McConnell: I Hope Trump Doesn’t Veto NDAA over Base Name Issue

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Daily Briefing,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that he hopes President Trump will not veto the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which the president has threatened to do, over the issue of base names. McConnell stated that the bill includes pay raises for members of the military, and “could lead to changing the names of some of these military bases.” But is “quite different from trying to airbrush the Capitol of every statue.”

McConnell said, “I would hope the president really wouldn’t veto the bill over this issue. There’s, in the bill, a requirement, I think of a three-year study about changing the names. To me, this is quite different from trying to airbrush the Capitol of every statue. The way the statues in the Capitol work, each state picks two. You can trade them out, at any time, and some states are doing that, as we speak. But I hope the president would reconsider vetoing the entire defense bill, which includes pay raises for our troops, over a provision in there that could lead to changing the names of some of these military bases.”

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