Name: Despite years of unwavering loyalty, Inhofe now a target of Trump's wrath on defense bill
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Despite years of unwavering loyalty, Inhofe now a target of Trump's wrath on defense bill

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Chris Casteel Sen. Jim Inhofe, who spent the last four years praising President Donald Trump and his commitment to boosting the Pentagon’s budget, found himself a target of the president's wrath last week, with his loyalty questioned and his defense bill threatened.Trump’s irritation and threats, delivered, customarily, via Twitter, stemmed from Inhofe’s inability to use the annual defense bill to strip social media companies of their immunity from some lawsuits.“Very sadly for our Nation, it looks like Senator @JimInhofe will not be putting the Section 230 termination clause into the Defense Bill,” the president tweeted Friday. “So bad for our National Security and Election Integrity. Last chance to ever get it done. I will VETO!”Inhofe made clear he agrees with the president about the matter but said he couldn’t force a change in the law into the defense bill at the last minute, for practical and procedural reasons.“It’s unfortunate that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle disagree with the need for a full repeal — but, because of that, it is impossible to add a repeal of Section 230 to the defense authorization bill,” the Oklahoma Republican said Friday.Section 230 refers to the part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that shields companies from lawsuits over content posted on their internet sites. The section says: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”Trump wants the section repealed because, he said in tweets, it was “corporate welfare” for social media companies and “a grave threat to National Security.”Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has broad influence over the annual defense bill but can’t dictate to other lawmakers that they revise the legislation at the last minute with a provision that neither the House nor Senate included in their earlier bills.The final version of the bill is typically a compromise between competing House and Senate proposals, not a vehicle for new proposals.Were Inhofe to insist on adding a provision that wasn’t part of either the House or Senate defense bills, he could doom the prospect of the bill getting a final vote, after months of work by lawmakers and staff.Rep. Adam Smith, D-Washington, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, responded to Trump on Twitter, saying, “To be clear, Mr. President, Section 230 repeal wasn’t included in the House OR Senate version of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act).“You’re mad at Twitter. We all know it. You're willing to veto the defense bill over something that has everything to do with your ego, and nothing to do with defense.”Smith was apparently referring to the disclaimers that Twitter places on some of Trump’s tweets warning that the president’s statements have been factually disputed.Pay raise for the troopsThe $740 billion defense bill authorizes a 3% pay raise for U.S. soldiers and various other bonuses, including hazard pay. It also guides Defense Department policy for the next year, including troop strength and weapons acquisition.The House is expected to take up the bill on Tuesday. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Friday he looked forward to the bill “overwhelmingly passing both chambers next week and, if necessary, overriding a threatened veto by President Trump. This is a critically important bill to pass, it always passes and I am hopeful that we will come together on this bill.”The defense bill typically receives strong bipartisan support. As Inhofe and others noted recently, Congress has approved an annual defense bill for the last 59 years. Whether both houses will do so with a veto-proof majority is unclear, particularly since many Republicans are hesitant to defy the president, even when he’s a few weeks from being replaced.Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, tweeted Friday his support of Trump’s insistence that Section 230 repeal be part of the defense bill. "Big Tech is the only industry in America that cannot be sued for their business practices and are not meaningfully regulated," he tweeted.Graham is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which could claim jurisdiction over the issue in dispute; however, Graham did not offer in his tweet to add repeal of Section 230 to a bill from his committee.Trump’s tweets about the issue escalated during the week, with the first, on Tuesday, threatening a veto if repeal wasn’t added. On Thursday, a day after Inhofe said on the Senate floor Trump's demand jeopardized the entire defense bill, Trump suggested some Republican senators were getting “cold feet.” On Friday, he called Inhofe out by name, ramping up the criticism Inhofe was getting from home state Trump supporters.“You are such a disappointment,” a Facebook user identified as Ginger Henderson Erwin posted on Inhofe’s Facebook page. “Stand with our President! Repeal 230.”The senator’s Facebook page had hundreds of posts on the matter, many of them questioning his loyalty to the president.Last month, Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, was inundated with social media insults when he said Democrat Joe Biden should receive national security briefings as Trump contested election results.Devoted Trump supporterInhofe, who was overwhelmingly reelected to another six-year term last month, has been among the most devoted of Oklahoma Trump supporters. Praise of Trump is a staple of almost every Inhofe speech, praise in particular for Trump’s willingness to support much higher defense spending than former President Barack Obama.Inhofe has even backed the president publicly on policies the senator previously opposed, such as withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Iraq on a specified time frame.But the 86-year-old Republican has not backed off the position the president’s demand for a provision Democrats won't accept would jeopardize the national defense bill.In a statement issued Friday, he said, “For the past four years, I’ve worked hand and hand with President Trump to rebuild our military, support our troops and defend American families. Under his leadership, we’ve made gains in our national security that would not have been possible under any other president and this year’s NDAA continues that work. The NDAA, or National Defense Authorization Act, has to be passed every year so the troops get what they need.”

Chris Casteel Sen. Jim Inhofe, who spent the last four years praising President Donald Trump and his commitment to boosting the Pentagon’s budget, found himself a target of the president's wrath last week, with his loyalty questioned and his defense bill threatened.Trump’s irritation and threats, delivered, customarily, via Twitter, stemmed from Inhofe’s inability to use the annual defense bill to strip social media companies of their immunity from some lawsuits.“Very sadly for our Nation, it looks like Senator @JimInhofe will not be putting the Section 230 termination clause into the...

Despite years of unwavering loyalty, Inhofe now a target of Trump's wrath on defense bill

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