Republicans Successfully Weaponize the Defense Bill for Their Culture Wars

House Republicans voted Friday to add hundreds of amendments to the defense bill, successfully using the budget as a tool in their culture wars.

The House of Representatives voted 219–210 for the amended bill, completely along party lines. The measure now goes to the Democratic-controlled Senate, where the GOP’s ideological amendments have little chance of passing.

The Republicans’ extreme changes include banning the Department of Defense from spending federal funds on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, which military officials consider critical not only for recruiting fresh talent, but also for combating extremism in the ranks.

The GOP has also blocked the military from reimbursing travel expenses for service members who have to travel for an abortion. Another amendment prohibits the Defense Department from reimbursing travel costs for people who travel for gender-affirming care.

The DOD would be barred from flying Pride flags, and using federal funds to support green energy initiatives.

The radical, bigoted bill has little chance of making it through the Democratic-controlled Senate. But it’s a clear sign of the lengths that Republicans will go to wage war on things they disagree with (instead of, you know, actual issues).

Arizona Republican Eli Crane gave a nod to the times of segregation on the floor of the U.S. Congress on Thursday.

“My amendment has nothing to do with whether or not colored people or black people or anybody can serve. OK? That has nothing to do with any of that stuff,” Crane began, prompting shock throughout the floor.

Crane’s comments came as he offered an amendment to the nation’s annual defense spending cornucopia that he said would ban the consideration of “race, gender, religion, or political affiliations, or any other ideological concepts as the sole basis for recruitment, training education, promotion, or retention decisions.”

The amendment was just one of many GOP-pushed amendments dealing with culture war issues, rather than, for instance, reappropriating the destructive and wasteful military spending towards anything that actually serves people.

The comments prompted Representative Joyce Beatty, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, to ask for the words to be struck down from the record. “I find it offensive, and very inappropriate,” Beaty said. “I am asking for unanimous consent to take down the words of referring to me or any of my colleagues as ‘colored people.’”

Crane injected, requesting to amend his comments to “people of color,” but Beatty insisted the words be removed, which they were by unanimous consent.

“In a heated floor debate on my amendment that would prohibit discrimination on the color of one’s skin in the Armed Forces, I misspoke,” Crane said afterward. “Every one of us is made in the image of God and created equal.”

Language is always evolving, and the connotations words hold are grounded in the histories surrounding them. “Colored people” is associated heavily with the times of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow: times during which the term referred to Black people as property, and then as categories to be avoided or held separately from white society.

Consequently, the term is a relic of the ills in America’s past—and not a term one may use if they’re interested in staying away from that past.

Meanwhile, also this week, Crane’s Senate Republican colleague Tommy Tuberville insistently refused to acknowledge that white nationalism is racist.

Representative Nancy Mace voted to use the defense budget to limit abortion access, despite previously branding the amendment as an “asshole move.”

Republicans have packed the new NDAA with amendments targeting some of their favorite culture wars, including banning the military from funding diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; banning Pride flags; and barring the Department of Defense from reimbursing travel costs for service members who have to travel for an abortion.

Mace has repeatedly urged her party to take a more centrist stance on abortion, warning that the GOP’s extreme restrictions on the procedure could cost them elections. But she has yet to take her own advice, and Thursday night was no exception.

“We should not be taking this vote, man. Fuck,” she told her staff in an elevator in reference to the anti-abortion amendment, Politico reported. “It’s an asshole move, an asshole amendment.”

Hours later, though, she fell in line with her party and voted to include the amendment in the defense budget.

But Mace tried to have it both ways, telling Politico, “I’m all for having these conversations and debates, but doing so as part of a bill which could jeopardize our national security is wrong. Traditionally the NDAA is bipartisan legislation. This year’s bill could be historically partisan.”

The amendment will definitely alienate House Democrats, whose support is needed to pass the bill. The change is also unlikely to survive the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Mace’s vote is a clear sign of how desperate Republican leadership is to crack down on abortion access. But it’s an even clearer sign of how untrustworthy Mace is.

The South Carolina representative has repeatedly urged her party to move towards the center, and not just on abortion. She talks a good talk, but she has yet to actually walk the walk. If anything, she walks just as far to the right as the colleagues she has been warning.

When it comes to Donald Trump, it’s all just one, giant grift.

A new report from The New York Times published Thursday reveals that the top super PAC affiliated with the former president paid Melania Trump $155,000 for a “speaking engagement” at their own residence in Mar-a-Lago.

In other words, Trump effectively got his biggest supporters to pay his wife six figures to speak at his fundraising event at his house.

The payment to Melania—made in December 2021 by Donald Trump’s super PAC at the time, Make America Great Again, Again (which has since shuttered)—was not listed on the super PAC’s list of expenditures made public last year. Instead, the hefty remittance to his wife was initially disclosed as two payments (of $125,000 and $30,000) to the “Designer’s Management Agency,” where Melania is a client.

In a personal financial disclosure filed Thursday, Trump made clear that the super PAC’s $155,000 December 2, 2021 expenditure went to his wife. That payment lines up with a private fundraising dinner for the super PAC, held at the Trumps’ residence at Mar-a-Lago. One seat at that event cost $125,000.

“The Make America Great Again, Again super PAC also spent more than $350,000 at Mar-a-Lago in 2021 and 2022,” the Times notes.

This is not the first time that Trump has used his presidency and political campaigns to make his own family richer. CREW has tracked more than 3,700 conflicts of interest when it comes to the Trump family—like events held at Trump properties, publicly promoting the Trump Organization as president, to boosting his own pocket with countless visits to Trump hotels and golf courses.

Matt Gaetz is back in hot water.

CNN reports that House Ethics Committee investigators have started to reach out to witnesses amid a recently revived investigation into allegations that the Florida Republican engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and other misconduct.

When the investigation was first opened in 2021, the committee was looking into whether Gaetz violated sex trafficking laws, in connection with an alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old. He was also being investigated for employing campaign funds for personal use, accepting a bribe, and sharing inappropriate images or videos on the floor of the House.

Gaetz told CNN that the inquiry is “not something I’m worried about, I’m focused on the work.”

“It’s also funny that the one guy who doesn’t take the corrupt lobbyist and PAC money seems to be under the most Ethics investigation,” ignoring that there are, in fact, scores of other representatives who also do not take PAC money.

The investigation was first delayed as the Department of Justice underwent its own federal criminal investigation into the same allegations, concluding without bringing any charges.

Now, the committee is making contact with witnesses for what appears to be the first known time since it first re-upped the investigation. Within these recent contacts, the committee has reportedly focused on potential lobbying violations. A source noted to CNN that those questions are not necessarily the only ones being asked to the full slate of witnesses, however.

Of note is that the House ethics investigation has resumed under Republican leadership, as the committee is now chaired by Representative Michael Guest of Mississippi.

While Gaetz has often clashed with party leadership, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told CNN he doesn’t “know anything about” the investigation. He declined further questions and referred them to the committee. McCarthy has no influence over the committee’s investigation; any involvement would violate rules.

Though Gaetz himself has held that he did no wrong, at least three people have testified under oath that Gaetz asked twice-impeached and twice-indicted former President Donald Trump for a preemptive presidential pardon regarding the Justice Department’s investigation into the slate of allegations.