GOP infighting threatens critical defense bill

GOP infighting threatens critical defense bill The annual defense policy legislation, one of the few measures almost guaranteed to pass each year, is held hostage by a Republican battle over an elections overhaul. House Speaker Mike Johnson departs the Capitol on June 25, 2026, after meeting earlier in the day with President Donald Trump at the White House. | Francis Chung/POLITICO A crucial annual defense policy bill faces one of its biggest threats in years amid Republican dysfunction and a record-breaking military budget request that most Democrats can’t stomach. The National Defense Authorization Act, which greenlights $1.15 trillion of President Donald Trump’s defense budget, is imperiled in the House as GOP lawmakers fight over linking it to a partisan elections bill. The defense legislation’s price tag has already rankled Democrats, who contend the massive increase wastes money that should go toward social programs. The uproar over the fate of the elections overhaul, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, has paralyzed the House floor and prevented Speaker Mike Johnson from passing other major legislation. And it is turning the defense bill — one of the few measures that reliably passes each year — into a hostage of the blistering tensions between GOP factions and Democrats’ frustration with the administration’s unorthodox use of the military. “It’s not a poison pill; that’s like 100 poison pills,” said Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), a House Armed Services Committee member, of combining the bills. “That would not only be DOA for every Democrat, it would be for Republicans” in the Senate. A cadre of hardline Republicans, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, is trying to tack the controversial elections overhaul onto the defense bill. Conservative lawmakers have steamed at Senate Republicans’ inability to pass the measure, known as the SAVE America Act, which is a top priority for Trump. Just a handful of GOP defections on a procedural vote would keep the defense bill from reaching the House floor this week. Republican leaders had aimed to pass it before the July 4 holiday. “This is how to get my vote on a rule,” Luna posted on X about her amendment. “But I am one of MANY.” The Supreme Court’s decision Monday involving mail-in ballots will likely further stoke the intra-party fighting. The court handed the president a major loss by ruling that states may choose to count ballots that arrive after Election Day as marked on time if they are postmarked earlier. Trump, in response, said it was “more important than ever” to enact the SAVE America Act. Johnson gave no indication Monday that he would try to attach the measure to the Pentagon bill. The speaker said including a form of the voting bill in a party-line reconciliation effort is the “only way to get that to the president’s desk.” He implored fellow House Republicans to drop the blockade of major legislation. “Whomever is thinking that stopping the work of House Republicans ... just because stubborn Senate Democrats won’t do the job of the American people is self-defeating,” he told reporters. “We have to move forward with legislation, and that’s what I’ll be telling them all.” The president has urged lawmakers to adopt stricter voting laws and has long made unfounded accusations that elections have been marred by fraud. He abruptly canceled a signing ceremony last week for major bipartisan housing legislation over Congress’ failure to pass the elections measure. Johnson faces an especially complicated calculus with the defense bill in the narrowly divided House. The speaker has opted in recent years to steer the typically bipartisan legislation rightward by allowing votes on socially conservative proposals that are popular with the GOP right flank. But doing so this year will likely further reduce the number of Democrats who might support the bill. Attaching the SAVE America Act would supercharge that opposition. Senate Majority Leader Trump has sought to tamp down the mutiny in the House. The president directed Republicans via social media last week to “unify,” and not block major bills. “No more grandstanding, please!” he urged. It does not appear to have helped. And even Democrats who supported the bill in the Armed Services Committee are skeptical. The panel’s ranking member, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), applauded a handful of wins for his party, including language renaming Army bases and protecting Pentagon civilians’ collective bargaining rights. But he predicted most Democrats will oppose the GOP-led bill. “In all likelihood, they’ll put a ton of horrible, horrible amendments on it that will make this whole thing a moot point,” Smith said. “But for now it’s the money.” Other Democrats are also concerned that the bill doesn’t do enough to rein in Trump on numerous fronts, including the Iran war and National Guard deployments in U.S. cities. Twelve Democrats on the Armed Services Committee opposed the bill in a markup this month, producing the most partisan vote in recent years on the typically bipartisan panel. “The fear is ... it only gets worse,” Ryan said of the bill. Even beyond the elections bill debate, Johnson needs to win over Republican hardliners who typically don’t support massive defense budgets. The House Rules Committee meets Monday afternoon to sort through nearly 1,400 amendments lawmakers have filed to the defense bill, including the SAVE America Act. The panel’s determinations will sway how some hardliners vote. Conservative amendments last year — such as provisions to limit medical treatment for transgender people, further restrictions on diversity and equity efforts and limits to Pentagon electric vehicle purchases — led nearly all House Democrats to oppose the bill. Just 17 Democrats supported it. Most of those partisan provisions were ultimately dropped in negotiations with the Senate, and a compromise bill drew broad bipartisan support. Jordain Carney and Mark Satter contributed to this report.