CONGRESS TO PRESS AHEAD ON MILITARY POLICY BILL
Trump threatens veto if social media shield isn’t repealed
Leading Republicans and Democrats in Congress said Wednesday that they would press ahead in advancing an annual military policy bill without adding a repeal demanded by President Donald Trump of a legal shield for social media companies, defying his threat to veto the legislation over the unrelated issue.
Republicans’ determination to advance the measure over Trump’s objections amounted to a rare refusal by his allies on Capitol Hill to accommodate the president’s hard-line stance, which has threatened to imperil the bill that authorizes pay raises for U.S. troops. And it raised the prospect of a possible veto showdown in the final weeks of Trump’s presidency on a popular measure that has not failed to pass in 60 years.
“I don’t want it on this bill, because we can’t have a bill if that language is on it,” said Sen. James M. Inhofe, ROkla., chair of the Armed Services Committee, describing what he told the president about the legal liability provision. “We just had an honest disagreement, very friendly.”
Trump threatened in July to veto the legislation over a provision requiring the removal of Confederate leaders’ names from military bases, a measure that drew broad bipartisan support and was included in both the House and Senate versions of the bill. But with his time in office winding down, the president has become increasingly fixated on the idea of using the popular, must-pass legislation to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which protects platforms like Facebook and YouTube from being sued over much of the content posted by their users, and how they choose to take that content down.
The provision has attracted increasing criticism from both parties, but especially from Trump and his allies, who say tech companies have hid behind it while suppressing conservative views. The White House had quietly floated the idea that Trump might drop his objection to renaming military bases if lawmakers would go along on Section 230. The notion met with swift opposition from members of both parties.
On Tuesday night, Trump took to Twitter to warn that he would veto the bill if it did not include the repeal.
Lawmakers and aides had worked for days to resolve the dispute, with Democrats refusing to accept any change to Section 230 and Republicans quietly discussing potential compromises even as many privately conceded such a provision did not belong on the defense measure. By late Tuesday night, Republicans had reached a breaking point, concluding that they had no choice but to move the bill forward without it.
It is not yet clear whether
Trump will make good on his threat to veto the bill, and less clear still whether lawmakers could muster the two-thirds supermajority in both chambers to achieve what would be the first veto override of his presidency.
Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary, said Wednesday that the president “is serious” about the veto.
“The president will always defend our military, ensure that we get adequate defense funding, as he’s gotten $2.9 trillion so far,” McEnany said, “but he is going to put the pressure on Congress to step up on this.”