The House just voted to override Trump’s veto of the NDAA defense bill by an overwhelming majority:
1) The House of Representatives tonight voted to override President Trump’s veto of the defense bill.
The vote was 322-87
A two-thirds vote is required to override a veto.
With 409 voting, the House needed 272 yeas to override.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 29, 2020
As Pegram points out, all they needed was 272 for an override and they got 322. But this was expected, given that they passed the bill 335-78 earlier this month.
How the Senate gets to give it a shot:
2) The process is not done yet. The Senate must also vote to override. That could come as early as tomorrow. But, more likely, later this week.
Mr. Trump has vetoed nine bills so far during his presidency, including the defense bill.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 29, 2020
3) The President opposes the legislation because it renames bases named after Confederates. In the COVID/government funding bill, President Trump railed against extra provisions in that bill.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 29, 2020
4) But Mr. Trump insisted that lawmakers tack on an unrelated provision in the defense bill – or he would veto it. Yet, the President wanted Congress to add unrelated language to the defense bill to terminate Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 29, 2020
5) Section 230 grants tech firms a legal shield from lawsuits over information posted to their sites.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 29, 2020
6) The House and Senate both approved the final version of the defense bill by overwhelming supermajorities. The vote in the House was 335-78 with one member voting “present.” The Senate vote was 84-13. Both votes were well above the 2/3 threshold to potentially override a veto.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 29, 2020
Just like the House, I suspect the Senate will easily override Trump’s veto given the initial vote.