We all know that when it comes to defense spending,
there's little daylight between Republicans and Democrats.
And usually whatever is asked for is given and then some.
Not this time around when it comes to the National Defense Authorization Act,
which came up for a vote this week and was much more contentious than usual.
Thanks to a slew of anti gay, anti trans,
arguably racist additions that the GOP added in as
amendments that actually, in fact did pass, and
this time along partisan lines narrowly passing only 2019 to 2010.
Only four Democrats opposed, all but four Democrats opposed the bill, excuse me.
Everyone was against except for four Democrats, and it authorizes that
national defense budget of $886 billion for fiscal year 2024.
But what gives, like what happened, why were so many Democrats, which again,
usually are authorizing defense spending just like Republicans are,
why did they actually vote no?
Let's take a look at some of these amendments that made it into
this House National Defense Authorization Act.
Ending travel reimbursement for troops seeking abortions,
ending coverage of transition surgeries and gender affirming care for troops.
Gutting diversity and inclusion programs,
limiting the type of flag that can be flown at military installations.
And then, and this one is a Boebert special, blocking military schools from
purchasing or having pornographic and radical gender ideology books,
because we've all seen those books on the battlefield.
I mean, they're seriously just littered there.
But to give you a sense before we dive into those particular amendments and
everything that happened, to give you a sense of how contentious this vote was and
how weird that is, here's just a little nugget from our friend Marjorie Greene.
>> I again remind Congress that Ukraine is not the 51st state of America.
This is not a NATO ally, and this is our National Defense Authorization Act for
our nation, for the United States of America, which 50 states.
If our Department of Defense wants to defend America,
we should be defending our border and
not proclaiming our righteousness talking about a war in Ukraine.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield.
>> Chairwoman's time has expired, the chairwoman from California is recognized.
>> Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I request an Advil and
yield one minute to Representative Joe Wilson from South Carolina.
>> I request an Advil after listening to Marjorie Greene go off about Ukraine and
all the money that's being spent on this war, guess who eventually voted for
the bill?
Marjorie Greene.
She absolutely fell in line, and she voted for it.
But that's like silly and funny.
I need an Advil after listening to Marjorie Greene.
But just to give you a sense of where these amendments are coming from,
it's truly the culture war actually gunning for
what the Republicans believe is a so called woke military.
And here it is exemplified perfectly in this clip.
>> We have drag shows taking place at Mountstrom Air Force Base.
There are 150 ICBM missiles that are being controlled by that air force base and
by these individuals.
I don't want someone who doesn't know if they are a man or
a woman with their hand on a missile button.
>> Yeah, so that's Representative Rosendale obviously
engaging in some light transphobia there.
And again, that amendment around denying troops any
kind of gender affirming care was actually passed in this bill.
But before I kick it to you guys,
I just wanted to show you sort of people are standing up.
One of the Democrats of nearly all of them who oppose the bill was Pat Ryan,
who is a former combat veteran himself, and
he had this to say about what his colleagues added to this.
>> I am a proud combat veteran.
This is an insult to all who serve, particularly women in uniform.
Nearly 20% of our active duty force risking their life right now.
>> Absolutely risking their life.
And actually, 41% of the US military does identify as some sort of minority group,
whether women or a person of color.
There's a lot more, and we'll get to it very soon.
But you guys, it's very interesting to know that only recently,
Justice John Roberts, as they were striking down affirmative action,
said that but in the military, it should be okay.
And now you have the GOP saying like, no, no, no, it's not okay.
In the military, we should absolutely not even try and recruit people of color.
But more than that, once they are there, we should make sure they don't feel
welcome, that there's not any attempt at trying to have an antiracist framework for
the 41% of troops who identify as minorities.
>> Yeah, so look, there's tons of terrible things in this bill,
including the bill itself, but let's take it one at a time.
First, about that hateful Republican congressperson.
Francesca is being sarcastic by saying like transphobia.
It was massive transphobia.
And look, these days, we're not on great terms, but
someone who was a contributor here is Benny Carolo, and
she was a drone operator, so she had her finger on the button.
And I got to tell you,
I would much prefer to be her than anyone like that congressperson.
You know why?
Because she had a conscience and she was worried about what they were doing.
That's a person who cares, and it's a person I would much rather
have responsible for those kind of actions than some clown bozo
who doesn't care who's at the receiving end of those drone strikes.
So it's hateful what he said, it's disgusting.
And unfortunately, the entire Republican party is going along with it now.
And every part of these new amendments that they insisted on putting in defense
bill is ridiculous against diversity and inclusion.
You heard what Franny just told you.
45% of the troops are minorities, and
they're struggling to get new people to sign up.
You think it's a good idea to be against diversity in the military?
What do you want, you just want white right wingers in the military, and
that's it?
You're nuts.
We're not gonna have anywhere near enough people in the military for
your racist positions to work.
It's not workable just if we want to keep the country safe, let alone anything else.
Now to the heart of the bill, the bill is a monstrosity.
It's not a defense bill, it's a pork bill.
Every part of it is stuffed with pork.
The waste in this bill is extraordinary.
Hundreds of billions of dollars, later the Pentagon will say, and
it's a guarantee because they say it after every one of these bill passes,
before they pass it, they go, we need every cent.
After they words, when we go to audit them, they go, yeah, half of it,
we don't know where it went.
Went to the defense contractors, I guess you'll never know where it went.
They never pass an audit, they're all crooks.
And now the final irony here is there is one thing Marjorie Taylor Greene said and
promoted in this debate that I agreed with.
She did not wanna vote for the cluster bombs for Ukraine.
Now, I don't agree with her on NATO, I don't agree with her on Ukraine,
I think we should support Ukraine.
But those cluster bombs are very dangerous, and
human rights groups are against the cluster bombs going into any combat.
And so there we have ironic agreement, and
I'll take agreement in whatever form you get it.
All right, Jay. >> Yeah, whatever happened
to a lack of emotion, people get too emotional.
Women get emotional, women get emotional over these types of things.
Representative Rosendale talking about how he doesn't want anyone that whatever he
called folks that he doesn't like because he's afraid to have their finger
on the button.
You look pretty worried there.
You're scared, you're shaky.
Those are the type of we don't want their finger on the button.
But look, it still comes from the same point of view, his perspective.
Someone who doesn't know whether they're a man or a woman.
You don't know other people, whether or not they're man or woman, whether or
not they're trans, whoever they are.
But the thing is, you have to have that judgment.
This is the basis for all kinds of white supremacy, bigotry, and any kind of
discrimination that comes forward is based off of that one person's perspective.
If it's not seen from their perspective, something is weird about it.
That's superiority, that's hierarchical, that's me being better than someone else.
This is what I believe, therefore everything you believe is nonsense.
And we should base our structure, our military, our recruitment,
everything based off of me.
That's excluding a large significant portion of the population,
actually the majority.
Now, just because white folks or white Christiancist male folks have always had
this kind of power, that's where they wanna keep it.
Anything else is odd and weird to him.
And if it's not his, it's wrong.
Where does equality come from?
And again, it feeds right into the same argument.
That's the point of diversity.
If you don't know anybody that's from other kind of backgrounds,
if you don't know anyone that's ever lived a different life than you,
if you've never been a woman, if you've never been trans,
if you've never been gay, you've never been any of these types of things.
If you're not those people, you don't know.
But you wanna rule over those people as if you are better than them.
The whole thing is supremacy.
It's all based in being better than someone else.
And if we lose grips on that, we don't have the same power.
They say it openly, they say it blatantly, everytime.
That's the purpose, it's to control someone else.
And I guess they don't have to even hide it anymore.
>> I mean I was just gonna say, I think it also and
I agree with Cenk that I do not support an $886 billion defense package.
And I think we can understand and leave our critiques of the military aside and
realize that trans people, people of color, women,
people who serve in the military, whether or not we agree with every single
thing that the US military does, they are people, that's end of story.
And they have rights within the military just like anyone else does.
And to Cenk's point about like, yeah, the recruitment numbers are down.
It's the same thing the Magga says when they're like,
immigrants are stealing their jobs.
Really?
You wanna wake up at four in the morning to work a meat processing plant or
an egg farm?
No, you want to leave that for like 13 year olds or 12 year olds?
Right, right, right, we get it.
No, there aren't enough straight whitecist men to replace the troops that are needed.
Hey, maybe we just wind the whole thing down if you ask me in my leftist brain.
But still, it is really disgusting.
And I just wanna note, the Defense Department and military generals have
all agreed that diversity among their ranks is not only the reality, but
it is very beneficial.
And those DEI programs, diversity, equity, inclusion programs, are also beneficial.
And why?
Because you saw January 6 man, the number of white supremacists that also
have military ties or like war events or whatnot.
You don't think the military is combating this on a daily basis?
They need for a cohesive unit, right?
Ergo, they need things like programs and antiracist stuff.
They need sensitivity trainings,
they need everyone to be pulling in the same direction, right?
So it's interesting that like again, Republicans are basically
arguing to disintegrate the functionality of the US military.
There's more obviously, it's not gonna pass in this form in the Senate, right?
So it's expected, and this is according to Politico,
that these controversial provisions will be watered down and
it'll make it more palatable for the Democrats who control the Senate.
And this is Minority Whip Catherine Clark saying, we know this bill is going nowhere
in the Senate because it's disgusting and it's outrageous.
So we will have the chance to work with the Senate and
bring a national security bill back that we can support.
My guess is it'll still be the same number though,
which I think we all have some issues with.