Trump signs the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act at Fort Drum, New York, on August 13, 2018. Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images When President Donald Trump signed the $716 billion John S. McCain, Jr. National Defense Authorization Act into law on Monday, far too little coverage was devoted to the contents of that bill and far too much to Trump’s petty refusal during the signing ceremony to even mention the ailing senator after whom the bill is styled. The right-wing press and particularly neoconservatives were salivating over the bill, which provides for expanding the armed forces by over 15,000 soldiers, a 2.6 percent pay raise for those soldiers, and $7.6 billion for another 77 F-35 fighter jets of dubious utility, among other very expensive things. Trump used the ceremony to tout his plans for a Space Force; the bill does not provide for establishing an entire new branch of the armed forces, as the president wants, but does create a space command under U.S. Strategic Command. (Lawfare provides a detailed summary of the bill’s various provisions, for anyone who wants to get into the weeds of it.) The bill’s enormous price tag was not, however, the most distressing feature of Monday’s events. That would be the signing statement the White House issued after Trump signed the NDAA, in which the president informed Congress that he intends to ignore or override 51 sections of the bill that he sees as infringing upon his constitutional powers. The bill includes a number of provisions meant to inform or direct policy toward specific countries, many of which Trump rejected. These include a ban on funding “any activity that recognizes the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over Crimea” and restrictions on bilateral military-to-military cooperation with Russia. Trump’s signing statement announced that he would not abide by these provisions: a move sure to raise some eyebrows. The signing statement also balks at provisions related to the conflict in Yemen, in which the U.S. is supporting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates while they bomb children and cut deals with Al Qaeda. The Pentagon has been providing aerial refueling of planes and intelligence support to the Saudi-led coalition, and the Trump administration is facing growing pressure from Congress to explain whether we are aiding and abetting war crimes. To that end, the NDAA includes a provision that would require the secretary of Defense to either authorize that the coalition is making good-faith efforts to pursue a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, reduce risk to civilians, and alleviate the humanitarian situation; or cease assisting in this operation. Of course, our allies are doing none of the above. Other sections that the president intends to disregard call for the appointment of an officer to develop standards for tracking and reducing civilian casualties resulting from U.S. military operations, and limit the Pentagon’s authorization to reduce the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles we have deployed around the world and the number of active-duty military personnel stationed in South Korea. Trump also objected to a provision barring the appropriation of funds for closing or transferring detainees out of the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay. This he has no intention of doing, so here he is objecting on principle to Congress telling him what to do about Guantánamo. While his predecessor Barack Obama also objected to similar provisions in NDAAs during his presidency, he nonetheless abided by them. One puzzling and troubling aspect of Trump’s signing statement, as Fred Kaplan points out at Slate, is that many of the provisions it nixes are not policy directives at all, but rather requests for information, such as for the president to report whether he has enacted sanctions authorized in last year’s NDAA against individuals and entities who have contributed to Russia’s violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Congress also wants reports on North Korea’s missile program, Chinese military developments, U.S. counterterrorism operations, civilian casualties in Yemen, and the total number of U.S. soldiers currently deployed in foreign countries. Per his statement Monday night, Trump and his administration will give them none of this information, arguing that these provisions compel the president to reveal information protected by executive privilege, require him to receive certification from Congress prior to commencing certain military or diplomatic actions, or “purport to dictate the position of the United States in external military and foreign affairs”. These requirements, Trump contends, violate his powers as commander-in-chief. That’s one of several theories of constitutional law undergirding Trump’s signing statement, some of which have a bit of Supreme Court precedent behind them, but not much. The commander-in-chief objection was used extensively by George W. Bush, much less by Obama. So far, Trump has used signing statements in a manner mostly similar to how his predecessors used them. His idiosyncratic innovation has been in attaching them to nonbinding resolutions, such as the statement he issued after signing an anti-racism resolution in response to last year’s violent white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which was bizarrely equivocal on exactly what or whom he actually meant to condemn. How far Trump will go in defying Congress’s will vis-à-vis the defense bill remains to be seen, but really, it was inevitable that he would abuse the power of the signing statement, because that power is itself abusive. When Bush began regularly appending signing statements to legislation as an alternative to the line-item veto the Supreme Court had ruled unconstitutional (most notoriously to override a ban on torture enacted in 2005), constitutional scholars warned that this represented a dangerous expansion of executive powers. When Obama continued to employ them in this manner, his progressive critics rightly lambasted him for doing so, pointing out that even if he was using this power to good ends, the next guy wouldn’t. Sure enough, the next guy turned out to be Donald Trump. If the Democrats win majorities in the legislature this fall, they may well sue the president over signing statements like this one, especially if his administration really insists on withholding information from lawmakers to which they are clearly entitled. That’s one good reason why they are insisting on reviewing testimony Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh gave to Congress in 2006 about Bush’s signing statements and his role as White House staff secretary in producing them. Kavanaugh has more recently expressed the opinion that it is acceptable for presidents to disobey acts of Congress if they have a “reasonable” constitutional objection to them. If and when he is seated on the court, there is a good chance he will rule on this issue, and knowing what we do about how Trump thinks, the president likely believes his nominee will rule in his favor. Some of the targeted provisions in this year’s defense bill indicate that even Republican legislators recognize the dangers of letting this president exercise unchecked power in the diplomatic and military arenas. The brazen disregard for the separation of powers displayed in this signing statement should persuade them to finally take a stand against Trump, but at this point, there’s little reason to hope they will.<doc-sep>U.S. Navy Aviation Electronics Technician signals to the crew of an EA-18G Growler on the flight deck of aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. President Donald Trump approved a colossal defense policy bill Monday that authorizes a top-line budget of $717 billion to cover a litany of defense spending. Trump traveled to Fort Drum, home of the Army's 10th Mountain Division, in upstate New York to sign the bill, which was named in honor of former Vietnam prisoner of war Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is battling brain cancer. The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, includes $616.9 billion for the Pentagon's base budget, $69 billion for overseas contingency operations funding and $21.9 billion for nuclear weapons programs under the Energy Department. The NDAA is only half the process, since Congress must still pass a spending bill to fund specific priorities with the Defense Department. "The National Defense Authorization Act is the most significant investment in our military and our war fighters in modern history," Trump said Monday in front of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter. "We are going to strengthen our military like never ever before and that's what we did." Trump lauded the bill, saying it will give service members the "finest planes, and ships and tanks and missiles." The measure authorizes a 2.6 percent pay raise for troops — the largest in nearly a decade. It also delays the delivery of stealth fighter aircraft to Turkey and blunts Chinese investments by strengthening the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Here's a breakdown of some of the big-ticket items the Pentagon is authorized to buy.<doc-sep>BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Tuesday condemned measures targeting it in a new U.S. defense act, saying it exaggerated antagonism and that Beijing would take a close look at aspects that beef up the role of a U.S. panel that reviews foreign investment proposals. U.S. President Donald Trump holds up the National Defense Authorization Act after signing it in front of soldiers from the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York, U.S., August 13, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria China’s complaints about the act come as the world’s two biggest economies engage in an increasingly bitter fight over trade, levying tariffs on each others’ products. U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $716-billion defense policy act on Monday that authorizes military spending and waters down controls on U.S. government contracts with China’s ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd . The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, strengthens the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews proposals to determine if they threaten national security. That measure was seen as targeting China. China’s Commerce Ministry said it had noted the inclusion of CFIUS in the act and would “comprehensively assess the contents”, paying close attention to the impact on Chinese firms. “The U.S. side should objectively and fairly treat Chinese investors, and avoid CFIUS becoming an obstacle to investment cooperation between Chinese and U.S. firms,” the ministry said in a statement. Chinese and U.S. companies seek greater cooperation on investment, it added, urging the two countries’ governments to heed the voices of their companies, and provide a good environment and stable expectations. Monday’s legislation also calls “long-term strategic competition with China” a top priority for the United States, which should improve the defense capabilities of self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by China as a wayward province. In a separate statement, China’s foreign ministry said the United States passed the act despite China’s strong objections and it was dissatisfied with the “negative content related to China”. China urges the United States to abandon Cold War thinking and correctly and objectively view relations, and not implement the act’s negative clauses about China, so as to avoid harming cooperation, the ministry added. China’s Defense Ministry also weighed in, saying the act “exaggerated Sino-U.S. antagonism”, damaged trust between the two militaries and involved the most important and sensitive issue in bilateral ties, namely Taiwan. “We will never let any person, at any time or in any form split Taiwan off from China,” it added. In Taipei, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry thanked the United States for its consistent support. Taiwan would “continue to actively coordinate with the U.S. government to stably deepen the security partnership between Taiwan and the United States on a mutually beneficial basis”, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said. The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is the island’s strongest ally and sole foreign arms supplier. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is visiting the United States this month, stopping off first in Los Angeles and then in Houston on her way to and from Paraguay and Belize. China has complained to Washington about the visits.<doc-sep>
President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE signed into law Monday the $717 billion annual defense policy bill, the earliest in the year the bill has become law in more than four decades. “The National Defense Authorization Act is the most significant investment in our military and our warfighters in modern history, and I am very proud to be a big, big part of it,” Trump said before signing the bill. “It was not very hard. You know, I went to Congress, I said let’s do it, we got to do it. We’re going to strengthen our military like never, ever before, and that’s what we did,” he said. Trump signed the bill during a visit to Fort Drum, N.Y., where he was joined by Vice President Pence, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ADVERTISEMENT Several members of Congress were also in attendance, including Rep. Elise Stefanik Elise Marie StefanikGOP leaders face new calls to boot Greene Auschwitz Memorial calls Greene Holocaust comments a 'sad symptom of moral and intellectual decline' House Republican offers flowchart for Marjorie Taylor Greene MORE (R-N.Y.), who invited Trump to Fort Drum, and Rep. Martha McSally Martha Elizabeth McSallyRepublicans lose patience with Arizona election audit Ex-McSally aide pleads guilty to stealing over 0K in campaign funds Arizona state senator announces bid for Kirkpatrick's seat MORE (R-Ariz.), a House Armed Services Committee member and Air Force veteran who is running for the Senate. This year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorizes about $639 billion for the base budget of the Pentagon and defense programs of the Energy Department. It also allows for another $69 billion for a war fund known as the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account. It fulfills several of the administration’s priorities to bulk up the military, including adding 15,600 troops across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. The bill also follows the administration’s request for 77 F-35 fighter jets and goes beyond the administration’s request for Navy ships, authorizing a total of 13 new vessels. “We will replace aging tanks, aging planes and ships with the most advanced and lethal technology ever developed, and hopefully we’ll be so strong we’ll never have to use them,” Trump said. The bill also gives troops a 2.6 percent pay raise, the highest in nine years. This year’s NDAA is named for Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain John Sidney McCainHannity tells Santorum he helped prevent Joy Reid from being fired Richard Hanania sees Trump as 2024 GOP nominee Why Republican politicians are sticking with Trump MORE (R-Ariz.), who was unable to shepherd the bill through Congress this year as he remains at home receiving treatment for brain cancer. Trump and McCain have clashed frequently in the past over issues ranging from Trump’s rapprochement with Russia to McCain’s no vote on last year’s healthcare bill. During the presidential campaign, Trump also said McCain was not a war hero for being a prisoner of war in Vietnam. On Monday, Trump made no mention of the bill’s namesake. In the bill signed Monday, the result of breakneck House-Senate negotiations, Congress avoided a possible fight with Trump over a provision related to Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE. The original Senate-passed version of the NDAA included a provision that would have blocked Trump’s plan to save ZTE, which had been slapped with penalties that prevented it from buying U.S. technology after admitting to violating sanctions on Iran and North Korea. The White House has said it “strongly” opposed the provision, but did not issue a veto threat over it. Ultimately, though, bipartisan negotiators stripped the Senate provision from the bill, citing a $1 billion cost that would have had to be made up by cutting mandatory spending such as troop’s health care or retirement benefits. Instead, the final bill aligns with the initial House-passed version. It bans the government from contracting with ZTE and Huawei, another Chinese telecommunications company, or companies that do business with them.