Trump issues first vetoes of second term, including bipartisan Colorado water bill, prompting accusations of ‘partisan games’

President Donald Trump vetoed the first bills of his second term, including a bipartisan bill aimed at providing funding for a water infrastructure project in Colorado, a measure that passed unanimously in the House and Senate.

The Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act was created to provide clean water to rural areas of Colorado.

“Enough is enough. My administration is committed to stopping American taxpayers from funding costly and unreliable policies,” Trump wrote in a veto letter sent to Congress. “Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to the nation’s economic growth and fiscal health.”

Trump too banned the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendment Act, a bipartisan bill which aimed in part to optimize water flow in part of Everglades National Park designated for the Miccosukee Native American Tribe and incorporate Camp Osceola into the Miccosukee Reserve Area to improve the tribe’s governance structure.

“[D]Despite seeking funding and special treatment from the Federal Government, the Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct the reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected,” Trump wrote in his veto. “My administration is committed to preventing “Let American taxpayers fund projects for special interests, especially those that are not aligned with my Administration’s policy of expelling violent illegal criminal aliens from the country.”

The Miccosukee tribe was part of the opposition to the construction of the migrant detention center called “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Everglades.

Trump’s veto of the bipartisan bill supporting the Colorado project comes at a time when he has troubled relations with some of the state’s political leaders.

The bill was co-sponsored by Republican House Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who defied the Trump administration by signing the petition to fire Epstein that forced a vote on a measure to force the Justice Department to release the files. The pipeline would provide water to residents of boebert district.

“This is not over,” Boebert saying on social media on Tuesday, in response to the White House veto announcement.

Democrats are also responding to the bill’s veto, with Colorado Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper criticizing Trump on social media, both accusing him of playing partisan politics.

“Trump just vetoed my unanimously passed Arkansas Valley pipeline bill to provide clean, affordable water to Southeast Colorado,” Bennet saying. “This is not governing. It is a revenge tour.”

“Donald Trump is playing partisan games and punishing Colorado causing rural communities to suffer without clean water,” Hickenlooper said. sayingand added that Congress should override Trump’s veto.

Since the bill passed both chambers unanimously, Congress could override Trump’s veto. Doing so would require passing the measure by a two-thirds vote in both chambers. Triumph vetoed ten bills in total during his first administration, only one of which, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, was repealed by Congress.

Trump’s veto also comes two weeks after he attacked Colorado Gov. Jared Polis for refusing to release former Mesa County, Colorado, Clerk Tina Peters from prison after she received a presidential pardon.

Peters was convicted on state charges for a scheme to disrupt voting systems fueled by false claims about the 2020 election. Trump’s pardon power does not extend to state crimes.

“The poorly run state of Colorado, with a governor who is incompetent and, frankly, with a governor who will not let our wonderful Tina get out of a jail, a high-intensity jail because she caught people cheating in an election and they said she was cheating,” Trump said on December 15.

He added: “She wasn’t cheating. She went and saw one of the election scams that were going on. And for doing that, she was jailed for nine years.”