A key Senate Republican said Sunday that it was President Biden, not congressional conservatives, who was guilty of playing politics with the troops, days after the House pushed through a massive $886 billion Pentagon policy bill containing several policy riders targeting what critics say are “woke” military policies under Mr. Biden.
House Democrats accused their Republican colleagues of loading the National Defense Authorization Act with several unacceptable additions, including measures to restrict Pentagon policies on abortion access for the troops, new curbs on treatments for transgender troops, and eliminating much of the bureaucracy for the Defense Department’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) network.
“I hope all these measures stay in there because, again, the military should not be paying for abortion tourism or for diversity consultants or sex-change operations,” Mr. Cotton, Arkansas Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “They should be buying the weapons that we need to defend our nation and to support the troops.”
Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska defended his fellow Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who has placed a hold on the most senior officer promotions — including positions on the Joint Chiefs of Staff like the currently vacant commandant of the Marine Corps — in protest over the Defense Department’s policy granting special leave for service members assigned to bases in states that restrict abortions.
The way to resolve the Alabama senator’s lock on promotions is through compromise, Mr. Sullivan said, but the Defense Department has been unwilling to moderate its position.
“Every single one of these kind of holds, 99% of them, get resolved through compromise,” Mr. Sullivan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “What needs to happen, the secretary of defense, Sen. Tuberville, and [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer need to sit down and have that pass.”
Having passed the House on a largely partisan 219-210 vote Friday, the bill now goes to the Democratic-controlled Senate, setting up another round of horse-trading to work out the legislation. Mr. Biden has been counting on the upper chamber to strip out many of the offending policy amendments, but the comments of Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Cotton suggest that the way ahead may not be easy.
Both President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have said Mr. Tuberville’s holds are harming national security. Mr. Biden, on his trip to Finland last week, explicitly appealed to other Republicans to pressure the freshman senator from Alabama to drop his campaign.
But Mr. Cotton argued Sunday that it was the administration’s security policy — with a focus on social issues in the military rather than on building an effective fighting force — that is the problem.
“The secretary of defense and the president think that this is a readiness issue and they want to find the responsible party,” Sen. Cotton said. “They should look in the mirror. They’re the ones who are violating the law and using taxpayer funds to pay for abortion tourism.”
The Pentagon’s abortion policy, announced shortly after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last summer, authorizes three weeks of paid leave for military personnel seeking an abortion while based in a state that restricts or bans it. Republicans argue that violates a longstanding ban on the use of taxpayer money for abortions and Rep. Ronny Jackson, Texas Republican, pushed for a provision in the NDAA that would end the reimbursement policy.
The Senate is expected to take up its version of the NDAA next week. The House bill will eventually have to be reconciled with the Senate version. Mr. Jackson’s amendment will likely be a prime target for Democrats on a bill that for decades has annually attracted broad bipartisan support.
“If the Republicans insist that it has to be in it, then we will not have an NDAA this year,” said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
Mr. Cotton noted that other forms of emergency needs for military personnel, such as the death of a family member, aren’t covered in such a generous fashion as the Defense Department’s abortion policy.
“An airman could walk in and say, ‘My mother and my father just unexpectedly died. Can I have leave to go to their funeral?’” he said. “They would be charged leave that comes out of their annual allotment, and they will get no expenses paid.”
If a service member chooses to have an abortion, they should use their 30 days of annual leave for a procedure that should not be funded by taxpayers, Sen. Cotton said.
“If Lloyd Austin and Joe Biden think this is a threat to our national security, the simplest thing to do would be to revert to the same practices we had for decades … and rescind this unlawful policy on abortion tourism,” he said.
The House of Representatives has “taken reasonable steps supported by a large majority of Americans to ensure that we’re funding our troops and the weapons they need to keep our country safe.”
• Alex Miller contributed to this report.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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