Republican-led US Senate overrides Trump veto for first time

The US Congress on Friday dealt outgoing President Donald Trump a humiliating blow in his last days in office after the Senate voted overwhelmingly to override his veto of a defense spending bill.

The US Senate on Friday easily secured the two-thirds majority needed to override  Trump’s veto of a bill on defense spending, the first time it has done so in the outgoing president’s nearly four years in office.

The Senate, led by Trump’s Republicans, followed the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives’ lead on Monday, passing the measure with a vote of 81-13, Reuters reported.

The Senate vote during a rare New Year’s Day session is a humiliating blow for Trump, who has only 20 days to go before leaving office.

Under US law, a presidential veto can be overridden if the bill in question is supported by a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress.

Reuters reported that Trump has been at odds with his fellow Republican lawmakers since he lost re-election in November after most of them failed to back his unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud or support his call for bigger COVID-19 relief payments.