Trump approves bill to fund military, raise soldier pay

President Donald Trump signed a $716 billion dollar defense bill Monday to fund the military through 2019. The act, signed into law at a ceremony in Fort Drum, N.Y., boosts military pay by 2.6 percent, the largest hike in nine years. It also provides nearly $8 billion dollars for 77 new F-35 fighter jets while barring delivery of the planes to Turkey.

The bill does not include money for a new branch of the military, but the president once again made the case for a Space Force, saying the United States must get the upper hand on its adversaries in space. “I’ve seen things that you don’t even want to see, what they’re doing,” the president said. “They want to jam transmissions, which threaten our battlefield operations and so many other things.”

The bill was titled the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act in honor of the ailing U.S. senator from Arizona who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee. McCain, a veteran and former prisoner of war in Vietnam, responded with a statement Monday, saying, “I’m humbled that my colleagues in Congress chose to designate this bill in my name.”