Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado railed against President Donald Trump and insinuated he was retaliating against her for supporting the release of the Epstein files, after he vetoed a bill that intended to bring clean drinking water to parts of Colorado.
Tuesday evening, the White House announced Trump vetoed the Finish Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, a bill, passed with bipartisan support, that provides funding for a long-term project to bring safe drinking water to communities in Colorado’s Eastern Plains.
Trump claimed the veto was to prevent taxpayers from “funding expensive and unreliable policies.” But the decision arrived shortly after a group of former loyalists, such as Boebert, broke with Republicans to support the release of the Epstein files. Trump’s veto also coincides with his attempts to get his longtime ally, Tina Peters, out of state prison for election-interference-related charges.
“I sincerely hope this veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for calling out corruption and demanding accountability. Americans deserve leadership that puts people over politics,” Boebert said in a statement to 9News.
“This isn’t over,” she added on X.
Boebert said she would continue looking for solutions to help fund the project, which aims to bring safer drinking water to 39 communities in southeast Colorado where groundwater is high in salt and wells can occasionally release radioactivity into the water supply.
“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,” Boebert said.
“I must have missed the rally where he stood in Colorado and promised to personally derail critical water infrastructure projects. My bad, I thought the campaign was about lowering costs and cutting red tape,” she added.
In addition to the bill passing through both chambers of Congress with widespread support, the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would cost the government less than $500,000. The legislation is among the first vetoes that Trump has issued since he entered office in January.
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom voiced support for the legislation and Boebert after Trump’s veto, claiming the president “is a disgrace. “ Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, called the veto a “revenge tour,” according to the Daily Beast.
The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment.
Boebert’s harsh critique of Trump’s veto indicates the president’s fallout with fellow Republicans over the Epstein files is nowhere near finished.
While neither Boebert nor the president directly correlated the decision to Boebert’s vote in favor of the Epstein files release, the president has turned against longtime allies for pushing for the documents’ release.
Last month, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced she would be resigning from Congress after the president refused to support her political ambitions and called her a traitor for joining Democrats in forcing a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
