The Senate voted on Friday to pass a critical defense policy bill, setting up a year-end veto fight with President Trump, who has pledged to veto it.
The measure passed by a vote of 84-13, which will send a signal to Trump that lawmakers will have the two-thirds vote to override his veto.
Trump has repeatedly pledged to veto the bill over a variety of criticisms but mainly that the measure does not include a provision to strip out lawsuit liability protections 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 said 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, which 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. Mike Braun of Indiana, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, 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. Hawley said he backed Trump’s call to include the provision stripping lawsuit protections from Big Tech.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, 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.
“This is the most important bill of the year,” Inhofe said. “I really believe that.
