Trump threatens to veto military spending bill over Confederate base names, putting Senate GOP in a fix

President Trump formally threatened to veto a $740 billion military spending bill Tuesday because it requires the Pentagon to rename 10 military bases named after Confederate generals, among other objections. The White House did not mention the Confederacy in the veto threat, but said the version of the bill passed by the House a few hours later, with a veto-proof 295-125 majority, is "part of a sustained effort" to "rewrite history and to displace the enduring legacy of the American Revolution with an ever-shifting standard of conduct."

The effort to rename military bases has bipartisan support — 108 House Republicans voted for the bill — and it's fine with Pentagon leaders. But the Senate has not yet passed its version of the spending bill, which orders the bases renamed within three years, not one year like the House's version. Republican leaders have not yet announced if they will allow votes on a proposal by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to strip the renaming mandate or another from Senate Democrats to shorten the time frame to one year.

Trump also objected to a measure in the House bill that would prevent the president from unilaterally redirect military service members, specifically barring Trump from carrying out his plan to pull 9,500 troops from Germany without proving to Congress it wouldn't harm U.S. national security. A similar proposal in the Senate is sponsored by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and co-sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-.S.C.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). A third measure in the veto threat would require federal agents deployed in the U.S. to display their branch insignia and give governors or equivalent political leaders in states or territories the power to refuse National Guard deployments for certain operations.

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Presidents not infrequently threaten to veto legislation at this stage in the negotiations, The Washington Post reports, though this veto threat stands out because it is at odds with the policy goals of the president's own party.