On Thursday, October 22, 2015, President Barack Obama signed a veto message of the National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA establishes budgets and policies for the Defense Department, and in the last 53 years it has only been vetoed four times. Coverage of the veto signing and its significance has been rather dismal despite Obama summoning the White House press for a public signing. ABC and NBC aired nothing. Here are the brief mentions the other networks offered on the funding for our troops and their salaries, as well as benefits and training.
At CBS This Morning on Thursday, Charlie Rose mentioned NDAA briefly before the event: “President Obama’s rare planned veto of the Pentagon budget bill. It is part of a larger showdown with Congress over domestic spending.” Thursday night's PBS News Hour featured similar minimal coverage of the public veto ceremony, saying the President “took issue with increasing war spending by going around budget caps set by the so-called sequester.” They played the President’s statement during the veto:
I have repeatedly called on Congress to eliminate the sequester and make sure that we are providing certainty to our military, so they can do out-year planning, ensure military readiness, ensure our troops are getting what they need. This bill instead resorts to gimmicks that does not allow the Pentagon to do what it needs to do.
Finally, on Friday morning, CNN New Day gave a small amount of time to the subject, repeating the same message aired on Thursday’s CBS This Morning. “President Obama vetoing a $612 billion defense authorization bill in a public Oval Office ceremony, accusing congressional Republicans of spending gimmicks. The measure would have also made it more difficult for the president to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”
Between the three shows, a total of 1 minute and 15 seconds was spent discussing NDAA.
Meanwhile, Justin Johnson at Real Clear Defense offered a historical analysis of the four other times NDAA has been vetoed, and why they were related to defense policy decisions. Johnson notes that the President’s reasoning for the veto is “that Mr. Obama will not fix defense without fixing non-defense spending.”
While Fox News devoted several segments to the veto on Thursday, MSNBC's prime-time show transcripts showed nothing. Fox host Neil Cavuto brought up NDAA on two occasions soon after Thursday’s veto. Cavuto spent well more time on NDAA than the other networks and discussed the fact that “Republicans are in the embarrassing position then of being lectured by a president who does like to spend about spending. That's weird.”
His second guest, Sen. Lindsay Graham, responded: "Well, what is weird is that -- for a commander in chief to veto a bill to provide more also assets to the troops he's in charge of. What`s weird is for a commander in chief to veto a defense bill because it spends too much on defense. That is pretty weird to me, when a country is at war and the world is on fire and our military is in decline, that the commander in chief vetoes a bill to help the military. That's pretty weird."
See the relevant transcript below
CBS This Morning
CHARLIE ROSE: Time to show you some of this morning`s headlines. USA Today reports on President Obama`s rare planned veto of the Pentagon budget bill. It is part of a larger showdown with Congress over domestic spending. The six-hundred-and-twelve-billion-dollar measure covers defense spending. The White House says the President will issue a veto today because it uses a funding gimmick. Officials also say will complicate the President`s pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.CNN New Day
ALISYN CAMEROTA: A rare presidential veto captured on camera. President Obama vetoing a $612 billion defense authorization bill in a public Oval Office ceremony, accusing congressional Republicans of spending gimmicks. The measure would have also made it more difficult for the president to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Republicans say they will try to override this veto.PBS News Hour
GWEN IFILL: President Obama vetoed a sweeping $600 billion defense bill today. In an Oval Office ceremony, he took issue with increasing war spending by going around budget caps set by the so called sequester.BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States: I have repeatedly called on Congress to eliminate the sequester and make sure that we are providing certainty to our military, so they can do out year planning, ensure military readiness, ensure our troops are getting what they need. This bill instead resorts to gimmicks that does not allow the Pentagon to do what it needs to do.
GWEN IFILL: Republicans are considered unlikely to muster the votes needed to override the veto.
Your World with Neil Cavuto
NEIL CAVUTO: The president tosses it back and then says, it`s on you, Congress, to stick to these backup spending cuts that you agreed to. He is lecturing Republicans on spending. That`s sort of got to be a double blow to Republicans, doesn`t it?SENATOR LINDSAY GRAHAM: In a bipartisan fashion, we agreed to increase defense spending because we`re gutting our military. We are on track to have the smallest army since 1940, 420,000 people, the smallest Navy since 1915. Congress in a bipartisan fashion put more money into the military budget. So the commander in chief vetoes a pay raise for the troops, equipment for them that is more modern than they have today, better training, better benefits for their family, because he`s worried about domestic discretionary spending, and he vetoed the defense bill because we didn`t spend more on domestic programs. What a bad day for the military.
CAVUTO: Yes, but those backup sequestration cuts, Senator, were agreed to by both parties. Whatever your views on the military, both parties agreed to it.
GRAHAM: Not by me.
CAVUTO: All right, fine.
GRAHAM: Yes.
CAVUTO: I`m just saying, though, that the Republicans are in the embarrassing position then of being lectured by a president who does like to spend about spending. That`s weird.
GRAHAM: Yes. Well, what is weird is that -- for a commander in chief to veto a bill to provide more also assets to the troops he`s in charge of. What`s weird is for a commander in chief to veto a defense bill because it spends too much on defense. That is pretty weird to me, when a country is at war and the world is on fire and our military is in decline, that the commander in chief vetoes a bill to help the military. That`s pretty weird. And it`s really weird to me that a secretary of state would sit on the sidelines and watch somebody lie about what happened to their people and feel no need to correct the record. That`s not just weird. That`s unacceptable.
