Hawley will vote against defense funding bill after Trump threatens veto over ‘Big Tech’
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley plans to vote against the annual bill that authorizes funding for the U.S. military.
Hawley, a first-term Republican and potential contender for the presidency in 2024, announced his intention Wednesday to vote against the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) following a veto threat from President Donald Trump.
Hawley said he objected to language in the bill mandating that 10 military bases named after Confederates be renamed and that the measure does not include a provision to weaken liability protections enjoyed by the tech industry. Those protections are part of an unrelated law—in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
“The NDAA does NOT contain any reform to Section 230 but DOES contain Elizabeth Warren’s social engineering amendment to unilaterally rename bases & war memorials w/ no public input or process. I cannot support it,” Hawley said on Twitter Wednesday.
Hawley said the NDAA “should not be hijacked for the Democrats’ woke leftist agenda.”
By voting against the bill, Hawley will also be opposing federal spending on national security and defense, including a 3% pay raise for uniformed service members.
Hawley’s planned vote against funding the Pentagon comes after a campaign season when Missouri Republicans fiercely criticized St. Louis Democrat Cori Bush for saying that she wanted to defund the Pentagon.
Hawley has long been a critic of Section 230, which shields social media companies from liability for the content their users post.
The Missouri senator has proposed numerous reforms to the law, including a requirement to make liability protection for social media companies contingent on submitting to audits by the Federal Trade Commission that demonstrate their content moderation practices are politically neutral.
But the decision to tie his vote on the NDAA to Section 230 comes a day after Trump said on Twitter that he will veto the bill unless Section 230 was “completely terminated” as part of the defense legislation.
“Section 230, which is a liability shielding gift from the U.S. to ‘Big Tech’ (the only companies in America that have it - corporate welfare!), is a serious threat to our National Security & Election Integrity. Our Country can never be safe & secure if we allow it to stand,” Trump said on Twitter, a platform that is able to exist in its current form because of Section 230.
If Trump vetoes the bill, it will potentially set up a dramatic override of his veto by Congress in the final weeks of his presidency. The bill is expected to come up for final votes in the House and Senate in the near future.
Trump and Hawley have both repeatedly alleged that content moderation by Facebook and Twitter has unfairly targeted conservatives. Supporters of the law, including conservatives, say eliminating the protection against libel lawsuits would require social media companies to engage in even more content moderation.
Trump’s decision to link the debate over tech policy to defense spending comes as a surprise. Discussions about tech policy are traditionally handled by Senate Commerce Committee rather than the Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees the NDAA.
Hawley, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has also been an outspoken critic of the effort to rename military bases currently named after Confederate officers, which has been championed Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Hawley voted in committee against including the language in the annual NDAA, but supported Senate passage of the bill in the same form earlier in this year.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to veto the annual defense spending bill because of the provision.
Supporters say the language will give the military an opportunity to honor soldiers who fought in World War II, the Vietnam War and the Gulf Wars rather than Confederates who fought against the U.S. Army.
Hawley has repeatedly criticized the lack of local input in the process and has argued that the base names facilitate lessons about the Civil War.
Missouri has no bases that would be affected by the renaming provision.
One of the House negotiators on the final version of the bill was Hawley’s fellow Missouri Republican, Rep. Vicky Hartzler, a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
The bill includes funding for major military projects in Missouri, including a $40 million hospital replacement at Fort Leonard Wood and $2.9 billion for the B-21 program at Whiteman Air Force Base.
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 3:51 PM.
