Top House Armed Services Democrat says ‘more likely than not’ that defense bill won’t pass

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Wednesday that he believes the annual defense bill is “more likely than not” to not pass.

In an an interview with with CNN’s Manu Raju, Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, criticized far-right Republicans for their attempts to include provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that would defund the military’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and touch on other culture war issues. Smith previously said he he was worried about “extreme right-wing amendments” attached to the House bill in an interview with The Washington Post on Monday. 

“A small group of people isn’t just saying, ‘We want to vote on things that we care about,’” Smith said in the CNN interview. “They want to say, ‘If we don’t get what we want, we’ll tear the whole thing down.’”

Smith originally voted for the bill in committee in late June, after hours of debate between Democrats and Republicans over culture war issues. At the time, he criticized Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for her push to place a “parental rights” provision into the bill for service members who send their children to military-affiliated schools. 

“It was made very clear by the sponsor of the amendment that she’s going after trans education and sex education. There is a very narrow conservative agenda, and this amendment wants to empower parents to dictate that agenda into the schools in a more effective manner,” Smith said.