down payment. Work will start immediately. The rest of the money will come - and remember DACA, the Democrats abandoned you (but we will not)!” he added.
The president had first expressed disappointment with Congress on Friday for the more than 2,000-page bill that he said no lawmaker read. However, he decided not to veto it because of the increase in funds for the U.S. military.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, touted the $1.3 trillion omnibus bill as a win for her party.
“Democrats won explicit language restricting border construction to the same see-through fencing that was already authorized under current law,” she said in a statement last week.
Conservative commentator Ann Coulter agreed that the bill was a loss to the president.
“I can’t see anyway to sugar coat what a disaster this is,” she said on Saturday.
Ms. Coulter had been a staunch supporter of the president’s immigration policies during his campaign, but has since voiced frustration over the president’s delay in building a wall along the southern border.
“There was only guy who said that at every speech, at every rally for two years, that the would build the wall and he now signed a bill to prohibit the building a wall,” Ms. Coulter said Saturday on Fox News.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.