GOP passes amendments that threaten to doom defense bill

House adoption of conservative amendments to a defense bill has thrown the fate of the must-pass package into doubt, sparking widespread opposition from Democrats and putting new burdens on Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to rally enough Republican votes to pass it through the lower chamber. 

The threat to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is unusual for an annual legislative ritual that sets the budget for the nation’s armed forces — and routinely enjoys broad bipartisan support. 

But this year, under pressure from hard-liners in his conference, McCarthy brought a series of controversial conservative amendments to the floor. Five of those measures — pertaining to explosive issues including abortion and transgender rights — were approved on largely partisan votes Thursday evening. 

The most consequential of those is an amendment that would reverse the Pentagon’s policy to reimburse travel expenses for service members who get abortions — a policy that has prompted Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) to block hundreds of military promotions in the Senate in protest. Just two Republicans — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and John Duarte (R-Calif.) — opposed that amendment, and Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas) was the lone Democrat to vote “yes.”

Democrats this week have specifically pointed to the proposal as a poison pill that would sink their support for the NDAA as a whole.

The initial NDAA framework passed last month through the Armed Services Committee on a bipartisan, 58-1 vote, but the changes are already prompting immediate vows from Democrats of all stripes to oppose the final bill when it reaches the floor, perhaps as early as Friday. 

“I wouldn’t doubt if there are a lot — a lot — of Democratic nos,” said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), a centrist member of the Problem Solvers Caucus. “Despite our belief in providing for the national defense, this is really a travesty.”

Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee, including ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) late Thursday said they would vote against the NDAA.

They said the bill their committee approved “no longer exists. What was once an example of compromise and functioning government has become an ode to bigotry and ignorance.”

That would leave McCarthy scrambling to lock down more votes on his own side of the aisle in a razor-thin majority. But while most conservatives cheered the bill’s rightward shift, other Republicans are vowing to vote against final passage after amendments to block Ukraine funding were excluded.

“If there’s funding for another war in a foreign country that is not our NATO ally, it doesn’t make sense, and I’ve been saying that from the beginning. So I would have to be a no,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said.

To pass the bill Friday as planned, McCarthy and House GOP leaders will either have to count on Democrats to overlook the amendments pertaining to explosive social issues, or convince hard-line conservative Republicans — including those who have opposed the NDAA in the past — to vote for it and ignore their concerns about U.S. support for Ukraine.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said he has never voted in favor of the annual defense bill in the decade he has been in Congress, but in good news for McCarthy, he said he’s reconsidering this time.

“Everything up here is a crap sandwich. And this one’s got some bread on it,” Massie said.

In addition to the abortion provision, the chamber also adopted two transgender-related amendments: One would prohibit the health care program for active-duty service members from covering “sex reassignment surgeries and gender hormone treatments for transgender individuals,” and the other calls for prohibiting gender transition procedures through the Exceptional Family Member Program. 

Two more amendments led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) took aim at diversity initiatives and banned promotion of what many conservatives would call “woke” ideas, specifically articulating prohibited topics such as the U.S. being “a fundamentally racist country.”

The approval of those measures drew outrage from Democrats, who accused GOP leaders of caving to their most conservative elements. 

“Where are the moderate Republicans? Do they exist anymore?” asked Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), senior Democrat on the House Rules Committee.

The conservatives dismissed those criticisms, accusing the Biden administration of forcing Congress’s hand by adopting the social policies to begin with. 

“It’s always funny to listen to my Democrat colleagues say that we’re politicizing this somehow by injecting cultural issues, as if they’re not driving the train on cultural issues over at [the Department of Defense] as we speak,” Roy said.

Earlier in the day, McCarthy had brushed off the prospect of controversial amendments on social issues complicating final passage of the NDAA, comparing the abortion travel expenses policy reversal to the Hyde Amendment, a policy rider approved annually for decades that bans taxpayer money from being spent on abortion.

“It simply means we won’t spend taxpayer money on abortion. If you were the most extreme pro-life or pro-choice, that’s the one thing everybody agreed to know for decades. So now, why are the Democrats becoming so extreme that they changed their position for decades?” McCarthy said.

Asked about amendments that gut diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, McCarthy said: “Do they want Disneyland to train our military, or do they want a military that can defend the nation?”

There are early signs that Republicans will put the blame on Democrats for any problems passing the bill.

“It’ll really show America that the Democrats are so extreme that they won’t defend the military,” McCarthy said.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who has spent much of the year criticizing her own party for focusing on abortion, surprised observers Thursday by voting in favor of the NDAA’s abortion amendment. Afterward, she said the amendment is irrelevant, because the Democratic-led Senate will strip it out, and accused House Democrats of abandoning the troops if they oppose the final bill over that provision. 

“It’s not going to pass the Senate anyway; it doesn’t matter,” Mace said. “So if you vote against the NDAA, you’re going to be voting against the men and women in uniform.”

The timing of the NDAA debate has been in flux all week, as McCarthy and his leadership team struggled to devise an amendments strategy. Conservatives secured victory when the House Rules Committee — in the wee hours of Thursday morning — greenlighted a batch of amendments that are poison pills for Democrats, coming after days of pressure from the House Freedom Caucus and its ideological allies.

Some of those conservative members expressed support for the bill after approval of those amendments. 

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) had said that reversing the abortion policy and blocking the Pentagon from paying for gender-affirming care were priorities for him — and after Thursday’s votes, he plans to vote in favor of the bill Friday.

But securing the amendments votes, and seeing some of them pass, is not necessarily enough for all of the hard-ine Republicans to support the bill.

“I’m still leaning no,” said Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.). “It bothers me, the money that we continue to send to Ukraine.”

While Republicans approved many of the more controversial amendments Thursday the House overwhelmingly voted down a series of amendments pertaining to funding for Ukraine, leaving some GOP lawmakers uneasy.

Greene said she will vote against the defense bill when it comes to the floor for a final vote because of her Ukraine “red line.”

Two Ukraine-related amendments sponsored by the Georgia lawmaker were shot down by both Democrats and Republicans: The first, which would strike $300 million of Ukraine funding authorization from the bill, failed 89-341, and the second, which called for striking the creation of a Center of Excellence in Ukraine, was rejected 95-332-2.

“I think it’s a great bill in so many ways and I want to vote for it, but leaving the money in there makes it something I can’t vote for,” Greene said.

An amendment from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) that would prohibit security assistance to Ukraine also failed in an overwhelming 358-70 vote.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, called the rejection of the Ukraine amendments “a disappointment” but said the entire bill is improving. Whether or not he will support the package, however, is still up in the air.

“I don’t know if we’re completely there,” Perry said, “but I think it’s improving.”

Updated at 10:36 p.m. ET.