Flashback: Trump in 2018 on massive spending bill 'nobody read': 'I will never sign another bill like this'

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Trump slams $900B stimulus bill, demands $2K check to Americans

President Trump demands increase in payments to Americans; reaction from Fox News contributor Brian Brenberg

President Trump on Tuesday blasted the bipartisan omnibus spending bill passed by Congress that wrapped up COVID relief in it, calling for larger stimulus checks and arguing no one in Congress had read the bill.

The face-off is reminiscent of 2018, when Trump threatened to veto an omnibus bill "nobody read." He ultimately ended up not vetoing but promised at the time never to sign such legislation again. 

In 2018, he said he signed the legislation for the military and national security.

"It's not right and it's very bad for our country," he said.

"There are a lot of things that I’m unhappy about in this bill. There are a lot of things that we shouldn’t have had in this bill, but we were, in a sense, forced -- if we want to build our military -- we were forced to have. There are some things that we should have in the bill," Trump said at the time. 

"But I say to Congress: I will never sign another bill like this again. I’m not going to do it again. Nobody read it. It’s only hours old. Some people don’t even know what is in -- $1.3 trillion -- it’s the second-largest ever."

TRUMP PUTS GOP ON ITS HEELS WITH 11TH-HOUR STIMULUS DEMANDS

To prevent such a situation from happening again, Trump called on Congress to offer him a line-item veto, which would allow him to decline specific provisions of the bill without nixing the entire package. 

He also called on the Senate to end the filibuster, a campaign in the current day led by liberal Democrats should they win back the Senate after the Georgia races. 

"They must end the filibuster rule and get down to work," Trump said of the Senate at the time. "We have to get a lot of great legislation approved. And without the filibuster rule, it will happen just like magic." 

Flash forward to the final days of 2020, Trump posted a video to Twitter on Tuesday demanding lawmakers amend the legislation to bump up stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000 for individuals -- while also insisting that "wasteful and unnecessary" items be cut from the year-end spending package that was attached to the pandemic aid.

Trump’s 11th-hour stimulus demands could send delicate negotiations into a tailspin after Congress spent months at an impasse over coronavirus relief. 

MCCONNELL SILENT AFTER TRUMP THREATENS TO BLOCK CORONAVIRUS, GOVERNMENT FUNDING PACKAGE 

"I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000, or $4,000 for a couple," Trump said in his Twitter video. "I'm also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation, and to send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a package, and maybe that administration will be me."

That controversial spending, including foreign aid for several countries that the president listed on Tuesday, is similar to aid the president has approved repeatedly throughout his term.

The year-end funding package, often referred to as an omnibus, was combined with the coronavirus stimulus bill as Congress raced to get out of Washington, D.C., for Christmas. The funding package was previously negotiated in Congress, while lawmakers finally came to an agreement on the coronavirus aid over the weekend. Both would have had to pass anyway, but combining them allowed it to be done in one vote.

Some lawmakers have voiced process objections over the fact the two were combined and derisively termed the monstrous legislation the "coronabus." Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said it "should have been divided into well over 20 bills."

Trump again lamented that nobody had read the nearly 6,000-page bill, which had only been finalized hours before the vote. 

Said Trump: "For example, among the more than 5,000 pages in this bill, which nobody in Congress has read because of its length and complexity -- it's called the COVID relief bill, but it has almost nothing to do with COVID."

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Trump did not directly threaten to veto the legislation but could utilize a rare pocket veto that could put the government at risk of shutting down after it runs out of funding next week.