Defense budget debate devolves into fight over Hegseth’s controversies

House Democrats on Tuesday unsuccessfully tried to turn debate over future years’ military spending into a referendum of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s leadership, insisting Congress has failed in its oversight duties amid numerous Pentagon scandals.

“The fact that Secretary Hegseth is still employed is a joke,” House Armed Services Committee member Marilyn Strickland, D-Wash., said during a panel markup on the defense budget boost. “And what is more appalling to me is [Republicans’] constituent silence. At some point, you have to speak to the American people.”

Tuesday’s hearing was scheduled to allow committee members to mark up the defense funding section of congressional Republicans’ massive reconciliation bill. While the measure calls for steep cuts in a number of federal agencies, the Defense Department would see a $150 billion boost in the plan.

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House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said the money represents “an opportunity to make a generational investment in our national security.”

Among other priorities, about $9 billion would be set aside for quality-of-life improvements, $34 billion for shipbuilding and maritime industrial base actions, and $5 billion for border security efforts.

However, committee Democrats expressed concerns with the overall reconciliation plan, and steep reductions in funding for non-defense programs. They also voiced reservations about who will be spending the new defense money in the coming years.

“We should not give Pete Hegseth a $150 billion blank check,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass. “Heck, I wouldn’t trust the secretary with 20 bucks.”

Instead of attacking specifics of the defense plus-up plan, the minority party over four hours of debate offered more than 20 amendments dealing mostly with curbing Hegseth’s authority and investigating his management practices.

One measure would have blocked $112 billion in funds until the completion of an investigation into Hegseth’s sharing of sensitive military information on his personal cell phone and through the non-government app Signal. Another required new training on handling classified information for all senior defense officials.

Another amendment called for written justification for Hegseth’s firing of former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown in February. A proposal from Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., would have barred the Defense Department from using any funds to support a personal makeup studio for Hegseth, an amenity he reportedly renovated off his office earlier this year.

One amendment would have reduced Hegseth’s salary to $1. One from Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., demanded the defense secretary be forced to resign.

President Donald Trump has continued to voice support for Hegseth amid attacks from critics in recent weeks. Hegseth has labeled nearly all of the controversies as left-wing misinformation designed to distract from reforms within the Pentagon.

Rogers on Tuesday dismissed nearly all of the criticism of Hegseth as off-base and unrelated to the budgetary efforts.

None of the Democrats’ legislative proposals from the hearing were ultimately adopted by the Republican-majority committee. For most of the day, no more than a few GOP members beyond Rogers were present for the discussion, and none engaged in debate over the attacks on Hegseth.

The committee approved the defense portion of the reconciliation plan by a 35-21 final vote, sending it to the full chamber for consideration sometime next month. Five Democrats voted with all the committee Republicans for passage.

Leaders in both the House and Senate still must negotiate a final draft of the overall bill before the plan can be sent to Trump to become law.

Meanwhile, House Democrats promised to keep up the oversight — and pressure — on Hegseth in weeks to come.

“He has proven himself to be incompetent, to be reckless, to be paranoid, and he cannot be trusted with the responsibility of our precious resources or the lives of our military men and women,” Houlahan said. “He needs to go, one way or another.”