President Trump said Thursday that he plans to veto much of what the new Democratic Congress sends him, and he predicted Democrats will eventually come to him ready to make deals on health care and drug prices.
“I’m going to be vetoing a lot of things that they’re going to send me initially that are bad for the country,” Trump told sports commentator Stephen A. Smith in an interview at the White House. “And I think eventually they’re going to call and they’re going to say, ‘Let’s make a deal,’ and we’ll be able to make deals on healthcare, on drug prices.”
It is the clearest answer yet to what a Republican president does with two years left and a Democratic Congress. He plans to hold the line first and negotiate from strength.
The veto pen
Trump said the same thing in a separate interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt released the same day. “We have a very powerful power, and that’s the power of veto,” he said, according to the Roll Call Factba.se transcript. He added that he intends to “use it a lot.”
The math is on his side. Overriding a veto takes a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate, and Just the News reported that Democrats will not have a big enough majority in either chamber to do it. Chuck Schumer put Senate Democrats at “55 seats and counting” on X, well short of the 67 votes needed.
Where a deal could come
The President pointed to prescription drugs as an area where he has already delivered. “We were screwed by the entire world, and now we pay the lowest drug prices in the entire world,” he told Smith.
Just the News reported that his “Most Favored Nation” agreements now cover roughly 80% of commonly dispensed pharmacy drugs and that the administration has signed such agreements with 26 drug companies. The savings to taxpayers are expected to reach $600 billion, the outlet reported. Trump told Smith he won those price cuts by threatening other countries with heavy tariffs.
He also defended the Iran campaign, while admitting it cost his party at the polls. “I feel I had to do what I did in Iran. I think, historically, that’s going to be a great decision,” he said. “It’s tougher, politically; I knew that.”
On the Democrats themselves, he was blunt. “I think the Democrats are crazy. There’s something wrong with them,” he said.
The bottom line
The midterms handed Democrats the gavels, but they did not hand them the presidency. A veto is the tool the Constitution gives a president for exactly this situation, and Trump is right to tell Democrats in advance that he will use it on bills that raise taxes, expand government or weaken the border.
Some Republicans worry about two years of gridlock. I see it differently. Every bad bill stopped at the President’s desk is a law that never touches our paychecks, our property or our families, and that is a real accomplishment for a party in the minority in Congress.
The opening for deals is real, too. Lower drug prices and more affordable health care are things conservatives can support when they come through competition and tough bargaining rather than bigger government. If Democrats want results, the path runs through the Oval Office, and the President has now told them so plainly.