En esta noticia
President Donald Trump says he will veto every bill a Democratic-controlled Congress sends him if Republicans lose their majorities in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Reversing any of those vetoes would take a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate, a bar Democrats aren’t expected to reach.
“I guess I’ll become Mr. Veto,” Trump said on the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast in an interview released Monday. He predicted Republicans would keep control. If they don’t, he said, he’ll keep rejecting legislation until Democrats come to him ready to deal.
It’s a pledge he has repeated for weeks. Talking to reporters on the White House South Lawn on Oct. 23, Trump said gridlock would simply mean “I veto everything.” In September, he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham he would act as a “blocker.”
Republicans now hold the House 218-214 and the Senate 53-47. Democrats need a net gain of four seats in each chamber to take over. Forecasters favor Democrats to win the House, while the Senate is considered a toss-up.
Can Congress overrule a Trump veto?
A veto is the president’s power to reject a bill after both chambers of Congress have passed it. Lawmakers can still make that bill law through an override vote. That requires a two-thirds majority in the House and a two-thirds majority in the Senate.
Neither party is expected to come close to those numbers. A Democratic majority would need dozens of House Republicans and well over a dozen GOP senators to vote against Trump. That kind of break from a sitting president of their own party rarely happens.
A veto also only matters once a bill clears both chambers. If Democrats win the House but not the Senate, Republicans there could stop Democratic bills long before they reach Trump’s desk. That’s the same setup he had in the last two years of his first term.
Trump has used the veto sparingly so far. He has issued two vetoes in his second term, after 10 in his first.
What happens if Democrats win Congress and Trump vetoes everything?
Trump has said the standoff wouldn’t last forever. He told the podcast he expects to veto bills for “a month or two.” After that, he said, Democrats would get tired of wasting time and come to the table to make deals.
Government funding is where that test would likely come first. Congress has to pass spending bills and the president has to sign them to keep federal agencies open, so both sides would have a reason to bargain.
The veto has limits, though. It can’t stop a Democratic House from investigating the administration through hearings and subpoenas. It also can’t stop a Democratic Senate from refusing to confirm Trump’s nominees, including federal judges.
The White House is also preparing for that scenario. According to people familiar with the plans who spoke to Reuters, officials have been lining up executive actions on immigration, tariffs, housing costs and spending that wouldn’t need congressional approval.