Trump said he had signed the bill, despite his qualms on some issues, because a $60 billion increase in military spending had convinced him it was a worthwhile compromise.
ADVERTISEMENTUS President Donald Trump signed Congress' newly passed $1.3 trillion spending bill on Friday, ending several hours of confusion spurred by a tweeted veto threat that raised the specter of a government shutdown.
Trump said he had signed the bill, despite his qualms on some issues, because a $60 billion increase in military spending had convinced him it was a worthwhile compromise.
"But I say to Congress I will never sign another bill like this again," he told reporters. "I'm not going to do it again."
White House and Capitol Hill aides had been left scrambling earlier in the day after Trump criticised the six-month spending bill, despite prior assurances from the administration that he would sign it ahead of a looming midnight deadline.
"I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded," Trump wrote on Twitter at 9 a.m. EDT.
Trump then huddled with his senior advisers to discuss a potential veto and was advised against it, with the advisers saying he would be blamed for a shutdown and that discussions continue on the issues he is concerned about, one aide said.
By early afternoon, he appeared before reporters in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House to announce he had signed the measure.
"There are a lot of things I'm unhappy about in this bill," he said, patting the more than 2,000 pages of the legislation stacked on a purple box beside him.
It was unclear how seriously Republican leaders took Trump's shutdown threat. Neither Speaker Paul Ryan nor Senate Leader Mitch McConnell commented publicly on it.
Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated Senate and House of Representatives had already left Washington for a scheduled two-week spring recess, and Trump himself was scheduled on Friday to fly to Florida for a weekend at his private resort.