The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee suggested Congress should repeal the latest version of the annual defense policy bill over a provision that bans most transgender medical care for minors.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) leads Democrats on a committee closely involved in the creation of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) each year. The 2025 edition was released last weekend.
“For the 64th year in a row, Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have worked together across the aisle to invest in the greatest sources of American power: our service members and their families, science, technology, modernization, and commitment to national defense.” To our allies and partners,” Smith said in a statement Sunday night.
“However, the final text includes a provision that prohibits medical care for military dependents under the age of 18 who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. It is wrong to uniformly deny medical care to people with disabilities.” ”
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Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, has been critical of this year's NDAA. (Scott J. Ferrell/Congress Quarterly/Getty Images)
The 1,800-page, $895.2 billion bill sets out America's national security and defense priorities for the fiscal year and is the result of bipartisan House and Senate negotiations.
Among them is a measure that refers to transgender children of U.S. military personnel and states that “medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria, which may lead to sterilization, cannot be provided to children under the age of 18.” It was included.
“This provision injected a level of partisanship not seen in previous defense bills,” Smith said. “Speaker Johnson pandered to the most extreme factions of his party to ensure he retained the chairmanship. In doing so, he upended what had been bipartisanship.” process. “
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House Speaker Mike Johnson also praised the NDAA for the same measures that Smith criticizes. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, via Getty Images)
“I urge the Speaker to abandon this current effort and reflect a traditional bipartisan process to support our military and their families, invest in innovation and modernization, and not attack the transgender community. I urge you to move the bill to the House,” Smith finished.
Johnson's office told Fox News Digital that his first statement was praising the compromise NDAA.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Saturday: “This bill will restore the military's focus on lethality, permanently ban transgender treatment of minors, and tackle anti-Semitism. “It includes provisions passed by the House of Representatives to put an end to radical woke ideology.”
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The NDAA sets U.S. defense policy priorities each year. (Sergeant Lexi West/U.S. Air Force, via AP)
If defense hawks like Smith balk, the passage of the entire NDAA could be in jeopardy.
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The bills typically pass with broad bipartisan approval, but opposition is expected from progressives and conservatives critical of the military industrial base and U.S. interventionism, among others.
The first test will be late Monday afternoon, when the NDAA will be considered by the House Rules Committee, the last hurdle before the bill is voted on by the full House.
If the bill does not pass out of committee, House leadership will likely be forced to send it to the House floor under a rules suspension. This would bypass the Rules Committee's approval in exchange for raising the threshold for passage from a simple majority to two-thirds of the chamber.
