Our live coverage has ended. Here are the highlights from Friday’s bill signing:
President Trump and first Lady Melania Trump arrived tonight in West Palm Beach, Florida, where they will be spending the weekend in Mar-a-Lago.
The President emerged from Air Force One, followed closely by son Barron and then the first lady. They walked down the loading stairs to cheers from a group of supporters gathered at the airport. The President waved several times and smiled. The President and first lady never held hands or interacted.
It was their first public appearance together since CNN’s interview with a former Playboy model who claims to have had a 10-month affair with the President years before he was elected.
President Trump just tweeted tonight about the $1.3 trillion spending bill, just hours after signing it.
Trump, in the tweet, reiterated earlier remarks, saying that he “will NEVER sign another bill like this again.”
Earlier today, Trump, in a surprise news conference, said he had “no choice” but to sign the bill because of the funds it provides to the military.
“There are a lot of things we shouldn’t have had in this bill but we were, in a sense, forced if we want to build our military, we were forced to have,” Trump said.
“There are some things we should have in the bill. But I say to Congress, I will never sign another bill like this again.”
Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti told CNN this evening that he was in possession of a DVD that includes evidence, which would allegedly prove she had an affair with Donald Trump over a decade ago.
When asked about the contents of the DVD, Avenatti would not give specifics about the evidence.
Avenatti tweeted a photo of a DVD late Thursday, with this caption:
Avenatti described the tweet as a “warning shot” at President Trump, his attorney Michael Cohen and anyone else involved in the case.
Daniels is scheduled to appear on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday.
The Department of Justice has proposed amending Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ regulations to make bump stocks fall within the federal definition of a “machine gun.” In doing so, it effectively would ban all bump stocks.
“After the senseless attack in Las Vegas, this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that is in keeping with the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.
President Trump also tweeted about the rule, saying his administration “will BAN all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns.”
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump are headed to West Palm Beach for a weekend at Mar-a-Lago. Air Force One departed Joint Base Andrews at 5:13 p.m. ET.
The President entered the aircraft alone. The first lady was already on board.
President Trump ignored questions on the alleged affairs, as he made his way to Marine One.
Trump avoided reporters, but walked the long way to the visitor pen to shake some hands.
First lady Melania Trump was not with him. She’s meeting him at Joint Base Andrews.
Why we’re talking about the alleged affairs
Three different cases regarding the President and his alleged relationships with women are simultaneously in different courts.
The first case involves the “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, who says Trump sexually harassed her and who is now suing him for defamation.
Then there is adult film actress Stormy Daniels. She has taken Trump and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to court in an attempt to end a nondisclosure agreement that is alleged to require her to keep silent about an affair she had with Trump over a decade ago. Cohen and the White House have denied the affair.
Former Playboy model Karen McDougal is also embroiled in a lawsuit. She is suing the company that kept her original account from publication.
McDougal, in an interview with CNN, confirmed that she had a 10-month sexual relationship with Trump before he was President, saying they were together “many dozens of times.”
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump will soon depart the White House and head to West Palm Beach, Florida, for the weekend.
It was busy and newsy week at the White House and on Capitol Hill. Let’s look at what happened:
Monday: The President and first lady spoke in New Hampshire about the opioid crisis. He proposed the death penalty for drug dealers and “very bad commercials” to scare kids off drugs. After Trump lashed out at special counsel Robert Mueller’s team over the weekend, Republicans warned Trump not to fire Mueller.
Tuesday: Trump said he congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his recent election win, even though he was warned not to do so.
Wednesday: Trump, in a series of tweets, called out Mueller, continuing his recent aggressive attacks on the Russia probe.
Thursday: The morning started off with news that John Dowd, Trump’s lead lawyer handling the response to the Russia investigation, had resigned. Trump later unveiled new tariffs on Chinese goods, as a result the Dow plunged more than 700 points. Later that night, Trump took to Twitter to announce that he was replacing H.R. McMaster as national security adviser with former US ambassador and Fox News analyst John Bolton. Former Playboy model Karen McDougal, in an interview with CNN, confirmed that she had a 10-month sexual relationship with Trump before he was President, saying they were together “many dozens of times.”
Friday: Congress passed a $1.3 trillion spending bill just after midnight. This morning, Trump threatened to veto the bill. But, in a surprise news conference this afternoon, Trump signed the bill, saying he had “no choice” because of the funds it provides to the military.
The Dow dropped 400 points and stumbled back into a correction on Friday as worries about a trade war with China intensified.
The selling followed a 734-point plunge on Thursday, after President Trump launched a crackdown on China’s trade tactics.
The losses Friday put the Dow back into correction territory, 10% below its all-time high in January. The average has lost almost 3,000 points since then.
Far-right media personalities fumed on Friday after President Trump signed a spending bill he previously threatened to veto into law.
They were upset the $1.3 trillion package did not include complete funding for his promised wall along the US-Mexico border.
In a string of tweets, Ann Coulter, a conservative media firebrand who was one of Trump’s most outspoken supporters during the 2016 election, skewered the President. After Trump said he would never sign a bill like this into law again, Coulter quipped, “Yeah, because you’ll be impeached.”
A headline on Breitbart, the far-right website which is generally very supportive of Trump’s agenda, said, “RIP BORDER WALL 💀…”
And on the Drudge Report, another conservative news website generally supportive of the President, the banner headline read, “FAKE VETO.”
The flood of criticism did not stop there. Other far-right internet personalities, seething on Twitter, voiced similar frustrations with the spending package.
Jim Hoft, the founder of Gateway Pundit, a fringe far-right website that the president has shared stories from in the past, declared the move to sign the package into law “WEAK!” Hoft even went on to suggest that he had muted the sound while watching Trump’s bill signing, tweeting, “It was that bad.”
President Trump seemed to go a step further than he has gone in the past on the issue, saying that his administration would be suing “certain drug companies” for what they have done with the opioids.
Trump, speaking during an event on the omnibus government funding bill today, said that the suits would be brought in federal court.
“We will be suing certain drug companies for what they have done with the opioids and we will be bringing the suits at a federal level,” Trump said. “The level of drugs that are being put out there and the power of this addition is hard to believe.”
Trump said as recently as Thursday that his administration was preparing litigation against “some of these companies” that produce opioids.
He wasn’t clear on Thursday about whether the federal government would enter into lawsuits against opioid producers but left the door open to doing what other cities and states have already done.
“Opioids are a big problem,” Trump said. “We are going to be probably, we are developing potential ligation to be suing some of these companies. If we could only do a pain killer that is not so addictive.”
On Monday, Trump said his administration is “looking very seriously at bringing major litigation against some of these drug companies.” He added, “We’ll bring it at a federal level. Some states are already bringing it, but we’re thinking about bringing it at a very high federal level and we’ll do a job.”
In response, multiple opioid producers suffered sizable losses on the stock market.
President Donald Trump argued Friday that Democrats have stood in the way of recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program from gaining permanent legal status, while casting Republicans as would-be saviors.
“The Republicans are with you, they want to get your situation taken care of,” Trump said speaking directly to recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. “The Democrats fought us, they just fought every single inch of the way. They did not want DACA in this bill.”
The reality, of course, is much more complex. Democrats and Republicans in recent weeks have sought to negotiate a deal that would grant legal status for undocumented immigrants while also providing funding for Trump’s border wall. The two sides have been unable to reach a deal that could be included in the omnibus.
But Trump sought to use the political gridlock to his advantage, casting Republicans as the true defenders of the subset of undocumented immigrants – who are protected by a program that Trump ended.
“I do want the Hispanic community to know and DACA recipients to know that republicans are much more on your side than the Democrats who are using you for their purposes,” Trump said.
President Trump was asked about his veto threat as he exited the room, and he said it was the military funding gains that ultimately changed his mind.
“We looked at it, a veto. I looked very seriously at the veto. I was thinking about doing the veto,” Trump said. “But because of the incredible gains that we’ve been able to make for the military, that overrode any of our thinking.”
President Trump said he had “no choice” but to sign the bill because of the funds it provides to the military.
“We had no choice but to fund our military because we have to have by far the strongest military in the world,” Trump said. “And this will be by far the strongest military that we’ve ever had.”
The President, while stating he was disappointed in the spending bill – “nobody more disappointed than me because the number is so large” – acknowledged that the bill was a product of negotiations between Republicans and Democrats.
“We have to also know that there are a lot of strings pulling everybody in different directions,” he said.
President Trump said he is calling on Congress to give him a “line-item veto” for all government spending bills.
The Supreme Court has previously found that the line-item veto violated the Presentment Clause of the Constitution, which says the President does not have the power to unilaterally amend or repeal legislation (Clinton v. City of New York).
Trump also spoke about why the bill was so large, saying, “it became so big because we need to take care of our military,” as well as blaming Democrats.
President Trump returned to criticism he floated since the fight over Obamacare and called for the Senate to “get rid of the filibuster rule” and ” go to 51 votes.”
He said that was the only way to “have really sustained, continued success.”
Most senators oppose giving up the special Senate tool, which was designed to ensure the minority party has some say in the legislative process.
President Trump said he has signed the 2,232-page omnibus spending bill — but warns he will never do this again.
“There are a lot of things we shouldn’t have had in this bill but we were, in a sense, forced if we want to build our military, we were forced to have,” Trump said.
“There are some things we should have in the bill. But I say to Congress, I will never sign another bill like this again.”
President Trump says he has signed the spending bill, avoiding a shutdown. But he isn’t happy about it.
“Therefore, as a matter of national security, I’ve signed this omnibus budget bill. There are a lot of things I’m unhappy about in this bill,” Trump said.
President Trump, while making a statement about the spending bill, pointed to the large stack of papers (more than 2,000 sheets of paper, in fact) and called it a “ridiculous situation that took place over the last week.”
President Trump is making a statement about the spending bill any moment. In the meantime, his aides have set up the massive bill in the room where press is waiting.
Two sources say President Trump will sign the omnibus spending bill at the 1 p.m. ET event, after his earlier veto threat.
The President may take questions during the signing.
