HOUSE EASILY APPROVES DEFENSE BILL
Veto-proof majority sets up showdown with president
The House on Tuesday passed a bipartisan, $741 billion defense authorization bill by a sizable veto-proof majority, throwing down the f irst of two expected gauntlets before President Donald Trump, who has escalated his threat to scuttle the legislation.
The 335-78 vote represents a much bigger margin of victory for the bill than the House mustered for an earlier version of the legislation this summer. It is also a rebuke to Trump’s exhortations to Republicans to vote against the measure: Fewer than half of the GOP lawmakers who opposed the initial defense bill over the summer voted against the bipartisan compromise Tuesday.
House leaders credit the increased support to changes that were made during a monthslong negotiation between the Senate and the House, despite lastminute efforts from some of Trump’s allies to undermine the legislation.
The House’s vote sets up a challenge for the Senate, which has yet to vote on the measure. Should senators approve the bill by a similarly decisive margin, leaders are hopeful that the president will reconsider his veto threat.
GOP congressional leaders pleaded with their caucus members in recent days to ignore Trump’s demands and vote in favor of the defense bill, which has become
law for 59 years running. The legislation not only includes money for major military programs and weapons systems, it also funds service members’ annual pay raises and other compensation intended to reward highly specialized or potentially hazardous work.
Many GOP leaders have promoted the legislation as a balanced product that authorizes a range of vital programs, including new initiatives to counter China and health coverage for National
Guard members aiding pandemic response efforts.
But the president has only intensified his assault, and Tuesday morning he expanded the scope of his veto threat while exhorting GOP House members to vote against what he characterized on Twitter as “the very weak National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which I will VETO.”
“Must include a termination of Section 230 (for National Security purposes), preserve our National
Monuments, & allow for 5G & troop reductions in foreign lands!” he added.
At first, Trump’s veto threats focused only on provisions ordering the renaming of military installations commemorating figures from the Confederacy. In recent days, he also said he would reject the legislation because it does not include a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which offers technology companies such as Twitter, Facebook and Google liabili
ty protections over the content that third parties post on their platforms. Trump has accused those companies of anti-conservative bias.
In his tweet, the president also indicated that he plans to veto the bill over limitations it would place on reducing the number of U.S. troops stationed in Germany and South Korea, and on implementing a recent Federal Communications Commission order allowing broadband company Ligado
Networks to develop a 5G network using bandwidths that could disrupt and compromise GPS systems and sensitive military technologies.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced plans to redeploy about a third of the 34,500 U.S. troops currently stationed in Germany, drawing condemnation from Democrats and Republicans.
Trump’s barrage of complaints about the bill drove the conservative House Freedom Caucus to pledge Tuesday to vote against the legislation as a bloc, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, to state in no uncertain terms that he would oppose any effort to override a Trump veto. In the end, near-equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats — and only a handful more Republicans than the Freedom Caucus — voted against the legislation.
Trump may still have the ability to complicate efforts to finish the defense bill. Once it is sent to the White House, the president has 10 days, not including Sundays, to sign, veto or “pocket veto” the legislation — the last option is a de facto rejection of the bill by simply refusing to sign it. Should Trump decide to run out the clock, he may be able to force Congress to reconvene for an override vote after Christmas.
The defense bill must become law before noon Jan. 3, when the new session of Congress begins, or it will expire along with all remaining unfinished legislation from the past two years.