Exclusive — Rep. MTG: Republicans Will ‘Do Everything We Can’ to Preserve Ban on Military Censorship Funding in NDAA House-Passed Amendment

Republicans are going to fight to keep an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would forbid the Department of Defense from funding organizations that censor Americans, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told Breitbart News.

The amendment, introduced by Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) and added to the NDAA in June, covers organizations like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which facilitate the financial blacklisting of conservative news through their advice to advertisers. The amendment also forbids the military from working with any advertising agency that makes use of these services. The U.S. government has, in the past, funded both of these organizations, including a $750,000 Pentagon contract awarded to NewsGuard in 2021.

Greene, whom House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) appointed to the conference committee to negotiate with the U.S. Senate the differences between the House and Senate version of the NDAA, said that Republicans will “do everything they can” to keep the amendment in the final version of the bill that ends up on President Joe Biden’s desk. 

“It absolutely should [end up on the president’s desk] because as members of Congress and senators, we should do everything we can to protect Americans’ First Amendment,” she said during an interview at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach over the weekend. “We should not fund any organization or department in the United States that has censored Americans, so I’ll be fighting for that to stay as well. But we will see how we come out on the other side of the conference.” 

When asked what an elimination of the amendment would say about Democrats’ intentions for the American people, Greene pointed to Democrats’ “proven track record of censoring Americans.”

“That’s what they did over the past several years, but that’s also what they did with the Hunter Biden laptop story. They hid that one, as well using the FBI, the CIA, the DOJ, working with social media companies and the media, to completely suppress and quiet that story down — and I’ll argue that really had an effect in the 2020 presidential election,” the congresswoman added. 

Speaker McCarthy addressed the DoD’s funding of organizations like NewsGuard and the GDI in an extensive exclusive interview in April of 2023, also crediting Breitbart News for exposing Big Tech censorship and being one of the first publications to speak up about it. NewsGuard has notably targeted Breitbart News, the Drudge Report, NewsMax, Fox News, and many more conservative media outlets.

McCarthy noted at the time that House Republicans have already cut off some of those taxpayer funding streams — and have plans to axe more of them, Breitbart News’ D.C. Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle reported. McCarthy hammered his Senate counterpart, Democrat Chuck Schumer, for pushing for censorship of conservatives, noting that it fits with a long line of leftist efforts attempting to shut down debate.

“With social media, what they’ve been doing to conservatives for a long time — that’s why Schumer professes this,” McCarthy said.

When asked about the Pentagon contract, specifically and more broadly any contracts that NewsGuard has been receiving from the federal government, McCarthy said he found it “very concerning.” He said Congress should use its oversight powers and the House GOP majority to investigate NewsGuard on these matters.

“It’s very concerning to me,” McCarthy said. “Why do they have these contracts? What are they doing with them? Look this is always healthy — not to prejudge anything — you should have oversight. We should look at this. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? Do they have any preconceived notions or trying to weigh one way or another? It really comes down to fairness.”

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW:

Matthew Perdie / Breitbart News, Jack Knudsen / Breitbart News, Zenny Phuong, Breitbart News

Besides battling for free speech, Greene detailed several other items Republicans are working to keep in the final version of the NDAA, which authorizes $866 billion for national programs in the 2024 fiscal year. 

“What I’m looking to do on that conference is to be able to make sure that the Hyde Amendment stays in, because no federal dollars should be paying for abortion,” she said. “Another important piece is to fight to make sure that none of the military funding is paying for transgender surgeries. That just doesn’t belong in the military and it should not be negotiable.”

“But what we need to do is we need to make sure that all the good things that we put in the NDAA, like the pay increases for our military members, stays there — all the good benefits that they get through health insurance — but also the buildup that we need to do for our military in replacing equipment and weapons. Think about how much equipment and weapons were abandoned in Afghanistan by Joe Biden,” she continued. 

Greene said her ultimate “red line in the sand” is fighting to remove any funding to the Ukraine War.  

“That’s what I’ve been speaking about for months and months, and actually from the beginning of the war. I’m one of the only members of Congress that has never voted to send any money to Ukraine. I’ve been against this war the entire time because America’s only position should be peace,” she said. 

She said funding the war in Ukraine does not deter war or protect the United States’ national security interests — two promises which are outlined on the Department of Defense’ website.

“The Ukraine war does neither one of those. And so funding in the NDAA to a war in Ukraine — which is really a proxy war with Russia — it enables war, it increases war, and it creates war. It does not deter war,” she said. “It doesn’t protect our nation’s national security interests. It actually puts all of us at risk as we get closer and closer to WWIII. So on that conference, I’ll be doing everything I can in that room to convince my colleagues in the House and the senators on the other side of the Capitol that we need to stop funding a war in Ukraine.”

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter @thekat_hamilton.