White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan predicted Sunday that the Democratic-controlled Senate would strip out controversial social policies from the country’s annual defense spending measure approved by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives.
The House last week narrowly approved the $886-billion defense package for the fiscal year starting in October, but acceded to demands from hardline conservative lawmakers to add provisions to limit abortion access for some service members while cutting transgender care and diversity training.
Normally, there is wide, politically bipartisan support in Washington for the annual defense spending measure, but the social policy amendments cast doubt on quick agreement before sending the bill to President Joe Biden for his signature. The Senate is considering its version of the legislation this week and then lawmakers would have to reach a compromise between the competing pieces of legislation.
Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that the House-passed version “is never getting to the president’s desk.”
“This should be an area where politics stops and national security starts,” he said. “In the end, I believe wisdom will survive.”
The U.S. Congress has for six decades reached broad agreement on defense spending, viewing it as a national security issue for the protection of the country. But a small group of House Republican hardliners forced a vote on the social policies they want ended at the Pentagon.
With the Supreme Court a year ago overturning the national right to abortion, some states have enacted virtually total bans on the procedure. As a result, the Defense Department said that when any women stationed at military bases in states where abortion is illegal wanted to have abortion, it would pay for travel and medical expenses for the women to travel to a state where the procedure remains legal.
