It also contains anti-trans riders and no limits on domestic deployment of US troops, points out journalist Erin Reed.
“Year after year, Congress continues to expand military spending while denying investments in the programs that will truly build a safer, healthier future for working- and middle-class families,” said Sen. Ed Markey.Anton Petrus via Getty Images
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Senate Democrats are blasting President Donald Trump’s increasingly authoritarian behavior and congressional Republicans for shutting down the US government to preserve devastating healthcare cuts, but over half of them voted with the GOP late Thursday to give nearly $1 trillion to the Pentagon, which has never passed an audit.
The final vote on the Senate’s $925 billion version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 was 77-20, with Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) not voting. The passage tees up talks with leaders in the House of Representatives, where nearly all Republicans and 17 Democrats approved an NDAA last month.
Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), Cory Booker (NJ), Maria Cantwell (Wash.) Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Andy Kim (NJ), Ed Markey (Mass.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Chris Murphy (Conn.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Adam Schiff (Calif.), Tina Smith (Minn.) Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Peter Welch (Vt.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.) opposed the bill alongside Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, and Rand Paul (R-Ky).
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“Yesterday, the Senate voted to give the Pentagon a trillion-dollar spending package while the Trump administration and MAGA Republicans play politics with troop pay and nuclear security and refuse to reopen the federal government,” Markey said in a Friday statement. “All the while, they are stealing healthcare from American families to fund tax breaks for CEO billionaires. This isn’t a budget that funds America’s real security needs.”
“Republicans rail that we need to cut government spending — for food assistance, for healthcare, for environmental protection — yet they are showering their defense contractor cronies with hundreds of billions for wasteful and destabilizing programs like Trump’s Golden Dome space-based missile system,” Markey continued. “Yet they decry that funding will soon dry up for paying military salaries and for essential nuclear security operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration.”
“In their desperation to score cheap political points, Republicans are undermining vital national security missions,” he added. “Year after year, Congress continues to expand military spending while denying investments in the programs that will truly build a safer, healthier future for working- and middle-class families. The cost of passing this bill in the form of denied rights and wasteful spending is simply too great.”
In posts on Bluesky, journalist Erin Reed called out the Senate Democrats who helped pass the bill,