Top Dem says Congress should 'abandon' $895B defense bill over transgender treatment ban for kids

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee suggested Congress should scrap the latest version of its annual defense policy bill over a provision that bans most transgender medical care for minors.

"For the 64th consecutive year, House and Senate Armed Services Committee Democrats and Republicans worked across the aisle to craft a defense bill that invests in the greatest sources of America's strength: service members and their families, science and technology, modernization, and a commitment to allies and partners," Smith said in a statement on Sunday night.

"However, the final text includes a provision prohibiting medical treatment for military dependents under the age of 18 who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Blanketly denying health care to people who clearly need it, just because of a biased notion against transgender people, is wrong."

The 1,800-page, $895.2 billion legislation, which lays out U.S. national security and defense priorities for the fiscal year, is the product of bipartisan House and Senate negotiations.

Smith said, "This provision injected a level of partisanship not traditionally seen in defense bills. Speaker Johnson is pandering to the most extreme elements of his party to ensure that he retains his speakership. In doing so, he has upended what had been a bipartisan process."

"I urge the Speaker to abandon this current effort and let the House bring forward a bill - reflective of the traditional bipartisan process - that supports our troops and their families, invests in innovation and modernization, and doesn't attack the transgender community," Smith finished.

"This legislation includes House-passed provisions to restore our focus on military lethality and to end the radical woke ideology being imposed on our military by permanently banning transgender medical treatment for minors and countering antisemitism," Johnson said Saturday.

Hesitance from defense hawks like Smith could put the passage of the entire NDAA in question. 

The legislation normally passes with wide bipartisan approval, with expected opposition from progressives and conservatives who are critical of the military industrial base and U.S. interventionism, among other issues.

Its first test will come late on Monday afternoon, when the NDAA is debated before the House Rules Committee - the last barrier before legislation can see a House-wide vote.

If it fails to pass in committee, House leaders will likely be forced to send it to the House floor under suspension of the rules. That would forgo the rules panel's approval in exchange for hiking the threshold for passage from a simple majority to two-thirds of the chamber.