President Donald Trump doubled down Friday on signing the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress "as a matter of national security" — again vowing that "I will never sign after bill like this again."
"I'm calling on Congress to give me a line-item veto for all government spending bills," Trump said in his Twitter post:
The president signed the budget legislation Friday at the White House, hours after he hinted at vetoing it because it lacked the $1.6 billion he specifically sought for a border wall.
Trump's signature averted a third federal government shutdown this year, this one to have begun at midnight.
"As a matter of national security, I have signed this omnibus budget bill," President Trump said at the signing. "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 were in a sense forced [to have] if we want to build our military.
"My highest duty is to keep America safe."
Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus opposed the budget — and radio talk-show hosts immediately ripped the president for signing the budget into law.
"The Donald Trump agenda just got gutted," Rush Limbaugh declared on his afternoon program.
"It's much of the same of what we've become accustomed to in witnessing Washington conservatives," he said.
Limbaugh said conservatives "keep losing" in Washington "because of this stupid-ass government shutdown fear.
"It becomes indicative of what Democrats want.
"So much of Donald Trump's agenda was stripped away," he said.
Michael Savage was even more brutal, telling his radio audience that "Trump faked a veto."
"Where's his negotiating skills?" Savage posed. "Why is he so complicit in this, the screwing of the American people?
"Would you vote for Donald Trump again?" he later asked his listeners. "Would you vote for another Republican again?
"Why did the Republicans push this bill? But the biggest question is not them, it's him?
"He has veto power," Savage said. "Why did he do it?"
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