Hegseth Takes His Budget Pitch to Republican Fiscal Hawks

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is pitching his case for President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget to the Republicans who could complicate it the most: fiscal hawks.

Hegseth may be pushing against a locked door. A bill to significantly boost defense spending would need Democratic votes that it isn’t likely to get, while the GOP-only route — a third reconciliation bill — would require near-unanimous Republican support from lawmakers already demanding politically tricky cuts elsewhere to pay for new defense spending.Trump’s defense request includes more than $1 trillion in regular appropriations for 2027 and would rely on a party-line reconciliation package for roughly $350 billion more, with a still unresolved $78 billion request for Iran-related military operations. If Congress were to greenlight only the Pentagon’s topline request and not the two other bills, it would represent a near 40% increase over this year’s budget.

Hegseth is set to meet behind closed doors on Wednesday with the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of House conservatives, and he has been spotted on Capitol Hill meeting with other lawmakers as he tries to build support. He made a public case Tuesday in an op-ed in the New York Post, arguing that pro-defense lawmakers and fiscal hardliners should be on the same side.

“This moment requires defense hawks and fiscal hawks to pull together, and I’m proud to call myself both,” Hegseth wrote.

Fiscal conservatives have warned for weeks that they will not acquiesce to a major increase in defense spending without cuts elsewhere in the budget. The flashpoint is a demand from Republican fiscal hawks in both chambers that any reconciliation package cut “fraud” in Medicaid and Medicare spending. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), a member of the Budget Committee, which would draft any reconciliation bill, said that’s what he wants.

“I just met with Hegseth, and he made a strong case for why the military needs this; I don’t disagree with that, and he also made a pretty strong case of the reforms they’re putting into the whole procurement process,” Johnson said. “And then also, let’s really clamp down on the $250 million to a trillion of waste and fraud.”

Hegseth framed the three pieces of proposed Pentagon funding as part of a broader push, writing that his department’s work with Congress is to “stop at nothing — between the base budget, a supplemental request and a reconciliation package” to deliver Trump’s vision for “American defense dominance: a common-sense, America First military.”But congressional passage of each piece faces political perils.

The supplemental request would need Democratic support in the Senate, where most legislation needs 60 votes. After the Trump administration largely sidelined Congress during the politically unpopular Iran war, Democrats have fought to end it and are unlikely to provide the votes to pass any Iran-related funding.

A vote for the supplemental will be politically difficult because it could be seen as a vote for the unpopular Iran war, which faces bipartisan opposition.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) noted that the tiny GOP majority in the House means “you have to have almost 100% consensus in order to get across the finish line.”

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the supplemental request ought to be paired with wildfire relief and other emergency funding — a common tactic to attract more votes.

The reconciliation route would allow Republicans to avoid a filibuster, but it comes with its own problems. Senior Senate Republicans have cast doubt on whether a third reconciliation bill can pass, even as House Republicans continue to discuss one.

The money matters because the $350 billion reconciliation piece would include missile defense, munitions, aircraft, drones and other priorities that defense hawks say the military needs.

The Senate Budget Committee, which would be responsible for drafting such a bill, hasn’t started work on it. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a panel member, said Senate Republicans haven’t yet decided whether to go ahead, but “one of the motives would be more money for defense.”

While Hegseth addressed Republican cuts to how the Pentagon spends its money — saying in the op-ed the department is on track to complete a financial audit by 2028, has shifted billions toward high-priority missions and is changing the weapons-buying process — Republicans still must grapple with a question that Hegseth’s op-ed didn’t answer: What gets cut?

The administration’s budget proposes roughly $73 billion in non-defense discretionary cuts, including reductions to health research, heating aid and other domestic programs. With their eye on the November midterm elections, Democrats are arguing that Trump is trying to fund a massive Pentagon increase by gutting programs voters need.Moderate Republicans in competitive races may be wary of cutting health care, food aid or other safety-net programs just weeks before voters head to the polls, even if fiscal hawks see the cuts as necessary. Last year, a small group of Republicans, most of them facing tough reelection battles, broke with their party to push for an extension of Obamacare subsidies.

The political and process complications, coupled with a congressional calendar that has just a few more weeks of work before the August recess, is fueling speculation that lawmakers will punt reconciliation and the defense supplemental into the lame duck session.

Sen. John Boozman (R-Arkansas), a senior appropriator and Senate Budget Committee member, said finding consensus on large spending packages such as this takes “weeks and weeks.”