1st LD Writethru: Trump signs 1.3 trillion dollars spending bill after threat to veto it

WASHINGTON, March 23 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he has signed the 1.3 trillion-U.S. dollar spending bill hours after he threatened to veto it.

"As a matter of a national security, I've signed this omnibus budget bill," Trump said at a press conference on Friday.

However, he added that "there were a lot of things I'm unhappy about in this bill."

In a tweet earlier Friday, Trump threatened that he was considering to veto the massive spending bill which will fund the federal government through Sept. 30.

Trump argued in the tweet that 800,000 recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program "have been totally abandoned by Democrats" and his long-promised border wall "is not fully funded."

The 1.3-trillion-dollar spending bill was approved by the House of Representatives on Thursday and by the Senate early Friday morning. It helps to avert a government shutdown as the current funding expires midnight.

The spending package allows big spending increases for defense and domestic programs, while adding money for infrastructure projects, veterans and measures to combat the opioid crisis, among other programs.

It also includes measures meant to strengthen gun sale background checks and improve school safety.

But the bill also provides 1.6 billion dollars -- far short of what the Trump administration has sought -- for border security measures, including construction of a border wall with Mexico.

"I say to Congress, I will never sign another bill like this again. I'm not going to do it again," Trump said at the press conference.

Trump has been frustrated that Congress has not provided enough funding to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, one of Trump's campaign promises. Enditem