President Trump just issued the first two vetoes of his second term, rejecting a pair of bipartisan bills, and immediately faced intense political pushback from within his own party, specifically from Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), as per The Hill. Vetoes are generally pretty rare, especially when the president’s own party holds control of both the House and the Senate.
Both of these rejected bills had sailed through Congress using voice votes or unanimous consent, which usually means the legislation is considered completely noncontroversial. However, Representative Boebert is clearly ready to turn this into an all-out political war, especially after the president blocked a critical water project in her home state.
The Colorado representative strongly protested the veto of the bill that would have funded the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a project designed to deliver water to residents in southeastern Colorado. “President Trump decided to veto a completely non-controversial, bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously,” Boebert stated. She followed up with a clear warning: “If this administration wants to make its legacy blocking projects that deliver water to rural Americans; that’s on them.”
It seems that Boebert thinks this veto might be driven by more than just policy disagreements
She immediately suggested that the veto could be an act of political retaliation. She added that she really hopes “this veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for calling out corruption and demanding accountability.” Just recently, Boebert was among the lawmakers who pushed hard for a vote to release the infamous Epstein files, so you can see where she’s drawing the connection. She finished her public response by posting a defiant message on X, “this isn’t over.”
The White House, however, offered a much simpler and more direct reason for torpedoing the Colorado water bill: money. In the official veto message, the administration cited the project’s massive cost, arguing that local water projects should be paid for by the localities that use them, not forced onto federal taxpayers.
President Trump’s veto message read: “H.R. 131 would continue the failed policies of the past by forcing Federal taxpayers to bear even more of the massive costs of a local water project, a local water project that, as initially conceived, was supposed to be paid for by the localities using it.” The president stressed that his administration is committed to preventing Americans from funding what he called “expensive and unreliable policies,” which is proven wrong by Rand Paul’s recent report.
The second bill President Trump vetoed was equally bipartisan but dealt with a very different issue: granting the Miccosukee Tribe the authority to manage a specific part of the Florida Everglades. The White House stated that the tribe has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people voted for. This is a big deal, especially since the tribe has challenged the administration’s controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in the Sunshine State.
The president made it clear that he’s “committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding projects for special interests, especially those that are unaligned with my Administration’s policy of removing violent criminal illegal aliens from the country.”
Published: Dec 31, 2025 06:00 pm