Scalise: Democrats Walked Away From Funding Our Troops

"Today was an important victory for our men and women in uniform who risk their lives to keep us safe. It was also an important victory for every American in this country that wants to see our military focused on our enemies abroad -- not on "wokeness' and all of the indoctrination attempts you're seeing within the Pentagon. And it was a massive rebuke of that far-left ideology in the push that we've seen under the Biden Administration.

"These aren't things that Barack Obama did when he was President. [President] Biden has tried to change the focus of our military, and what you saw today -- and over the last week -- is Republicans and Democrats coming together to say, "Let's focus on our enemies all around the world.' There [are] still bad actors out there that want to do us harm. There are still countries, like China, who are investing in a different kind of military that we need to be focused on and -- as the Speaker pointed out -- Chairman Rogers, and all of the members of the House Armed Services Committee, spent weeks and months putting together a bill that refocuses our military on [its] core mission. The mission that, under the Constitution, we as a Congress have an obligation to go out and fulfill, and protect, and fund, and that's what this NDAA does. It refocuses on the real threats to America as a free nation, and as the leader of the free world that allows us to get back focused on that role.

"Yeah, it's a shame that Democrats walked away from that. It's a shame that Democrats walked away from a five percent pay raise for men and women in uniform -- who deserve it -- because they wanted to defend a far-left, woke, indoctrination ideology. That's not the focus of the Department of Defense.

"I am proud of what our members did -- coming together in a difficult time -- to say, "Let's get that focus back where it needs to be: on defending America and protecting our friends around the world and standing up to the bad actors, which there are, and they are getting more and more aggressive.' We need to be more and more focused. That's what today's vote produced."

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