House Passes Defense Bill, Forcing Pentagon's Hand On Boat Strike Videos

The House passed an annual defense policy bill on Wednesday that takes surprising aim at the Pentagon’s boat strike campaign in Latin America and the Trump administration's dismissal of longstanding U.S. military commitments.

The National Defense Authorization Act heads to the Senate, which will likely send the measure to President Donald Trump, who supports the bill.

The compromise agreement would withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's travel budget until the Pentagon provides Congress with unedited videos of airstrikes against alleged drug smuggling boats. It also goes after Trump’s push away from European allies and demands a rationale when the Defense Department fires officials.

Lawmakers' $901 billion compromise bill is the result of months of negotiations between House and Senate leaders. A total of 115 Democrats joined 197 Republicans on the 312-112 vote, a remarkable shift from a House draft loaded with hard-right social provisions that passed in September along largely partisan lines.

Even with the blowout vote, lawmakers expressed bipartisan angst over the final bill. Many Republican holdouts wanted major cryptocurrency legislation attached.
Conservatives had sought more provisions taking on diversity and LGBTQ policies. Some Democrats had pushed for stricter oversight of the Trump administration, along with expanded coverage for in-vitro fertilization and protections for Pentagon employees who join unions.

And both Republican and Democratic leaders declared victory in the final bill. GOP leadership highlighted the provisions that repeal DEI programs at the Pentagon, codify a variety of Trump's executive orders and speed up the acquisition system. They argued it advances Trump's agenda.

"It's refreshing to see this kind of effort, this kind of product come to the floor in these more recent years of toxicity in this town," House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said. "But that toxicity is not reflected in this product."

But House Democrats argued the final version forced out some of the most controversial GOP-backed provisions. They also touted several measures that push back on the Trump administration.

The travel budget provisioncomes as lawmakers look into a controversial follow-up strike on Sept. 2 that killed survivors of the initial hit, which some experts argue amounts to a war crime. Republicans and Democrats are split over how deeply to investigate the incident, although all Armed Services Committee members are set to view the full footage of the attack.

Lawmakers also placed restrictions on the Pentagon's reductions of U.S. troops in Europe, a bipartisan rebuke that contrasts with Trump's new national security strategy. The document bashes European partners and suggests the continent is in decline. The bill also limits a reduction in military personnel stationed in South Korea.

Rogers (R-Ala.) and Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) have broken with Trump publicly over troops in Europe. The bipartisan stewards of the defense bill argued that removing servicemembers from Europe, such as a recent decision to pull out a rotational Army brigade from Romania, would sow doubt among NATO allies and embolden Russia.

The bill also responds to Trump and Hegseth's purging of senior military officers. It requires the Pentagon notify Congress when members of the Joint Chiefs, combatant commanders and judge advocates general are removed.

"Does it stop all those bad things that President Trump and Pete Hegseth are doing right now?” said House Armed Services ranking Democrat Adam Smith. “No, but it really couldn't. But it's a step in the right direction towards reasserting the authority of Congress."

The agreement didn't sit well with some lawmakers in both parties. Speaker Mike Johnson, ahead of the vote, worked to tamp down a conservative mutiny that could have derailed the defense bill.

Democrats lamented that the compromise package excluded protections for Pentagon civilian employees' collective bargaining rights.

Other Democrats opposed the measure after GOP leaders forced out provisions, included in both House and Senate-passed bills, that would have expanded coverage for in-vitro fertilization for military families.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), a senior Armed Services Committee member, argued the final bill doesn’t meet the urgency of the moment because it lacks provisions to address Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to U.S. cities, use of the military in immigration enforcement and other conflicts.

"I'd like to vote for this bill, but I can't,” Garamendi said. “It's time for all of us to take a moment and say, ‘Wait a minute, we're the Congress of the United States.’ This bill, while it does many things, does not assert congressional authority as it should be."