Senate Dems Block Defense Bill In Protest Of Iran War

Senate Democrats blocked a $1.15 trillion Pentagon policy bill on Tuesday, as the sprawling legislation became a casualty in the monthslong fight to rein in President Donald Trump on Iran.

The National Defense Authorization Act fell well short of the 60 votes needed to advance to the Senate floor. The 50-46 procedural vote saw every Democrat present oppose the bill.

The move is a blow to Republicans who had sought to deliver on Trump’s record-shattering defense budget ambitions — using a bill that is one of the few measures that reliably becomes law each year. But Democrats had long signaled that they won’t support the Pentagon legislation without guardrails on Trump, most notably on the Iran war.

It’s unclear how Senate leaders in both parties might attempt to unjam the bill, but they’re not alone. GOP hard-liners in the House tanked a competing version of the defense policy bill two weeks ago, though Republican leaders may have clinched a deal to soon resurrect their measure in the lower chamber.

Democrats in both chambers have signaled they won’t approach the typically bipartisan megabill like they would in a normal year — and instead plan to make it a political battleground. Many Democrats have balked at GOP defense hawks’ efforts to secure $1.15 trillion for the Pentagon, a down payment on Trump’s mammoth $1.5 trillion budget request.

Still others have argued the bill doesn’t do enough to rein in Trump on Iran. Other Democrats have demanded other limits, such as restrictions on the administration’s deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities.

"The NDAA cannot become a permission slip for that recklessness that we see occurring in Iran,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “Donald Trump does not get to drag the American people deeper into a war he cannot explain and does not know how to end, and then demand Congress look the other way."

The Senate has failed to pass its own version of the NDAA several times due to partisan feuding. But it’s exceedingly rare for one party to block the chamber from even opening debate on the defense bill, something that last happened more than a decade and a half ago.

Republicans in 2010 twice prevented the Senate from opening debate on Democratic-led defense legislation, stalling the bill over a proposed repeal of the military’s "don't ask, don't tell" policy that banned gay and lesbian people from openly serving in the military.

The vote may also be a preview of further dysfunction on federal funding as Washington approaches an October shutdown deadline. Though the NDAA is a policy bill and doesn’t allocate any funding, Schumer and other top Democrats have argued that the trillion-plus-dollar defense bill is a sign of misplaced priorities that over invest in the military and while not doing enough for domestic priorities and to lower costs.

Trump last week declared a monthslong ceasefire with Iran was over, and the U.S. has resumed bombing. Though Republicans lined up in support of the defense bill, the on-and-off Middle East military campaign still threatens to saddle lawmakers with high gas prices and other economic consequences months ahead of midterm elections.

Aside from Trump’s massive $1.5 trillion defense budget — $350 billion of which the administration is seeking to enact in a separate party-line reconciliation bill — lawmakers are also weighing a White House request for an extra $67 billion to cover the costs of the war.

Only four of the 13 Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee supported the bill during the panel’s close-door markup last month, an initial sign of trouble.

On the floor Tuesday, all four of those senators, including Armed Services ranking Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, flipped their votes, giving Democrats uniform opposition to the bill.

Majority Leader John Thune switched his “yes” vote to a “no” in order to make a motion to reconsider the bill at a later date. Four senators did not vote: Republicans Jim Justice of West Virginia and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Democrats John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Alex Padilla of California.

Republicans, meanwhile, argued that a Democratic blockade of the bill would amount to playing politics with U.S. national security. Ahead of the vote, Thune highlighted a variety of major provisions, including a 3.6 percent troop pay raise, an emphasis on developing drone technology and a major investment in shipbuilding.

But Republicans appeared pessimistic they would muster the votes needed to advance the bill. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, argued it would now be incumbent on Democrats to make an offer to break the logjam.

"I hope that they have thought through what the offer would be to get back on the NDAA, and that it's a reasonable offer,” Rounds said. “But we haven't heard what they want."