“He calls himself the secretary of war, but ironically, he doesn’t want to go to war and win the argument with nearly half the members of the Senate,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). “You got to engage.”
Blowing off Democratic lawmakers could doom Hegseth’s push to enact President Donald Trump’s unprecedented Pentagon budget increase, which worries Republicans who are largely supportive of it. Without Democratic support in the Senate, the effort could fail this fall.
“They’re preaching to the choir when they have Republicans on the Armed Services Committee and they’re making a case for the budget,” said a GOP member of the committee, granted anonymity to speak frankly about the dynamic. “It’s a briefing that should be provided to 100 senators.”
In keeping with their bare knuckles approach, Hegseth and other top Trump administration officials are pressing Republicans to use a special process — known as reconciliation — that would allow the GOP to steamroll Democrats so they can fund the Iran war and much of the Pentagon spending increase.
But even if Republicans can muster the political will for those party-line reconciliation votes, the GOP would still need Democrats’ help to enact the lion’s share of next year’s defense budget. Democrats have vowed to boycott the funding bills.
Republicans have urged the White House to change course — both to salvage the bills and as a matter of good faith. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said he discussed the issue with defense officials, and told them he disagreed with their exclusion of the opposing party.
“The Democrat members need to be brought up to speed,” Rounds said. “But there has to be a clear understanding that the information that’s being provided to them cannot be publicly discussed. And for some reason, some of the administration feels as though there’s a possibility that some of it would be leaked.”
