House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the House has enough votes to override a veto by President Donald Trump of a crucial defense bill over his demand that it include a provision to strip a legal shield for social media platforms.
Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, spoke in an interview after Trump repeated his threat to veto the annual defense policy measure.
The National Defense Authorization Act, a piece of legislation that, among many things, authorizes military pay raises and extra pay for troops on dangerous missions, has broad support in the House and Senate, and is set to pass both chambers next week. Hoyer told reporters at the Capitol that the House will vote on the measure Tuesday.
Trump late Thursday repeated his veto threat after Republicans and Democrats on both the House and Senate armed services panels released their bipartisan agreement on the bill. The Defense Authorization Act has become law every year for the past 59 years.
"Very sadly for our Nation, it looks like Senator @JimInhofe will not be putting the Section 230 termination clause into the Defense Bill. So bad for our National Security and Election Integrity. Last chance to ever get it done. I will VETO!"
He was referring to Jim Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects technology companies from liability over most content published by their users.
Some Republican senators have backed Trump, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Hawley said earlier this week that Trump's push for the inclusion of a repeal of Section 230 is "absolutely reasonable and I support him 100%."
Graham said in a tweet Friday that he supports the president and that "Big Tech is the only industry in America that cannot be sued for their business practices and are not meaningfully regulated." Graham is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and has postponed multiple times the consideration of legislation aimed at Section 230.
Trump also tweeted Friday that the defense bill would require "renaming, or even desecration, of National Monuments in National Parks."
The provision, which Trump previously cited as grounds for a veto, would apply only to "assets of the Department of Defense," which doesn't manage national monuments. The legislation would create a commission to consider modifying or removing names and symbols on military bases tied to the Confederacy.
In July, Trump threatened to veto the measure because it could lead to renaming U.S. military installations that honor Confederate generals, including Fort Benning in Georgia and Fort Lee in Virginia.
In the Senate, Inhofe said Wednesday that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told him the National Defense Authorization Act will go to the floor soon.
The defense bill does contain a prohibition on reducing the number of troops stationed in Germany and South Korea below current levels unless Congress receives certain guarantees that it is strategically safe, and lawmakers are given ample time to consider the drawdown. The proscription against troop movements was written in response to the Trump administration's summer announcement that it planned to move about 12,000 U.S. troops out of Germany.
It also directs the president within 30 days to impose sanctions against Turkey for its purchase of S-400 missile systems from Russia, a reflection of how Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been frustrated by the administration's reluctant approach to addressing Ankara's challenges to NATO.
It also orders the defense secretary to submit an annual report about any Russian-sponsored bounties for attacks against U.S. military personnel. Trump came under fire this summer for dismissing intelligence about such a scheme in Afghanistan as "not credible."
The bill also takes indirect issue with the president's statements about forces deployed to Syria, with a provision insisting that the Pentagon certify that no U.S. forces "are being used or have been used for the extraction, transport, transfer or sale of oil from Syria." Late last year, Trump told reporters that he was leaving troops in Syria -- after threatening to withdraw them -- "only for the oil."
Information for this article was contributed by Erik Wasson, Daniel Flatley and Roxana Tiron of Bloomberg News; and by Karoun Demirjian of The Washington Post.