Republicans have a ticking clock. What can they get done on defense?

WASHINGTON — Republicans are under the gun to pass defense funding during the lame duck session following a crippling loss in midterm elections, but first they’ll have to square off against emboldened Democrats seeking to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and curb the Iran war.

With only five legislative weeks remaining in the year, GOP leaders may make a last ditch effort to pass partyline reconciliation funding and a fiscal 2027 budget before Democrats take control of the House and Senate in January, experts said. 

The big problem: Democrats may not be willing to come to the table. 

“There’s zero chance of appropriations getting passed because that requires 60 votes in the Senate. Republicans do not have 60 votes in the Senate for any kind of appropriations bill,” said Todd Harrison, a defense analyst with the American Enterprise Institute. “Democrats have zero incentive to reach any kind of a deal on appropriations because now they’ve taken both chambers by substantial majorities.”

The Pentagon has requested funding for defense via three different vehicles:

• A $1.15 trillion discretionary defense budget 
• A $350 billion mandatory funding request that would be funded through the partyline reconciliation process 
• A supplemental funding request that includes $67 billion for defense to recoup expenses associated with the Iran war

Another key item on the to-do list: The FY27 National Defense Authorization Act, an annual bill that does not provide funding, but contains defense policy changes ranging from troop pay raises to defense acquisition reform.

None of the three funding vehicles have been approved by Congress, and the path toward passage has become much more complicated as a result of the landslide Democrat wins, experts said. 

In a note to investors on Wednesday, TD Cowen analyst Roman Schweizer said that a sweeping Democratic takeover of the House and Senate is the “toughest” scenario for defense spending. The lame duck period is “now critical” as the “last shot at [reconciliation],” with both the NDAA and defense appropriations likely delayed until early 2027.

VJ Sahi, partner and senior vice president at Clark Street Associates, told Breaking Defense that in the early weeks of the lame duck, Republicans could view a reconciliation bill “as the last train leaving the station” and could push a mandatory funding package forward that would at least cover the Iran war costs. 

But even without needing Democrat votes, Republican leadership will face both old and new challenges in getting partyline support for reconciliation, defense analysts said. 

The House passed a budget resolution in July that would start the reconciliation process, with $60 billion for defense. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune repeatedly refused to bring it up for a vote in the upper chamber, stating that there weren’t enough Republican votes to pass the measure. 

After the midterms, Republican leadership will have to contend with the same concerns from fiscal hawks about how reconciliation funding will be paid for. And if Republicans departing Congress at the end of the year decide not to show up for the lame duck session, they might not have the numbers to even get a simple majority, Harrison said. 

“I think the most likely case is it doesn’t go anywhere, it doesn’t even get a vote,”  Harrison said. 

A day after the election, Capital Alpha Partners analyst Byron Callan reduced his prediction that further defense reconciliation will pass Congress from 15 percent to 10 percent. He was similarly sanguine about the chances of passing FY27 appropriations, projecting a 50 percent chance of a government shutdown after the current continuing resolution (CR) expires on Dec. 11. 

“The magnitude of Democratic gains in the House and Senate from the midterm elections suggests that nothing will get done by Congress for defense legislation in Nov.-Dec,” Callan wrote in a note to investors Wednesday. 

If budget negotiations stall until January, when the 120th Congress is sworn in, Democrats could potentially boost funds for nondefense priorities while reining in defense spending to be well below the $1.5 trillion level the Trump administration was angling for in FY27.

Washington Rep. Adam Smith, who will probably take the gavel as the House Armed Services Committee chairman, signaled in a letter Wednesday that he would support a more restrained defense budget.

“We must push for the development of a more realistic and sustainable approach to our national security — one that does not require a defense budget in excess of $1 trillion or one paid for with draconian cuts to critical domestic programs,” Smith wrote.

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro — House Appropriations Committee’s top Democrat and likely chairwoman come January —  did not explicitly call for lower defense spending in a letter where she laid out her priorities. However, she set up a potential fight with the Office of Management and Budget over how previous reconciliation dollars sent to the Defense Department were spent. 

“We must claw back billions of dollars Republicans unilaterally provided to Border Patrol, ICE, and the Pentagon through budget reconciliation in an end run outside of the Appropriations Committee,” she stated.

With reconciliation unlikely and a probable defense topline of roughly $1.1 trillion for FY27, the Pentagon will need to make hard choices in terms of what items should be transferred from the mandatory request to the discretionary budget — and what items will be cut in order to free up those dollars. 

“Missile defense interceptor replenishment will remain a priority, but it is highly unlikely that all of the $47 billion in mandatory [request] is funded in discretionary,” Callan wrote in a note to investors. The Pentagon is also unlikely to get all of the F-35s included in the mandatory request added to the baseline appropriations bill, and the funding for its Drone Dominance effort could get shaved down to a “fraction” of its $53.6 billion request, he added. 

Harrison and Callan agreed that in an environment where Democrats control the defense budget, the Trump-class battleship won’t receive funding. 

Golden Dome — another signature program of the Trump administration —  may survive in parts, but it suffers from a lack of Democrat support and the fact that the vast majority of its funding for FY27 was supposed to be paid for by reconciliation, Harrison said. 

“If you dissect it and look at the different parts of Golden Dome, I think there are many parts that would enjoy bipartisan support,” he said. 

However, “the Golden Dome Caucus on the Hill never included a single Democrat. Democrats have not been getting the briefings on it that Republicans have, so there’s just not buy-in for the program,” he added. 

And the longer budget negotiations extend, the more complicated they could become. If the debt ceiling isn’t addressed by a GOP-led reconciliation bill, and FY27 budget talks stretch until spring, those negotiations could be combined, Schweizer said in a note today.

“It’s a tale as old as time: build a mega policy cliff” that combines government funding and a debt ceiling raise, Schweizer said. “If that happens, we would expect a 2-year discretionary spending deal combined with a debt ceiling raise.”

The Hegseth Question

One looming question hanging over the lame duck is the fate of Hegseth, who has come into the crosshairs of lawmakers blaming him for the Iran war — widely seen as a key reason why the GOP lost the midterms. 

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., reiterated on Wednesday that he will bring articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth when Congress returns to Washington next week. 

“There is one contingency in which I won’t reintroduce the articles of impeachment: Hegseth resigns,” he said in a post on X. 

Hegseth could have an obvious exit strategy. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who was elected as Tennessee’s governor in the midterms, could appoint Hegseth to fill her Senate seat when she leaves Washington. 

But if that’s the plan, it would be best for Hegseth to resign quickly, Harrison said. 

“If Hegseth resigns now in the lame duck session, the Senate, while it’s still under Republican control, has time to confirm a new SECDEF,” he said. “If that falls to the next Senate, with a 54 or 55 seat majority with Democrats, Trump is going to have a hard time getting anyone confirmed.” 

Massie told Fox News that he intends to force a vote on Hegseth’s impeachment by filing a privileged resolution, which would compel a House vote within two days. 

One lobbyist who spoke to Breaking Defense said Vice President JD Vance’s post on X blaming the Iran war for the GOP loss in the midterms will provide some Republican lawmakers the political top cover needed to vote for Hegseth’s impeachment. 

For a Republican who views JD Vance as the future of the party, “a vote to impeach Hegseth over Iran … [is] a political vote I’m willing to take,” the lobbyist said. “If you have members that are [thinking], ‘This could be one of the final votes that I cast as a member of Congress. This is the legacy that I’m leaving, and Iran is obviously deeply unpopular’… I feel like that is a very politically safe vote for a lot of folks to take.”

Earlier today, Hegseth published a defiant video message on X where he called the Iran war a “a courageous and historic effort” and referenced the potential impeachment vote directly.

“A disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democrat allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly, just like they tried against President Trump twice,” he said. “It’s all about the politics of personal destruction. Didn’t work against President Trump, and it won’t work with me.”

Since the election, Trump has repeatedly denied news reports that he was considering replacing Hegseth, telling reporters on Wednesday that Hegseth “is doing a very good job.”

Asked whether he wanted Hegseth to be appointed to fill Blackburn’s senatorial seat, Trump said that Hegseth “would be very popular if he did that, but I haven’t heard that at all.” 

Harrison said he didn’t buy that explanation. 

“When your boss starts saying you’d be great at a different job, that’s a sign,” he said. 

Democrats Set Sights On Iran War, Oversight

Democrats have made clear that investigating the Trump administration will be a major legislative goal, with lawmakers already beginning to lay out their oversight priorities during the lame duck session. 

In September, Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, sent a letter to the National Defense Industrial Association informing the trade group of a“likely” investigation into corporate donations to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, which include defense contractors like Lockheed Martin.

Some Democrats, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, have previously raised concerns about Pentagon contracts being awarded to companies with ties to the Trump brothers.

“I think it will be an issue for defense companies, especially those that have been invested in by the president’s family,” the lobbyist said.

In the Wednesday letter outlining Democrat priorities for HASC, Smith wrote that he would support reestablishing an oversight subcommittee, which could investigate waste, fraud and abuse by defense contractors as well as current operations.  

“The list of potential oversight topics is long, but the illegal war against Iran is top of mind for me and the American people. So too are sweetheart deals and favoritism to certain entities and individuals,” Smith stated.

“The list continues with the unauthorized military strikes in the Caribbean and Latin America, the deployment of the military to U.S. cities, and the blatant and corrosive politicization of our Armed Forces and purging of the ranks based on loyalty and ideology are high on the list,” he added. 

The NDAA could be one early showcase where Democrats potentially make the argument that greater oversight of the Iran War and of Hegseth’s office are needed before they sign on to pass the bill. 

“You’ve got Democrats itching to find a way to curtail the president, in his ability to conduct the war. The NDAA could be the legislative vehicle where they try to put some of those policies into law,” Harrison said. 

The renaming of the Pentagon as the “Department of War” is another policy in the NDAA that Democrats could seek to reverse, he added.

In a Wednesday post on X, California Rep. Ro Khanna, the top Democrat on HASC’s cyber and IT subpanel, suggested that any forthcoming continuing resolutions could prohibit funds for combat operations in Iran and cut all aid for Israel.

“End the Iran war like we did for Vietnam,” he said.