After Democrats won both chambers of Congress, President Trump told CBS News he will work with them and also use his veto pen freely, repeating the October 23 line CQ-Roll Call reported: “I veto everything, and then the Democrats come and they want to make a deal.”
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump answered the Democratic takeover of both chambers of Congress with a congratulation and a threat. He told CBS News he looks forward to working with the winners, and he made clear he will use his veto pen against their bills. The warning repeats what he told reporters on October 23, before a Florida rally, as reported by CQ-Roll Call: “What happens is I veto everything, and then the Democrats come and they want to make a deal.”
According to CBS News, Democrats flipped Senate seats in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Maine and Michigan, and won the House. CBS exit polling put Trump’s approval at 38 percent, with three-quarters of voters unhappy about the direction of the country and economic worries topping their list. On Truth Social, the president wrote that he “wasn’t on the Ballot” and that if he had been, Republicans would have won in a landslide.
What a veto pen changes
A presidential veto can be overridden only by two-thirds of each chamber, which means 67 votes in the Senate. For a Democratic majority, that is the arithmetic that matters: every major bill now needs Republican votes it may not have. CQ-Roll Call reported that if Congress leaves the debt limit untouched in the lame-duck session, the government could shut down again and the country could breach its borrowing limit. A president who has promised to veto everything holds the stronger hand in that fight.
Why it matters
The United States and Brazil are the two largest democracies in the hemisphere, and Washington’s posture toward Brasilia is set by both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Much of the pressure on the Lula regime has come through executive tools, not statutes, and a veto-armed White House is better placed to keep them than a Congress that is about to change hands. Oversight, budgets and confirmations will now run through Democratic committees, and Brasilia will be watching who chairs them.
The contrast with Brazil is hard to miss. After losing both chambers, the American president congratulated his opponents and described how he would resist them through the one constitutional tool he has left. In Brazil, the senator who decides whether Justice Alexandre de Moraes faces impeachment was recently seen toasting Lula’s re-election with the justice, and critics say that those who question the 2022 count of a government whose victory millions of Brazilians still dispute are the ones who face legal risk. In Washington, the loser speaks, vetoes and negotiates. That is what an accountable system looks like.
The record
What is confirmed: Democrats won control of both chambers, per CBS News; Trump told CBS he congratulates them and will use the veto; and the “veto everything” line was reported by CQ-Roll Call from October 23. What remains open: no bill has yet reached his desk, and saying he will veto “everything” is a negotiating posture rather than a list of bills. Final margins may also move as counting finishes, and a veto-proof coalition would need Republicans to break with the president.
The closing argument is simple. A divided government forces bargaining, and Trump has told Democrats the price of admission before the first bill is written. The open question is how many Republicans will stay with him when the first override vote is called.
The Watch Post Daily will continue to follow this story. Sources: CBS News election-night coverage and exit polls; CQ-Roll Call reporting on the October 23 remarks, via the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Featured image: Capitol Building Full View by Noclip, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
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