Hegseth Pitches His $1.5 Trillion Defense Budget on Capitol Hill and Locks Democrats Out of Every Classified Briefing — and It Is Senate Republicans Who Tell Him to Stop
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made at least two closed-door trips to Capitol Hill in early August 2026 to sell President Trump's record $1.5 trillion defense budget, and lawmakers in both parties said he excluded Democrats from every session. The sharpest criticism came from Republicans on the Armed Services Committee, who warned that the appropriations portion of the package cannot pass without Democratic votes. Sen. Thom Tillis said Hegseth "calls himself the secretary of war" but will not "go to war and win the argument with nearly half the members of the Senate." Sen. Lisa Murkowski said the briefings "need to be bipartisan," and Sen. Mike Rounds said Democrats "need to be brought up to speed," while adding that classified material must stay classified. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on Foreign Relations, said the pattern extended past the Pentagon to routine committee-staff briefings. Senate Democrats threatened to withhold support from defense spending bills over the exclusions. The Pentagon said it "remains fully committed to working with Congress."
“[The administration has got] to communicate that better. … You've got to come up here and sell your vision to the board of directors of America, which is us. Everyone has every right to be skeptical … [the Pentagon's] been almost a symbol of bureaucratic dysfunction. It's not quite Somali fraud in Minnesota, but it's been some pretty dumb sh*t we spent money on.”