What do you mean there was “no upside for him to sign it?”
Our extremely depleted military will be rebuilt and our servicemen and women will be getting a much-deserved and overdue pay raise.
Also, something I haven’t seen mentioned much is that the Palestinian Authority had their US aid to “play nice” cut off the moment he signed the bill.
I find it astonishing how some conservatives are saying that “Trump betrayed us,” when they know how much he reveres our military and has continuously said that they were his first priority.
Fair question, I did not explain what I meant in my previous post.
By signing the bill, Trump is now perceived to agree with the bill (and its spending priorities), and makes himself look foolish in light of his post about a veto threat just prior to signing it.
He should have vetoed the bill and immediately go on the offensive by blaming the congress for endangering the troops, then demand for a clean spending bill just for the military, while the other points such as eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood, fulling funding the border wall, etc get worked out.
In all likelihood, the congress would have overridden his veto anyway, but it would have passed without Trump's approval, thus getting Trump off the hook for the bill.
But unfortunately, Trump signed it, and thus helped to curtail building the wall, and fully fund Planned Parenthood among other things, when he did have viable alternatives to doing this.