Annual defense bill advances with aim for modernization, pressures Hegseth for full bombing video

Congress passed the annual defense policy bill Wednesday and sent the latest authorization for how the Defense Department can spend its $901 billion budget to the president’s desk.

The National Defense Authorization Act passed with broad bipartisan support in a vote of 77-20. The legislation is touted as a massive step forward for the modernization of the department.

The annual text usually focuses on areas outside the traditional political maneuvering, but this year, it put pressure directly on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“This legislation reforms decades of bureaucratic inefficiency,” Sen. Roger F. Wicker, Mississippi Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on the floor of the Senate just before the bill advanced. “We’re about to pass, and the president is about to enthusiastically sign, the most sweeping upgrades to DOD’s business practices in 60 years.”

Lawmakers negotiated between the two chambers of Congress to cover major reforms to the purchasing process, military modernization, nuclear testing and even President Trump’s Golden Dome. Leadership in the House and Senate armed services committees negotiated and finalized the bulk of the legislation before the Thanksgiving recess.

The bill increased the amount of spending allowed by the Defense Department by $8 billion above previous spending limits while focusing on attracting new companies into the defense industry.

“It allows more small, independent companies to be able to come in,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, Oklahoma Republican, told The Washington Times. “It allows a lot of the bureaucracy to go away.”

Mr. Mullin said the language in the bill is meant to offer smaller businesses more opportunities, similar to previous years, which focused on introducing more businesses owned by veterans and minority groups. He sees a risk if the larger defense companies, known as primes, acquire their competition.

“We did a little bit of safety precautions to keep the primes from gobbling them up,” Mr. Mullin said. “They get a little bit more competitive with the primes, then get acquired. The primes gobble them up, and then we go right back to the same position we’re in.”

Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, said those efforts should pay dividends.

“It’s a strong bill, and modernization is a really high priority,” Mr. King said. “We’ve been late on hypersonics, we’ve been late on directed energy, and we’ve got to get going.”

A portion of the bill that both chambers of Congress originally agreed to was stripped out. It’s called the right to repair. Many defense industry companies that work directly with the military and Congress to meet the department’s requirements for new systems legally bar anyone but the company’s employees from conducting diagnostics, making repairs or manufacturing parts to fix equipment, including service members operating those systems. The right to repair would impose a legal prohibition on similar terms and conditions in the future.

Originally authored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, and Tim Sheehy, Montana Republican, the language is no longer part of the bill.

“The defense industry lobbyists managed to get to someone behind closed doors and blocked a bill that had virtually unanimous support out in public,” Ms. Warren told The Times. “The defense industry lobbyists made it pretty clear that they believe nothing becomes law in the United States without their sign-off.”

The right to repair originally had the support of Mr. Hegseth and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who publicly committed to supporting the change during his confirmation hearing.

He previously described the contracts limiting soldiers’ ability to repair their equipment as “sinful” and emphasized the importance of in-house, rapid manufacturing capabilities for unique military parts.

The National Defense Authorization Act wasn’t exclusively focused on new technology or the ebb and flow of contracting dollars.

Congress also flexed its muscle for troop numbers and command posts in Europe, a bipartisan hedge against Mr. Hegseth’s and Mr. Trump’s public comments of a possible drawdown in the region.

The Republican committee leaders have publicly disagreed with the president on drawdowns abroad, as such moves would likely foment doubt among allies and strengthen the postures of Russia and China.

This year’s text also included a condition that would have withheld a substantial amount of funding for Mr. Hegseth’s travel budget until unedited videos of airstrikes in the Caribbean were released to Congress.

The personal squeeze by Congress on Mr. Hegseth’s purse strings found purchase. The secretary was to provide the House and Senate armed services committees with the bombing video Wednesday.

The debate over the use of the military abroad also extended to the repeal of previous congressional actions in the bill. The National Defense Authorization Act for 2026 repealed two authorizations for the use of military force, from 1991 and 2002, which were Congress’ approval to engage in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War.

Congress did not remove the 2001 authorization, approved just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and used by multiple administrations to justify military actions.