The House can vote remotely until January and the Senate was being called back to session. A pocket veto was never going to work - especially as unemployment benefits expired. There was no way over a third of Congress was going to suddenly have a change of heart.
Trump has approved all measures for direct aid to the American people. The pork now has to be separately voted on again. This means cowards like AOC don't get to hide behind the payments as an excuse.
There's now 3 potential outcomes:
-
The pork is passed with some gains towards the more popular Section 230 Reforms & election investigations
-
The pork isn't voted on again
-
Congress tries to shove through a naked pork barrel Omnibus bill with no assistance for Americans. We see which politicians used the assistance as an excuse. Far more potential for this vote to fail
No, they don’t have to vote on the pork again. The default, if they don’t vote, is for the entire bill to pass. They must vote to remove the pork for it to be removed. Which would require a majority in each house. Not going to happen. The best you can say is that this brings more public attention to the pork.