The Senate voted Friday to advance a critical defense policy bill, setting up a final vote that will send it to President Trump, who has pledged to veto it.
The measure advanced by a vote of 84-13, which will send a signal to President Trump that lawmakers will have the two-thirds vote to override his veto.
Trump said he won’t sign the bill unless a provision is added to strip out lawsuit liability protection for Big Tech, in particular, Twitter and Facebook.
Trump and many Republicans believe Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides the broad lawsuit protections, needs reform or complete elimination due to the actions of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms to censure or block conservatives on their sites.
Republican leaders say they agree with the president about reforming Section 230 but said the effort to change the law should not be entangled with the annual defense policy bill that the military relies on for critical planning.
The House passed the measure with a vote of 335-78 earlier this week.
The House “no” votes included 40 Republicans, most of them members of the conservative Freedom Caucus.
Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Mike Lee of Utah voted against advancing the defense measure for various reasons.
Paul opposed a provision in the bill that would limit Trump’s ability to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont were among Democrats who voted against the bill.
Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, called on all lawmakers to back the bill, which has passed on time each of the past 59 years, which is an unusual record for a Congress increasingly paralyzed by partisanship.
“There isn’t much that happens around the Capitol that has a track record like that,” Inhofe said.
