Congress
Hegseth starts to branch out to shore up Pentagon bid
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be defense secretary, is back on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to continue meeting with Republican senators. This time, the embattled nominee is branching out beyond the Trump-allied GOP senators to some who aren’t yet committed.
Hegseth is set to meet with at least three Republicans this afternoon: Sens. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.).
Budd and Schmitt both sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee that will handle the nomination and have expressed support for Hegseth. But Risch, who will chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hasn’t yet committed to supporting him.
Hegseth will have two Washington insiders with him when he meets with lawmakers: Eric Ueland, a former Senate aide who served as Trump’s legislative affairs director, and former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, a lobbyist who represented Minnesota from 2003 to 2009.
Early Senate meetings for Hegseth, who has faced allegations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse, have focused on staunch Trump allies who have defended the Army veteran and former Fox News personality with no Pentagon experience. Those allies have so far argued Hegseth is an outsider who’ll shake up the Defense Department.
Hegseth met Monday with another Trump ally, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), as well as vocal defense hawk Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). Tuberville said his meeting with Hegseth was focused on his priorities, such as military recruiting, Pentagon waste and defense assets in Alabama.
“He’s got to continue to do this. He’s going to have to answer a lot of questions … to people that are going to either possibly give him a confirmation vote or not give him a confirmation vote,” Tuberville told reporters.
Late Monday, Hegseth also met with a group of roughly 10 Republican senators, where he was accompanied by his wife and did not address the misconduct allegations against him, several senators said afterward. Hegseth did defend his lack of DOD experience.
“He said, ‘Look, what I lack in terms of knowledge of the E-ring of the Pentagon, I will more than make up for by surrounding myself with the best and the brightest people who are familiar with what goes where,’” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) told reporters.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) waved off the allegations of impropriety, citing Fox News news host Megyn Kelly’s defense of Hegseth, who argued that combat veterans can have difficulty navigating their personal lives.
“Are soldiers sometimes wild childs? Yeah, that can happen, but it is very clear that this guy is the guy who, at a time when Americans were losing confidence in their own military, in our ability to project strength around the world, Pete Hegseth is the answer to that concern.”
Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz committed Tuesday to putting a kids online safety proposal from Sen. Marsha Blackburn on the agenda for his upcoming markup on artificial intelligence legislation — even as President Donald Trump holds off on giving the forthcoming bill his stamp of approval.
The Texas Republican also told reporters he “would expect to support” his colleague’s bill, but cast doubt on whether it could pass the full Senate.
“It’s not clear to me at all that there are 60 votes for it,” Cruz continued, “but I am happy to have a markup and see where the votes are.”
A spokesperson for Blackburn did not respond to a request for comment on her plans, but the Tennessee Republican in a statement Monday night pledged to continue building consensus to be able to move her legislation “by the end of the year.”
It comes after Cruz and Blackburn met with Trump in the Oval office Monday afternoon, where Blackburn presented some details of her yet-to-be-introduced package that is likely to pair her signature legislation, the Kids Online Safety Act, with some provisions pre-empting state AI laws — a bid to win the endorsement of the Trump administration.
Blackburn’s package also could include the NO FAKES Act — which would create new restrictions on AI deepfakes — and the Apps Store Accountability Act — which would require minors to obtain parental consent before downloading apps — according to a person granted anonymity to share private negotiations.
In that White House meeting, Cruz doubted the fate of the package in the Senate, the person said, and Trump did not make a commitment to give it his blessing.
It’s not also clear whether Blackburn will try to introduce a version of her bill in time for its consideration at the Senate Commerce markup tentatively scheduled for July 29. Per committee rules, Cruz must publish an advisory for any markup a week in advance — in this case Wednesday, assuming the late-July date holds — though changes to the lineup can be made the day-of.
As of Tuesday afternoon, staff for Commerce Committee Democrats said they hadn’t seen the final agenda but noted a lot can change in 24 hours. Republicans on the panel also said they have been largely in the dark: Sen. John Curtis of Utah, who recently introduced a bipartisan bill cracking down on AI chatbots that would go further than a similar proposal from Cruz, said he had not spoken to the chair nor did he have a sense of what might be on the agenda.
Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), another member of the Commerce Committee who works closely on AI legislation, also said he had not heard what’s on the agenda.
Sprawling Pentagon policy legislation advanced in the House on Tuesday, a turnaround after Republican infighting stalled the $1.15 trillion bill just weeks ago.
House Republicans are next set to push to attach numerous conservative amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act in a bid to solidify GOP support to pass the bill as soon as Wednesday. Most Democrats are expected to oppose the bill over its record price tag and President Donald Trump’s pursuit of the Iran war.
The narrow 214-211 procedural vote comes after a handful of Republican hard-liners in June voted to block the defense bill from coming to the House floor amid a dispute over election legislation backed by Trump.
Speaker Mike Johnson has since smoothed over the dispute with those hard-liners, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), over forcing the Senate to consider voter identification legislation that kept the House floor frozen for weeks. With Tuesday’s procedural vote, Republicans agreed to attach their overhaul, the SAVE America Act, to the defense bill when it passes. House Republicans have similarly attached the SAVE America Act to other major bills sent to the Senate this month.
The rule vote was held open as Johnson worked to sway some holdouts to advance the defense bill and several other measures. In the end, just one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, opposed advancing the bill after GOP leadership didn’t green-light his amendment to strip a provision that would bolster cooperation between the U.S. and Israel on military technology.
That’s not the only move GOP leaders are making to lock down conservative support for the defense bill.
Lawmakers will next plow through 320 amendments to the defense bill, some of which will steer the bill rightward if adopted.
The tranche includes several proposals that tap into a partisan fight over transgender people serving in the military, including Republican amendments to make permanent the Trump administration’s ban on transgender people serving openly in the military and to block funding for gender-affirming medical procedures through the military’s Tricare health system.
Lawmakers will also debate a GOP proposal requiring the Pentagon report on options for a potential cut to the civilian defense workforce of 200,000 employees. And Ukraine aid skeptics in the GOP were granted a vote to bar Pentagon funding to help arm the Ukrainian military as Russia’s invasion drags on.
Most Democratic amendments aimed at reining in the Trump administration and slashing spending were rejected by Republicans. That includes efforts to reduce the bill’s budget top line below $1 trillion and prohibit funding to continue the war against Iran.
Tuesday’s procedural vote also advanced several other major bills with defense implications. Republicans are also set to consider a budget blueprint meant to jump-start the party-line reconciliation process to fast-track $95 billion in additional spending, including $60 billion in defense funding to cover the costs of the Iran war.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Rules Committee that vets bills before they head to the House floor, argued the combination of bills shows Trump and Republicans’ misplaced priorities. He called the war “another one of Donald Trump’s broken promises.”
“Does anyone think that’s made life better for the American people?” McGovern asked. “Maybe it’s made life better for defense contractors. Maybe for the crazy neocon warmongers that get a kick out of another war. But not for everyday people.”
House Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) shot back that the GOP priorities “are not out of whack.”
“The number one role of the federal government is the defense of this nation,” Foxx said.
Jay Clayton is one step closer to becoming President Donald Trump’s spy czar — but he’s shedding Democratic support in the ascent.
The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 9-8 on Tuesday to advance Clayton’s nomination as director of national intelligence to the full chamber. The party-line vote marks a partial setback for Clayton, who was expected to draw broad Democratic support until a contentious confirmation hearing last week. At the hearing, Clayton repeatedly refused to admit that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.
The vote nonetheless puts Clayton, a top federal prosecutor and former SEC chair, on the cusp of joining President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. Senate Republicans have the votes to confirm Clayton without any Democratic support, though it is not immediately clear when Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) plans to do so.
Democrats are still likely to prefer Clayton over the current acting DNI, Bill Pulte, a Trump loyalist with no background in national security. They just aren’t as supportive as they’d seemed previously.
Senate Intelligence Chair Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and ranking Democrat Sen. Mark Warner (Va.) last month agreed to a deal to fast-track Clayton’s confirmation in exchange for Democratic support for a controversial spy law. But Trump derailed the plan at the last minute, directing Clayton not to attend his first scheduled confirmation hearing because he feared Democrats wouldn’t deliver on their end of the deal.
That resulted in the partial expiration of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last month, and it is still not clear when the Senate will vote to re-up it next.
So far, Pulte hasn’t implemented the sweeping personnel cuts at ODNI that Democrats feared. But he was involved in discussions around the primetime speech Trump delivered last Thursday, in which the president accused the intelligence community of a “shocking” cover-up on the extent of Chinese meddling in 2020.
A spokesperson for the ODNI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Pulte’s role in last week’s speech.
The intelligence documents the White House declassified Thursday fell well short of backing up Trump’s Thursday allegation. They also do not support his longstanding claim his 2020 loss was the result of a rigged election.
Still, Trump’s speech underscored the difficult balancing act Clayton will face if confirmed: between Democrats who are wary Trump will misuse intelligence to justify a power grab over U.S. elections, and a president who remains convinced the “deep state” is out to get him.
Democrats generally view Clayton as more competent and far less of a loose cannon than Pulte, who encouraged mortgage fraud investigations of Trump’s enemies as the head of the government’s federal housing finance regulator.
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