Republicans’ midterm defeat is crushing any remaining hopes that Congress would approve President Donald Trump’s unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense budget request amid an unpopular war in the Middle East.
Democrats, who won solid majorities of both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, were already largely opposed to the 44% increase from the previous fiscal year and are now signaling they will block any efforts to push it forward.
At the same time, Republican lawmakers returning to the lame-duck session before the new Congress is seated in January may not be able to muster the support or political will to ram through the massive defense spending package, especially amid the Pentagon’s unpopular war against Iran that cost many of them their jobs.
The Democratic resistance risks imperiling some of Trump’s splashiest defense ambitions, including the Golden Dome missile shield and his Trump-class battleship plan, and bodes poorly for defense contractors — some of which also face the prospect of congressional scrutiny over alleged conflicts of interest with the Trump administration.
“We must push for the development of a more realistic and sustainable approach to our national security — one that does not require a defense budget in excess of $1 trillion or one paid for with draconian cuts to critical domestic programs,” Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement after the election. The defense policy bill’s passage “is a coin toss” and Democrats moving to restrict the president’s war powers and target Hegseth “could derail the whole process,” Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said. The midterm results give Democrats a stronger position in the negotiations over that annual defense authorization bill, said Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat and senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
5, in which he largely defended himself against the impeachment push.
The Defense Department “must be funded to meet the moment right now,” Hegseth said in a video posted on X Nov. “We need every vote from every patriotic member of Congress.”
