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The proper response from Congress to a threat by a lame-duck president to hold up money for the Pentagon is to laugh, tell him to get bent, and then override his veto. But because Senate Republicans find themselves beholden to a personality cult, and because Section 230 has become a hobbyhorse both for true populists and fake populists like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, this threat might cause some anxiety within McConnell’s caucus. Trump’s actually threatened to veto the defense spending bill twice in the past 10 days. Initially he vowed to block it unless Congress stripped out the language it contains authorizing the Pentagon to rename military bases currently named after Confederate generals. That’s a culture-war sticking point for him but it’s unanimously backed by congressional Democrats and even enjoys some support among congressional Republicans. The idea of the president blocking military funding in 2020 to defend the honor of long-dead traitors like John Bell Hood is so insane that it scarcely feels real, but it’s real. We might have a last-second showdown on Capitol Hill between the executive and the legislature with U.S. military readiness hanging in the balance because Trump won’t budge on honoring the heroes of the American south’s defunct slaveholder regime. But now he’s gone and upped the ante. He wants the language about bases out of the bill and some new language added in:….. Therefore, if the very dangerous & unfair Section 230 is not completely terminated as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), I will be forced to unequivocally VETO the Bill when sent to the very beautiful Resolute desk. Take back America NOW. Thank you! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2,2020 I’d like to hear him explain why it’s a threat to national security that Twitter can’t be sued when some cretin uses its platform to defame someone. Clearly the natsec argument is just a fig leaf to justify including Section 230 repeal in the defense bill. My hunch when I saw his tweets was that maybe he floated it as leverage to convince Democrats to strip out the language on Confederate-named bases after all. (Some House Dems are open to doing so, not wanting to hold up money for the military.) That is, if they made a concession by backing down on that, Trump would make a concession by backing down on Section 230. According to Axios, though, the opposite seems to be true. Trump is reportedly willing to cave on the bases if Democrats will go along with his Section 230 proposal.
