House Republicans are considering an attempt to condition next year's funding for the Pentagon to ending the military's vaccine mandate and tougher scrutiny of where American aid to Ukraine has gone, the Washington Examiner reported on Tuesday.
Conservatives have pushed their fellow Republicans to delay a vote on the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to January, when the GOP will control the House.
Democrats, despite a current majority in the House, are unlikely to be able to pass the bill by themselves, because progressives typically oppose the NDAA.
Conservatives tried the same tactic over the summer in order to end the Pentagon's COVID-19 vaccine mandate, but 149 fellow Republicans joined most Democrats to advance the spending bill in July and defeat attempts to cut the Pentagon's budget, according to the Washington Examiner.
But now, following the midterms and the GOP leadership elections, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested that he would work to delay the advancement of the defense spending bill until next year.
"I've watched what the Democrats have done on many of these things, especially the NDAA — the wokeism that they want to bring in there," McCarthy said earlier this month. "I actually believe the NDAA should hold up until the first of this year and let's get it right."
The demands of the conservatives include ending "the contamination of our military by radical Leftist 'woke' ideologies and the prioritization of politics over combat readiness," halting defense funding for "pet climate projects," and appointing a special inspector general to oversee the U.S. support for Ukraine.
GOP congressmen have grown increasingly critical of what they consider the spread of liberal worldviews through the ranks of the Pentagon, with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Rep. Chip Roy releasing a report last week describing what they called the Biden administration's attempts to turn the military into a "left-wing social experiment," Politico reported.
Despite the GOP effort, the Biden administration appears ready to fight for the NDAA to pass in the lame-duck session, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin writing in letters to Democrat congressional leaders this week that passage of a full year of funding for the Pentagon is "essential."
He also noted that legislation addressing the military's broader needs is "just as important."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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