It took about 11 months, but President Donald Trump has finally issued the first vetoes of his second term.
And like most things involving the president, the moves aren’t without their critics — including some you might not normally expect pushback from.
Trump’s rapid response team highlighted the two vetoes:
President Donald J. Trump vetoed H.R. 131, the “Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act,” and H.R. 504, the “Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act.”
He transmitted the attached messages to Congress. pic.twitter.com/rQUM2gHLgn
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 30, 2025
The “Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act” is a bill aimed at expanding the land set aside for the Miccosukee Tribe inside Everglades National Park by officially including a section known as Osceola Camp.
Trump had a couple of issues with this.
The residential community in that area “was constructed in 1935, without authorization, in a low area that was raised with fill material,” Trump’s explanation read.
“None of the current structures in the Osceola Camp are over 50 years old, nor do they meet the other criteria to be considered for listing in the National Register of Historic Places,” Trump wrote to the House.
He added that, “the Miccosukee Tribe has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected.” That appears to be a direct reference to the tribe’s publicized opposition — including a lawsuit against the Trump administration — to the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in Florida, as noted by The Associated Press.
The “Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act,” meanwhile, is a bill designed to make it easier for rural Colorado communities to complete a long‑planned water pipeline project that will facilitate drinking water to people in the Arkansas River Valley.
Trump appeared to take specific issue with the price tag and repayment plans for this project.
“It was originally authorized … in a bill signed by President Kennedy in 1962,” Trump said. “For decades it was unbuilt, largely because the AVC was economically unviable.”
“More than $249 million has already been spent on the AVC, and total costs are estimated to be $1.3 billion,” Trump wrote. “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.
“Enough is enough. My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies. Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the Nation.”
The bill was backed and pushed by Colorado GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert — normally a staunch supporter of Trump’s — who seemed incensed with the president’s veto and vowed that “this isn’t over.”
This isn’t over. https://t.co/SxRacLX8fp
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) December 31, 2025
Adding fire to the spat, according to The Hill, Boebert hinted that this could’ve been “political retaliation” against her for her affirmative stance on unsealing the Jeffrey Epstein files (something Trump has labeled a Democrat-pushed hoax).
The Hill quoted a local news outlet’s interview with Boebert, in which she said that Trump “decided to veto a completely non-controversial, bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously.”
“Why? Because nothing says ‘America First’ like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in Southeast Colorado, many of whom enthusiastically voted for him in all three elections,” the lawmaker added.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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