While Ripping Trump Authoritarianism, Over Half of Senate Dems Help GOP Pass $925 Billion Pentagon Bill

Senate Democrats are blasting President Donald Trump's increasingly authoritarian behavior and congressional Republicans for shutting down the US government to preserve devastating healthcare cuts, but over half of them voted with the GOP late Thursday to give nearly $1 trillion to the Pentagon, which has never passed an audit.

The final vote on the Senate's $925 billion version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 was 77-20, with Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) not voting. The passage tees up talks with leaders in the House of Representatives, where nearly all Republicans and 17 Democrats approved an NDAA last month.

Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Cory Booker (NJ), Maria Cantwell (Wash.) Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Andy Kim (NJ), Ed Markey (Mass.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Adam Schiff (Calif.), Tina Smith (Minn.) Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Peter Welch (Vt.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.) opposed the bill alongside Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, and Rand Paul (R-Ky).

"Yesterday, the Senate voted to give the Pentagon a trillion-dollar spending package while the Trump administration and MAGA Republicans play politics with troop pay and nuclear security and refuse to reopen the federal government," Markey said in a Friday statement. "All the while, they are stealing healthcare from American families to fund tax breaks for CEO billionaires. This isn't a budget that funds America's real security needs."

"The Senate voted to give the Pentagon a trillion-dollar spending package while the Trump administration and MAGA Republicans play politics with troop pay and nuclear security and refuse to reopen the federal government."

"Republicans rail that we need to cut government spending—for food assistance, for healthcare, for environmental protection—yet they are showering their defense contractor cronies with hundreds of billions for wasteful and destabilizing programs like Trump's Golden Dome space-based missile system," Markey continued. "Yet they decry that funding will soon dry up for paying military salaries and for essential nuclear security operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration."

"In their desperation to score cheap political points, Republicans are undermining vital national security missions," he added. "Year after year, Congress continues to expand military spending while denying investments in the programs that will truly build a safer, healthier future for working- and middle-class families. The cost of passing this bill in the form of denied rights and wasteful spending is simply too great."

In posts on Bluesky, journalist Erin Reed called out the Senate Democrats who helped pass the bill, given its attacks on LGBTQ+ Americans and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—common targets of congressional Republicans and the Trump administration.

"In 2024, the NDAA became the vehicle for one of the most consequential betrayals of transgender Americans by national Democrats in recent memory, after Democrats allowed provisions targeting trans military family members and dependents to stand when they had control of the Senate and White House," Reed noted.

"This year, history is repeating itself," she said. "Senate Democrats dropped key objections and allowed a vote to proceed on the bill—ultimately passing the Senate version of the bill, complete with anti-trans culture-war riders, an anti-DEI clause, and no limits on the domestic deployment of US troops."

Early Thursday afternoon, Duckworth, a veteran herself, said that she was blocking the NDAA until she secured a hearing to investigate the president's "gross abuse of our military" by sending soldiers into American cities. A few hours later—shortly before a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump's National Guard deployment in her state, Illinois—Duckworth announced that a hearing is planned.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), one of the Democrats who voted for the NDAA, secured sufficient bipartisan support for his amendment to end the authorizations for use of military force related to the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Washington Post reported that "the House bill also includes a similar measure, bringing Congress to the precipice of repealing the laws."

Some other Democrat-proposed amendments weren't successful. According to The Hill:

Amendments that failed to pass included one from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who had hoped to block money for President Trump to retrofit a luxury Qatari jet he accepted as an intended replacement for Air Force One.

"Retrofitting this foreign-owned luxury jet to make it fully operational will cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. That's money that shouldn't be wasted," Schumer said.

Still, Schumer ultimately voted for the NDAA—unlike Van Hollen, who proposed blocking Trump and governors from sending National Guard troops to another state if its governor or local leaders don't agree.

"Presidents and governors shouldn't be able to deploy National Guard troops from one state to another if that state's governor objects," the senator said on social media. "That is common sense, and yet Republicans just blocked my amendment to stop this blatant abuse of power. Another shameful abdication of duty."