House Overrides Trump’s Veto of Defense Bill

The House just voted 322-87 to override President Trump’s veto of the FY2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The Senate is expected to begin its process to consider an override tomorrow. An override requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers.

Debate over whether or not to re-pass H.R. 6395 “objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding” today was brief.  House Armed Services Committee (HASC) chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) and Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-TX) made the case that nothing has changed in the bill, “not a comma” as Thornberry said, since the bill passed the House December 8 on a 355-78-1 vote.

The Senate passed it December 11 by a vote of 84-13.

The President has 10 days, excluding Sundays, to sign, veto, or take no action on a bill.  Trump waited until the last minute on December 23 to veto this one.  His veto message listed a number of objections, but the real points of contention are that it requires DOD to rename military installations now named in honor of Confederate soldiers and does not repeal an unrelated section of law, Sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act, that protects Internet companies from liability for content posted by third parties.

Smith, Thornberry and their Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) counterparts, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Jack Reed (D-RI), stress the importance of the legislation to U.S. national security and support of our troops.

Inhofe says he agrees with Trump on both the base-renaming issue and repeal of Section 230, but insists the former is no reason to destroy the entire bill and the latter is not relevant to this piece of legislation.

Today’s vote in the House definitively showed support for the NDAA by both Democrats and Republicans.

The next step is up to the Senate, which meets tomorrow at noon ET.