--- title: Donald Trump Signs Spending Bill, Averting Shutdown description: President Donald Trump held a news conference where announced he had signed a $1.3 trillion spending bill, averting a government shutdown. canonical: https://time.com/5212990/donald-trump-signs-spending-bill-shutdown-veto/ author: Alana Abramson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-03-23T17:48:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T21:00:48.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Signs Spending Bill — But Isn't Happy About It og:description: He called the bill a "ridiculous situation" og:url: https://time.com/5212990/donald-trump-signs-spending-bill-shutdown-veto/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt638f406cdfeb981e/69892bcadb298796de25f329/gettyimages-936678880.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: President Trump And First Lady Host Greek Independence Day Celebration og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Signs Spending Bill — But Isn't Happy About It twitter:description: He called the bill a "ridiculous situation" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt638f406cdfeb981e/69892bcadb298796de25f329/gettyimages-936678880.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Averts Government Shutdown and Signs $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill – Despite Empty Veto Threat > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=95032721-67c4-4597-9b23-70ed18bdb5e2&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: President Trump Averts Government Shutdown and Signs $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill – Despite Empty Veto Threat [Watch (HLS stream): President Trump Averts Government Shutdown and Signs $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill – Despite Empty Veto Threat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/vI7y1stb.m3u8) (1:20)  _Published 2018-03-23. President Donald Trump held a news conference Friday where announced he had signed a $1.3 trillion spending bill, just hours after he said he would veto it — but he openly expressed his disapproval, saying he only signed it at as a matter of security_  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Updated: Dec 12, 2023 9:00 PM UTCPublished: Mar 23, 2018 5:48 PM UTC  by [Alana Abramson](https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/)  ## Alana Abramson Updated: Dec 12, 2023 9:00 PM UTCPublished: Mar 23, 2018 5:48 PM UTC Just hours after President Trump threatened to veto a spending bill that would have shut down the government one day after Congress left for vacation, President Donald Trump held an impromptu news conference to announce that he would, in fact, sign the bill – but reluctantly. Calling the $1.3 trillion spending bill it a “ridiculous situation that took place over the last week,” Trump said he was only signing it as a matter of national security. “I say to Congress: I will never sign another bill like this again,” Trump said at a news conference on Friday. “Nobody read it. Its only hours old.” The bill funds the government for the next six months, and [includes](http://time.com/5210780/congress-omnibus-border-security-wall-donald-trump/) $1.6 billion in funding for border security, a key component of Trump’s legislative agenda. But Trump had[ tweeted](http://time.com/5212465/donald-trump-veto-mexic-daca-omnibus/) Friday morning that he was considering a veto of the bill, which lawmakers had approved on Thursday, because it did not include a solution for the recipients of the DACA program, and money for a border wall. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/977166887493799936) The tweet contradicted what members of his administration had said he would do. “Is the President going to sign the bill? The answer is yes,” Mick Mulvaney, the Director of Office Management and Budget**.** Trump vetoing the bill after Congress had approved it would have likely spurred a government shutdown, since funding expires at midnight on Friday and the majority of lawmakers had left the Capitol for a two-week recess. Trump called on Congress to give him a line item veto for spending bills, and, as he has before, called for the removal of the filibuster, a rule requires 60 votes to pass legislation in the U.S. Senate. He lamented the sentiments from his early morning tweet that the bill did not include a solution for DACA recipients. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/977221676697079808) Trump had announced the news conference at 12:32 p.m. Eastern Time on Twitter, less than a half hour before the event was supposed to occur. The White House sent out updated guidance less than 10 minutes after the tweet stating that the press briefing was being replaced by a “press availability” from the President. At the beginning of the news conference, he disparaged the bill multiple times. “You tell me — who can read that quickly?” he said, presumably referring to the fact that the bill was over 2,000 pages. Trump told reporters after the press conference that he was “thinking about doing the veto” but ultimately decided against it because of the support for the military. ## Transcript As a matter of national security I've signed omnibus budget bill. There are a lot of things I'm unhappy about in this bill. There are a lot of things that 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. There are some things that we should have in the bill. But I say to Congress I will never sign another bill like this again. I'm not going to do it again. Nobody read it, it's only hours old, some people don't even know what 1. 3 trillion dollars, it's the second largest ever. President Obama signed one that was actually larger. Which I'm sure he wasn't too happy with either. But in this case it became so big because we need to take care of our military, and because the Democrats who don't belive in that add things that they wanted in order to get their votes. We look at the beetle, I look very seriously at The veto. I was thinking about doing the veto but because of the incredible gains that we've been able to make for the military, that overrode any of our thinking. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5212990/donald-trump-signs-spending-bill-shutdown-veto/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5212990/donald-trump-signs-spending-bill-shutdown-veto/"},"headline":"President Trump Averts Government Shutdown and Signs $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill – Despite Empty Veto Threat","datePublished":"2018-03-23T17:48:52.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-12T21:00:48.000Z","description":"President Donald Trump held a news conference where announced he had signed a $1.3 trillion spending bill, averting a government shutdown.","url":"https://time.com/5212990/donald-trump-signs-spending-bill-shutdown-veto/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt638f406cdfeb981e/69892bcadb298796de25f329/gettyimages-936678880.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Abramson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-abramson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt638f406cdfeb981e/69892bcadb298796de25f329/gettyimages-936678880.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Trump And First Lady Host Greek Independence Day Celebration","caption":"President Trump And First Lady Host Greek Independence Day Celebration","creditText":"Mark Wilson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5212990/donald-trump-signs-spending-bill-shutdown-veto/","name":"President Trump Averts Government Shutdown and Signs $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill – Despite Empty Veto Threat"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"President Trump Averts Government Shutdown and Signs $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill – Despite Empty Veto Threat","description":"President Donald Trump held a news conference Friday where announced he had signed a $1.3 trillion spending bill, just hours after he said he would veto it — but he openly expressed his disapproval, saying he only signed it at as a matter of security","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/vI7y1stb/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-03-23T18:13:21.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/vI7y1stb.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5212990/donald-trump-signs-spending-bill-shutdown-veto/","duration":"PT1M20S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5212990/donald-trump-signs-spending-bill-shutdown-veto/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```