Trump calls spending bill a ‘disaster’: ‘Every single Republican should vote no’ 

Former President Trump on Thursday called on every single Republican senator to vote “no” on a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package.

“Every single Republican should vote no on the ludicrous, unacceptable $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill. It’s a disaster for our country and it also happens to be a disaster for the Republican Party, because they could stop it,” he said in a video posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.  

He accused President Biden and the “radical Democrats” of trying to “ram through this monstrosity in the dark of night when no one has even had a chance to read its over 4,000 pages.” 

He said it was packed with “left-wing disasters” and “special-interest sellouts.” 

Trump said it provides $1.9 billion for border management to process migrants entering the country but argued “it incredibly prohibits those funds from ever being used for border security.” 

He was referring to language in the omnibus that steers border management funds to non-detention management requirements and barring the use of money to improve border patrol processing. 

The Senate is expected to pass the legislation early Thursday, with a large block of GOP votes. 

Twenty-one Republican senators voted to proceed to the bill earlier in the week.  

Trump took another shot at Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), whom he regularly criticizes. 

He argued that the Senate GOP leader should block the omnibus to give the incoming House Republican majority an opportunity to negotiate a spending package that better reflects conservative priorities in 2023. 

“Mitch McConnell, who is an absolute disaster by the way, must not be allowed to waste this golden opportunity. He’s more of a Democrat than a Republican. What he’s doing to this party is incredible,” Trump said.  

Trump regularly criticizes McConnell for working on bipartisan must-pass bills, such as a proposal in the fall of 2021 to allow legislation to raise the debt limit to circumvent a 60-vote threshold so that only Democrats would vote to raise the nation’s borrowing authority. 

Trump’s salvo against McConnell is the latest in his long-running feud with the GOP leader since McConnell denounced the former president on the Senate floor for motivating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

McConnell made it clear again earlier this week that he thought Trump was at fault for the attack in a failed attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.  

“The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day,” McConnell said Monday after the House Jan. 6 select committee recommended the Justice Department investigate Trump on four potential criminal charges. 

—Updated at 2:02 p.m.