Trump’s staggering defense budget could weaken bipartisan NDAA support

Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget could weaken the broad bipartisan support for the must-pass defense policy bill as Democrats grow increasingly uneasy with the massive defense spending proposal.

“I think it is more difficult. We have some members that on a fairly consistent basis don’t vote for the bill, but I think now in the era of just such a large amount of money, and you can’t forget that it is being paid for by cuts to social programs and tax breaks,” Reed (D-R.I.) told reporters during a Defense Writers Group event. 

The Pentagon is seeking $1.15 trillion for its base budget, while another $350 billion would come through a separate reconciliation package that Republicans could pass along party lines without Democratic support. Republicans would need near-unanimous support to pass another reconciliation package at a time when some Republican lawmakers are growing increasingly wary of deeper cuts to social programs amid rising living costs and looming midterm elections. 

Reed’s remarks suggest that more Democrats than usual could oppose the must-pass National Defense Authorization bill this year, particularly if lawmakers increasingly view the annual defense policy bill as an endorsement of the administration’s spending priorities.

While Reed said he still expects Congress to pass the fiscal 2027 NDAA, he indicated that the more difficult fight could emerge later when lawmakers must decide how much money to actually give the Pentagon. 

“My guess is that they will get an NDAA bill. I think the real sort of brakes on the process come in the appropriations,” Reed said.

Reed said they are “in the middle of that process now.” The House Armed Services Committee is preparing to mark up its fiscal 2027 defense policy bill during the second week of June.

Reed said the funding structure itself could present challenges on Capitol Hill — some lawmakers are voicing concerns about combining an already staggering base budget with hundreds of billions of dollars in additional defense spending through reconciliation. 

“I think we’re in a situation which is, if not unique, very close to being unique. In my experience, I’ve never seen a significant increase in the defense budget, coupled with a significant reconciliation bill, coupled with a supplemental. And the cost is staggering. And they’re also being quite cryptic about what the supplemental will cost us,” Reed said.

“I think my colleagues and I, both Republican and Democrat, are perhaps even overwhelmed at the amount of money that we’re being forced to authorize and appropriate. And then every day, the president comes up with another idea that adds to the deficit,” he added.

Reed, along with lawmakers on both the House and Senate Appropriations committees, said the Trump administration is relying too much on the passage of a $350 billion reconciliation package to fund major defense priorities.

“One of the structural defects in the budget they sent up is that many of the platforms that are more and more important are not in our bill so that we can get them under construction — they are in the reconciliation bill. So this is kind of a lot of bait and switch and numbers and all that stuff. We have to look, as we’ve always done, at every major item in the bill. There are some that are ridiculous. A billion dollars for a Trump battleship at a time when they have no real plans, no design, is just more vanity on the part of the president than strategy and on the part of the department,” Reed said. “That’s an example of how much of this budget and much of the reconciliation is just wishful thinking rather than a detailed budgetary plan.”

“We’re looking at, for example, sophisticated air platforms. There’s like five in the authorization bill, and then there’s 15 in reconciliation. We’ve got to sit down with the services, and say, ‘How many do you need? How many can you build? What is just kind of pretend, and then we have to come up with a number. That number, if it’s not matched up in the authorization bill, I could see pressure to move towards a number in the authorization bill. But that would also cause us to look at other proposals for authorization and dial them back,” he added.

Lawmakers are still waiting for a detailed reconciliation proposal from the Trump administration — Congress has so far received a “top line or a series of generalities,” according to Reed.

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