by Wallace White
Congress’ latest defense spending bill unveiled on Saturday would deal a earnest blow to a number of left-wing policy initiatives pushed by Biden’s Pentagon.
The National Defense Reauthorization Act of 2025 (NDAA) includes provisions prohibiting the employ of Department of Defense (DoD) funds to promote critical race theory, climate change, ordering gender reassignment surgery for children, and further extends the hiring freeze under diversity initiatives. social equality and inclusion (DEI), According to to the text of the bill. The bill will likely pass the Republican-controlled House and Senate I promise from President-elect Donald Trump to stop the so-called “woke” military.
“Our military should be focused on lethality, not far-left nonsense,” Alabama Republican and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The FY25 NDAA extends the DEI hiring freeze and prohibits funding for the politically biased Countering Extremism Working Group.”
The Countering Extremist Activities Working Group was established by the Biden-Harris administration in 2021 to “better understand the scope of the problem of extremist activity” within the military ranks, According to to the Pentagon. Biden’s defense secretary Lloyd Austin was accused attacking conservatives under the guise of anti-extremism.
The first step was a DEI hiring freeze passed in the fiscal year 2024 NDAA after the Senate amended the House proposal to completely eliminate all DEI positions. The bill expressly prohibits the interpretation of any part of the hiring freeze text to block the firing of DEI workers.
The bill also provides a historic raise for junior soldiers, such as privates and corporals, which would augment the ranks E-1 through E-4 by 14.5% by fiscal year 2025. Biden Administration opposed pay raise in June, when the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) initially proposed a $24.4 billion augment over five years.
“I am proud of the many achievements of the NDAA. We have provided historic pay raises to our junior soldiers, protected children from unsafe medical procedures, improved our ability to plan for prolonged warfare, and improved our tools to work with Israel, Taiwan and other partners,” said Mississippi Republican Senator and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee Roger Wicker in a statement provided to the DCNF. “However, the failure to take topline growth into account is a huge loss to our national defense. “Many senior flag officers, defense strategists and other experts continue to note that this is the most dangerous moment since World War II.”
The NDAA includes provisions aimed at strengthening support for Indo-Pacific allies such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Australia, as well as many other U.S.-allied countries. Tension in the region has increased in recent weeks when South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law tiny to counter what he called “communist forces” at home and in China sending ships off the coast of Taiwan in response to their president’s visit to Hawaii and Guam, According to to the Associated Press.
According to the text of the bill, it also allows the withholding of Department of Defense funding to organizations boycotting Israel. Tensions in the Middle East have increased dramatically, including in Israel current war in Gaza, during which the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria fell to rebel forces on Saturday.
Trump’s chosen defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has long been a supporter of removing leftist initiatives in the military, According to to Polityka. However, his nomination is in doubt roadblocks amid allegations of sexual assault and accusations of alcohol abuse from former Fox News colleagues.
Under the bill, by 2025 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) will conduct an assessment of the influence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) on the United States. TdA initially gained national attention due to their acquisition of an apartment intricate in Aurora, Colorado, and their presence in the US is only growing.
Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee did not immediately respond to DCNF’s request for comment.
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Wallace White is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
