President Donald Trump issued the first veto of his second term Tuesday, blocking legislation that would support two bipartisan infrastructure projects in Colorado and Florida.
President Trump’s veto of the Colorado bill “Completing the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act,” which the Legislature unanimously approved in early December, infuriated state lawmakers. The bill would reduce payments that communities must make to the federal government for the construction of the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a pipeline poised to provide clean drinking water to rural areas in Colorado.
In a message to Congress after vetoing the bill, President Trump said the bill “would continue the failed policies of the past by forcing federal taxpayers to bear even more of the huge costs of municipal water services.” As originally conceived, rural water projects were supposed to be paid for by the regions that used them.
“Enough is enough. My administration is committed to stopping American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies,” he said.
Colorado state legislators, a bipartisan group pushing the bill, rioted after the veto, claiming Congress would override the bill. Some say President Trump is fulfilling his vow of retribution after Colorado refused to release former Colorado county employee Tina Peters, who was convicted last year on charges related to voting machine break-ins after the 2020 election.
Earlier this year, President Trump warned in a post on Truth Social that if she was not released, he would take “severe action!!!”
President Trump pardoned Peters in December, but it was largely symbolic because Peters had been convicted in state court.
“This is not governing. This is a revenge trip,” Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who is also running for governor, said in a post to Mr.
Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado also argued that President Trump’s veto was partisan.
“Donald Trump is playing partisan games and punishing Colorado by hurting rural communities without clean drinking water,” Hickenlooper said on TV’s “X.” Congress should quickly override this veto.
“This is not over,” Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, a staunch ally of President Trump, said on her X account.
“I hope this veto has nothing to do with political retribution for condemning corruption and demanding accountability,” Boebert said in a statement to Colorado-based NBC affiliate KUSA.
Boebert was one of the Republicans who joined Democrats to force the release of files on notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
President Trump did not mention Peters in his rationale for vetoing the bill. But on Wednesday, he posted on Truth Social: “God bless Tina Peters, who has now been incarcerated in a maximum security prison in Colorado for two of her nine years.”
“I can’t wish her a Happy New Year, but I wish nothing but the worst for the horrible governor who did this to her, and the disgusting ‘Republican’ (RENO!) prosecutor (who will do nothing for the Democrats and the fake mail-in voting system, making it impossible for Republicans to win in states they should be able to win!). May they rot in hell,” the president wrote.
Congress passed the bill unanimously, suggesting Congress would have the votes to override President Trump’s veto if Republican leaders in both chambers allow it. Overriding a veto would require two-thirds approval from both houses of Congress.
“We will continue to fight for rural Colorado by working together across party lines to get this project off the ground and ensure our communities are not left behind,” Rep. Jeff Hurd, also a Colorado Republican, said in a post on X.
CNBC reached out to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office to ask if he would allow Congress to override the veto.
The Miccosukee Reservation Amendment Act, a Florida bill that President Trump vetoed, also passed Congress by voice vote. The bill would expand the Miccosukee Preserve to include an area known as Osecola Camp, which is part of Everglades National Park.
In a message to Congress, President Trump said he was vetoing the bill as part of an effort to prevent “American taxpayers from funding projects for special interests, especially those that are inconsistent with my administration’s policy of ridding our country of illegal aliens who are violent criminals.”
In President Trump’s first term, he vetoed a total of 10 bills. His first veto came in 2019, the second year of his term, to overturn Congress’ efforts to end the state of emergency at the southern border. Congress could not override the veto.
