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Trump throws power jab at Congress
He is threatening to veto a hugely popular defense bill unless lawmakers clamp down on Big Tech companies.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is closing his relationship with Congress with one more power jab, threatening to veto a hugely popular defense bill unless lawmakers clamp down on Big Tech companies he says were biased against him during the election.
Trump is demanding that Congress repeal Section 230, a part of the communications code that shields Twitter, Facebook and others from content liability. His complaint is a battle cry of conservatives — and some Democrats — who say the social media giants treat them unfairly.
But interjecting the complicated tech issue threatens to upend the massive defense bill, which Congress takes pride in having passed unfailingly for half a century. Trump almost sabotaged the package with an earlier veto threat over plans to stop allowing military bases to be named for Confederate leaders.
It’s another example of the president’s willingness to undercut Congress, even his allies, to impose his will in his final months in office.
On Wednesday, a bipartisan coalition of leaders on the House and Senate Armed Services committees said enough is enough.
“We have toiled through almost 2,200 provisions to reach compromise on important issues affecting our national security and our military,” Reps. Adam Smith of Washington and Mac Thornberry of Texas, the chairman and top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.
In a rare joint rebuke, they said that “for 59 straight years,” the National Defense Authorization Act has passed because lawmakers and presidents agreed to set aside their own preferences “and put the needs of our military personnel and America’s security first.”
“The time has come to do that again,” they said.
The powerful Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, said he personally spoke with Trump, explaining that the defense bill is not the place for the fight with Big Tech.
“I agree with his sentiments — we ought to do away with 230,” Inhofe told reporters Wednesday on Capitol Hill after having spoken with Trump. “But you can’t do it in this bill.”
While cooler heads are expected to prevail, Trump’s veto threat late in his administration is his latest attempt to bend the norms. From taking money from military bases to build the border wall with Mexico to installing his nominees in administrative position without Senate confirmation, Trump has chipped away at the legislative branch like few other executives in recent times.
“The president seems intent on filling each of his remaining days in office with petulance, grievance, self-interest,” said Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York during a speech in the Senate.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at briefing Wednesday
that the president is serious about vetoing the defense bill unless Congress repeals Section 230.
“He is going to put the pressure on Congress to step up on this,” she said.
“Twitter has become a publisher, choosing to factcheck content,” she said. “And when you’re a publisher, there are certain responsibilities with that and you should not be immune from liability.”
Past presidents have certainly threatened to veto defense bills, which set annual policy with troop levels, equipment priorities, pay raises and other matters.
It’s typically a widely bipartisan measure, one of the few areas of common ground. Over the summer, the Senate approved its version, 86-14, while the House similarly passed its effort, with opposition coming mostly from the liberal and conservative flanks.
On Wednesday, the two chambers announced a bicameral agreement ahead of final votes.
When Trump first threatened a veto to keep the Confederate base names, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows floated a compromise that would instead insert a new provision repealing Section 230.
Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, have railed against the social media companies, especially during the heated November election.
Some Democrats, including Schumer, agree the Section 230 provision could be revisited, even as they disagree with attaching it to the defense bill.
Still, Trump appears to not have completely soured on social media, as he released only on Big Tech platforms Wednesday a 46minute against the election results that produced a win for Democrat Joe Biden, unspooling one misstatement after another to back his baseless claim that he really won.
Standing before a White House lectern, Trump called his address delivered in front of no audience, perhaps “the most important speech” of his presidency. But it was largely a recycling of the same litany of misinformation and unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud that he has been making for the past month.
Trump, who spoke from the Diplomatic Room, kept up his futile pushback against the election even as state after state certifies its results and as Biden presses ahead with shaping his Cabinet in advance of his inauguration on Jan. 20.
Both Facebook and Twitter flagged the president’s posting as problematic, with Twitter noting that Trump’s claims about election fraud are disputed.
Biden received a record 81 million votes compared to 74 million for Trump.
Trump dug further into his contention of a “rigged election” even though members of his own administration, including Attorney General William Barr, say that no proof of widespread voter fraud has been uncovered. Courts in multiple battleground states have thrown out a barrage of lawsuits filed on behalf of the president.