House passes $1.15 trillion defense bill, tees up billions more for Iran war

The House on Wednesday passed its $1.15 trillion defense policy bill and advanced a measure to help cover the rising costs of the Iran war — with Republicans steamrolling Democrats, who argued that Congress is failing to restrain the Trump administration’s expansive use of military force.

The results represent a collapse of what is normally a large bipartisan coalition that advances the annual national security legislation, one of the last reliable areas of consensus in Congress.

The defense policy bill passed 216 to 212. Six Democrats supported the measure, and seven Republicans opposed it.

The budget resolution would help appropriate $73 billion in additional funding for the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, largely to cover the costs of the Iran war. It advanced by a vote of 216 to 214, with no Democrats in favor.

Both measures face a difficult path to becoming law, however.

Congress has never failed to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but the Senate’s version of the defense policy bill has stalled as Democrats argue it does nothing to rein in the administration’s foray in Iran. Without a deal that can clear the chamber’s 60-vote threshold, Republican leadership may skip a separate vote in the Senate and begin negotiating a final version of the NDAA for passage later in the fall.

The differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill must be resolved before the legislation can advance to the White House.

House Republicans have opted to use the reconciliation process, which allows them to advance a budget bill without support from Democrats, to help cover most of the costs of the Iran war. The framework for the package also authorizes $12 billion in aid for farmers and $10 billion for election-related measures.

But the effort has drawn backlash from Republicans in both chambers, making the path to passing the $95 billion framework increasingly difficult as it requires the support of nearly all GOP lawmakers.

Fiscally conservative Republicans have balked at the lack of budget cuts to offset the planned new spending. Some Senate Republicans also have expressed opposition to advancing defense spending through the reconciliation process, rather than a bipartisan supplemental funding bill.

Even Democrats who have consistently voted for defense bills have hardened their opposition in recent weeks as the administration escalates the war in Iran.

Tuesday marked the 11th consecutive day of U.S. airstrikes after the breakdown of a truce between Washington and Tehran that had paused the war while negotiators sought to reach a peace agreement. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has pledged to retaliate for the deaths of several American service members in Iranian attacks last week.

The fighting had nearly stopped for weeks as the two sides negotiated a preliminary deal, announced last month. But the deal collapsed within weeks, with Tehran again closing the Strait of Hormuz, further disrupting global energy supplies and food markets.

The conflict showed signs of widening this week as the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen threatened to target Saudi oil tankers transiting the Red Sea.

In a lengthy series of votes earlier this week, the House voted down some of the most controversial amendments to the defense bill, such as barring security assistance to Ukraine and barring transgender people from serving in the military.

The NDAA focuses on energizing the sluggish U.S. defense industry and includes some tepid checks on the Trump administration, such as requiring the Pentagon to inform Congress after firing senior military officers and imposing more requirements before withdrawing troops from Europe.

Still, most Democrats argued that the legislation was structurally flawed, alleging that Republicans weren’t asserting Congress’s power to oversee military force and were laying the foundation for a massive increase in military spending. While the bill itself doesn’t appropriate the Pentagon budget, it would help enable Trump’s proposal for a record $1.5 trillion in defense spending.

During the bill’s markup earlier this year, Democrats had proposed amendments to lower military spending and intensify oversight of the Iran war, but none of them attracted enough Republican support.

Last month, Congress passed a bipartisan resolution calling on Trump to halt the war. The administration has argued that the measure doesn’t have the force of law.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, defended the Pentagon’s request for billions of dollars in additional funding to cover shortfalls caused by the war and other controversial military operations, such as deploying active-duty troops to U.S. cities and striking alleged drug-trafficking boats around Latin America.

Hegseth at times sparred with Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee, accusing them of failing to support the military as lawmakers accused him of mismanaging the defense budget. Some Republicans also expressed frustration with Hegseth and Caine’s answers to questions about the administration’s strategy for the war.

Hegseth estimated that the conflict would cost about $37.5 billion by the end of September, noting that the Pentagon would have to limit military trainings without a quick infusion of funding.

The House measure to provide more funding for the military won’t arrive in time to cover many of the shortfalls Hegseth described. Parts of the Navy and Air Force budgets drained by the Iran war are set to run out within weeks.