House Republicans Blow Their Cover

On December 14, the House of Representatives passed the $886 billion National Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 310-118, an unheard-of bipartisan margin in a era when a proposal to recognize the Girl Scouts is likely to break along party lines.  (Even the nays were bipartisan, with 45 Democrats and 73 Republicans opposed, albeit from the far reaches of each party.)

Initial reports focused on the inability of far-right House members to eliminate from the bill what they condemned as the military’s “woke” policies, including the protection of abortion rights and gender affirming care, and a commitment to racial diversity.  They had held up a floor vote for months, demanding, among other changes, the inclusion of a ban on Defense Department reimbursement of travel costs incurred by service members who travel out of state to obtain an abortion, the precise measure that Coach…uh, Senator…Tuberville had cited as the reason for his holds on promotions.

Before the vote, members of the euphemistically named House Freedom Caucus denounced as un-American this wanton protection of marginalized minorities.  Chip Roy thundered, “There is no justification for supporting a bill that does not materially change the direction of our military away from social engineering.  A vote for this bill is a perpetuation of the woke policies undermining our military, bringing down the morale, driving down recruiting, and now undermining the civil liberties of the American people.”  Roy, like most of his fellows, always seems to assume that, when it comes to civil liberties, “American” means “white and straight.” 

Matt Gaetz, another defender of freedom, added, “You almost feel like a parent who’s sent a child off to summer camp, and they’ve come back a monster,” an interesting analogy for a man accused of having a predilection for summer camp age girls.

But for all outrage that Freedom Caucus members were happy to express about the military being turned into an effete, rainbow coalition dominated, and therefore ineffective fighting force, they did not have nearly as much to say about another provision in the bill that revealed a good deal more about their party’s actual thinking, especially about its presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

Although not in the original bill, buried on page 2673 of the three-thousand-page conference committee bill was an unusual amendment, added by the Senate at the behest of Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Marco Rubio and approved 65-28.  The amendment, for the first time, “prohibits the President from withdrawing from NATO by suspending, terminating, denouncing, or withdrawing the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty except (1) by and with the advice and consent of the Senate with two-thirds of the Senators present concurring, or (2) pursuant to an act of Congress. [It] also limits the use of any authorized funds from this bill to support any decision by a U.S. government official to attempt to withdraw the United States from NATO.” 

There was no question at whom this measure was aimed.  Just days before the House vote, the New York Times had run a long article, “Fears of a NATO Withdrawal Rise as Trump Seeks a Return to Power: Current and former European diplomats said there was growing concern a second Trump presidency could mean an American retreat from the continent and a gutting of NATO.”  Kaine and Rubio had tried and failed to secure a similar prohibition on unilateral withdrawal during the first Trump administration, during which Trump had regularly characterized NATO as useless and expensive.

Although Trump has yet to denounce the RINOs who voted to limit his authority to do whatever strikes his fancy at the moment, he generally does not take kindly to personal rebuke, which this amendment most certainly was. 

That was made clear by Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, who had voted no in the Senate.  “I cannot think of any currently serving elected official of significance who’s calling for suspending or withdrawing from NATO.  If I didn’t know better, I would think that this amendment might be aimed as a slap at former President Trump.”

And so, what does that say about 147 House Republicans who voted to administer that slap, most of whom have scuff marks on their pant knees from crawling across the floor to grovel at the feet of the Orange Jesus?

It is a clear indication that, underneath all that toadying, they are aware of the magnitude of the threat a second Trump administration poses to the nation.

They are aware perhaps but, beyond small steps like this, done in the shadows, they will almost surely do nothing to stop him.

NATO, which has served American interests and world peace for more than seventy-five years, is not only the principal deterrent to Russian expansionism and Vladimir Putin’s commitment to return Europe and the world to those good old days of the Cold War, but also the means by which democratic nations can cooperate and share both technology and expertise to prevent future threats. 

And, of course, NATO is intimately tied to the defense of Ukraine, a cause for which virtually every Republican would have voiced full-throated support as recently as a decade ago, decrying recalcitrant Democrats as weak appeasers who would ignore the lessons of history.  Although there is no way to know for sure, it is not unlikely that, privately, most Republicans feel that way now and long for when they were the party of military might.

Most telling is the reaction of Mike Johnson and other Republican House leaders. Showing characteristic bravery, when asked for comments on the amendment, they refused and slunk off.  But silence speaks as well, and theirs is as sure an indication as anyone needs that they knew precisely what the amendment entailed and whose authority they were tiptoeing to limit. 

Perhaps they thought Trump would not notice.