Defense Bill at Center of New Budget Fight

In new budget sparring, the top House Democrat sought to quell speculation that enough colleagues could join Republicans to override a threatened presidential veto of a politically popular $268-billion defense measure. “We’ve got to uphold these vetoes and I’m going to work very hard to do that,” House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri said on ABC-TV’s “This Week.” President Clinton has signed seven of the 13 spending bills to fund the government in the 2000 fiscal year that began Oct. 1.