--- 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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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  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  U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests during a Greek Independence Day celebration in the East Room of the White House, on March 22, 2018 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests during a Greek Independence Day celebration in the East Room of the White House, on March 22, 2018 in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson—Getty Images  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. ```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"}}]}] ```