WorldPosted at: Sep 25 2026 6:38PM


Pentagon intensifies efforts to get Congress to back Trump's $1.15tn defence budget proposal

Washington, Sep 25 (UNI) Pentagon officials amped up their efforts to get Congress to greenlight President Donald Trump's proposed $1.5 trillion defence budget for fiscal year 2027, but some Republican senators say the administration began its outreach too late to build the support needed to pass the record request.
The Pentagon has held a series of classified briefings with lawmakers in recent weeks, outlining spending priorities and the department's needs.
Republican Sen Mike Rounds of South Dakota praised officials for answering questions at a "very high level", but said the administration had previously failed to account for the 60-vote threshold required for major legislation in the Senate.
"We've had a problem with that," Rounds told reporters on Thursday after a Senate Armed Services Committee briefing. He said the latest discussion went some way towards addressing that gap.
Sen Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican and former Navy SEAL, also described Thursday's classified briefing as "good", saying Pentagon officials had tailored their presentation for Democrats who remain sceptical of the war with Iran.
But Sheehy said similar outreach should have begun much earlier.
"I think [it] would have been better had we started this seven, eight months ago and building up and building that coalition," he said.
Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former Navy pilot, said the limited time available to secure funding appeared to have forced Pentagon officials to focus on their biggest priorities.
"What we saw there was there's no time to talk about everything — Defense Department and the number of weapon systems that we have — and what we're building is a very comprehensive list," Kelly said. "I think they were trying to focus on some of the bigger challenges, and that's an appropriate thing to do."
The Thursday briefing included Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, Pentagon comptroller Jules Hurst and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Christopher Mahoney.
Feinberg and Mahoney had also briefed the Senate Appropriations defence subcommittee on Wednesday and the House Appropriations defence subcommittee the previous week on the Pentagon's fiscal 2027 spending request.
Republican Sen Deb Fischer of Nebraska said classified briefings were useful regardless of when they took place, but said lawmakers also had a responsibility to engage with the department on what threats it was facing and what capabilities were required.
She said the Pentagon needed to provide Congress with a clear list of funding priorities.
"I think when something is a main priority for this country and for the Pentagon as well, something that we need, we need to prioritise it so that we have long-term funding and it gets the attention that it needs," Fischer said.
The renewed congressional outreach comes as the administration's broader effort to secure additional military funding remains stalled.
The White House requested an $87 billion supplemental package in June, including about $67 billion for the Pentagon to replenish munitions used during the war with Iran and cover other operational costs.
The administration is separately seeking a $1.5 trillion defence budget for fiscal 2027. The request includes plans to pursue $350 billion through the budget reconciliation process.
The House passed a roughly $95 billion package in July to fund the Iran war and other administration priorities, but the measure has made little progress in the Senate.
Republican Sen Rick Scott of Florida said there was still sufficient time to work through the defence budget and praised Pentagon officials for explaining how the department was spending existing funds and what further money was being sought.
However, some Democrats remained yet to be convinced, with Sen Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut described the Pentagon's presentation as "less than convincing" and said Democrats would continue pressing the department for greater transparency over the cost of the Iran conflict.
"There seems to be a lot of confusion in their message, and frankly, lack of candour," Blumenthal said. He said lawmakers faced "really tough challenges" in reconciling the administration's requests with developments on the ground.
"We're going to be demanding much more information to justify these apparently excessive requests in some areas, and certainly all of it is coloured by the lowballing and undercounting of the costs of the Iran war," he added.
Democratic Sen Gary Peters of Michigan said the Pentagon had not carried out the level of congressional engagement needed to justify a $1.5 trillion request.
Republican Sen Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said he had initially been concerned about using reconciliation to move some high-priority defence spending but had become more understanding of the approach after the lack of progress on the regular appropriations process.
"We haven't done an appropriation bill yet all this year," Cramer said, criticising what he described as a lack of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans.
"So, given that, it's not surprising to me that they would lean on … the Republicans to pass the reconciliation package, for some of the highest priorities of modernisation."
Cramer said Pentagon officials had laid out "very specific" priorities during the classified session, supported by detailed material on what the military services said they needed.
Kelly said he remained open to supporting the US armed forces but questioned the scale of the proposed spending.
"The Pentagon budget is twice the size of when I first got here," he said. "Now they're asking for $1.45 trillion, and I think they want a supplemental on top of it."
"It is an extraordinary amount of money," Kelly added, saying there were programmes he believed would not work and others he considered unnecessary.
The Pentagon's $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 request would represent a substantial increase over the roughly $1 trillion national defence budget sought by the administration for fiscal 2026.
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