On Monday, Congress voted to override President Donald Trump’s veto of the NDAA, which was written to make it more difficult for him to remove troops from Afghanistan.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is one of the handful of bipartisan dissenters who believe that the legislation is a disaster that represents everything that is wrong with the Washington D.C. swamp.
“I oppose the NDAA not because I’m against our troops but because I love them so much,” Gaetz said on the House floor.
“America’s fighting men and women are so precious that they should not have to die in some failed state, some far away land that most Americans can’t even point to on a map so that defense contractors can extend our involvement in these wars so that lobbyists can get rich and so that members of Congress can get re-elected,” he added.
Gaetz explained how the NDAA is just a taxpayer-funded giveaway for the military-industrial complex.
“This good bill has been hijacked by the Forever War lobby and their bought-and-paid-for allies in the United States Congress. It puts barriers in the way of an administration that wants to bring our troops home and put America first,” he said.
“We should only fight when that fight is just and proper. We have spent two decades training the same villages back and forth in Afghanistan, and I believe that the administration that leads our country should work to bring those troops home and unfortunately this bill does exactly the opposite,” Gaetz continued.
“I’m going to put America first, and I’m voting against this bill,” he said to conclude his floor speech.
The speech can be viewed here:
The NDAA was hijacked by the forever war lobby and their bought and paid for allies in the United States Congress.
President @realDonaldTrump took a principled stand against this unprincipled legislation by vetoing it. pic.twitter.com/Yaco3eqJos
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) December 28, 2020
Liberty Conservative News has profiled Gaetz throughout his emergence as a rare voice for peace in the House of Representatives:
“Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz continues to shine as one of the sanest voices for foreign policy restraint in D.C.
On February 8, 2020, he tweeted “US troops should not be asked to fight unauthorized, unfocused wars in far away lands for unending periods of time. The people with the most to win/lose should fight for their preferred destiny on their own land.”
Gaetz has made a name himself for opposing interventionism in Venezuela and Iran.
He recently voted to oppose military action in Iran, after the Trump administration assassinated Major General Qassem Soleimani.
While some Republicans try to grift off of Trumpism and steer the president back into the neoconservative status quo of never-ending wars, congressmen like Gaetz remind Trump of his America First principles that got him elected.”
Gaetz represents the best of what Trumpism is all about. He would be a tremendous standard bearer for the America First movement after the president leaves the public eye.
