Yves here. We were remiss in not posting sooner on a preliminary win with both houses of Congress stalling Trump’s push for a big increase in Pentagon funding and the heinous plan to integrate Israel’s buried inside the bill. Reuters explains a bit more clearly that this post does how Congress has heretofore always given approval to this procedural step, which requires 60 votes. Even though the vote was on strict party lines, the lack of Democrat defections confirms strong disapproval of how Trump is conducting the Iran war. That is not going to lessen. Mainstream media coverage underplays the fact that the NDAA includes the sovereignity-stripping Israel provisions. So please, circulate this and other articles to friends and family in the hopes of enlisting them to call or write their Congresscritters and say, “Hell no!”
U.S. Senate Democrats blocked a $1.15 trillion annual defense policy bill on Tuesday, citing frustration with the Iran war and President Donald Trump’s failure to consult with Congress about his decision to send U.S. forces into the conflict…
The procedural vote on the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, failed. Even though the yes votes outnumbered no votes by 50-46, the bill fell short of the 60 votes needed to move ahead in the 100-member Senate.
The vote was along party lines…
The bill had been expected to stall, after nine Democratic members of the Armed Services Committee voted against the NDAA when the panel considered it last month. The NDAA typically passes with strong bipartisan support.
Democrats are concerned that authorizing a huge Pentagon budget would be seen as approval of the war on Iran that began with strikes by the U.S. and Israel on February 28….
Historically seen by both parties as “must-pass legislation,” the NDAA is one of the few major bills that always passes, having become law annually for more than six decades.
Despite the setback, it is early in the NDAA process. Each year, the House of Representatives and Senate pass their own versions of the NDAA, before Armed Services committee negotiators reach a compromise version that then comes up for a vote in each chamber.
If the compromise version passes, it would be sent to the White House for President Donald Trump to sign into law or veto.
The process has also stalled in the House. From Michael T. Lester on Twitter:
Confused on what’s happening with the NDAA?
You aren’t alone. Here’s where we stand, explained in simple language.
Congress doesn’t vote on a bill like the NDAA all at once. First they vote on the rules for the debate. The rules determine which amendments get a vote, how much time each side gets, and what order things happen in. Nothing else moves until that rule passes.
A small group called the Rules Committee decides which amendments get included and which don’t. They can kill an amendment before it ever reaches the floor, just by leaving it off the list. That’s what happened to the amendment from Massie and Khanna to strip Section 219, the Israel military integration language. No debate. No vote. The committee just left it off the list.
Normally the rules themselves still pass. It’s usually treated more as a formality and the full House rubber stamps it, then the real bill moves forward without anyone getting a say on the parts that got blocked. This time it didn’t work that way though. The rule vote failed, 198 to 224.
Members from both parties were angry enough about the process that they voted the rules down.
That’s rare. It means the House can’t start debating the NDAA at all right now. The bill is stuck before it even reaches the floor.
Massie gets another shot at his amendment once House leadership writes new rules and brings it back.The Senate has its own version of the same problem, but it works differently over there.
Before the Senate can debate a bill, it needs 60 votes just to open debate. That vote is called a “motion to proceed”.
On Tuesday, that vote failed, 50 to 46. Senate Democrats blocked it, mainly over the war with Iran and the size of the defense budget. A few Democrats had also asked for a real debate on Section 1217, the Senate’s version of the Israel language, but Iran was the headline reason they gave.
So both chambers are frozen, for different reasons. The House can’t proceed because it voted down its own rules. The Senate can’t proceed because it couldn’t get 60 votes to start debating at all.
In neither chamber has anyone actually voted for or against the Israel provision itself. It’s sitting inside two stalled bills while the fights around it are about something else.
It’s not over. Senators and congressmen seem to vote the way they want regardless of what the people they represent want, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying. I’m calling my representatives again today, and tomorrow, and the next day. It’s that important.
Now to the main event.
By Brett Wilkins, staff member at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
As expected, members of the Senate Democratic Caucus on Tuesday blocked debate on an annual military spendingauthorization bill over President Donald Trump’s ongoing illegal war of choice on Iran and provisions for closer US-Israeli military integration.
Upper chamber lawmakers voted 50-46, mostly along party lines, against proceeding with debate on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2027.
The Trump administration’s broader national security proposal requests nearly $1.5 trillion in total defense-related spending for 2027, which includes $350 billion in supplemental funding for munitions production, shipbuilding, missile defense, drones, artificial intelligence, and other long-term military programs.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who along with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) led the effort to vote down the NDAA in its current form, said on social media: “At a time when millions struggle to pay the bills, virtually every Senate Republican voted for a staggering $1.15 trillion Pentagon bill, which includes funding for the illegal and immoral war in Iran and a special provision to provide even more weapons to Israel with almost zero oversight.”
“It’s time to invest in the American people, not endless war,” he added.
“I’m a NO on the NDAA,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said on social media. “I can’t support excessive military spending, de facto approval of Trump’s illegal war with Iran, and deeply troubling provisions that force deeper US-Israeli defense and intelligence sharing.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he “cannot support an outrageous $1.15 trillion in military spending while Donald Trump engages in an idiotic war with Iran that is doing nothing to make Americans safer, puts US servicemembers and civilians in harm’s way, and spikes the price of gas.”
“I also cannot support new authorities included in the bill, which seek to deepen and accelerate cooperation with Israeli contractors on surveillance and AI technologies that are ripe for abuse,” Wyden added. “On [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s watch, surveillance technologies developed by Israeli companies have repeatedly been used by repressive regimes, contributed to human rights violations in Gaza, and have been used against Americans.”
Republicans, on the other hand, denounced Tuesday’s vote, with Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio accusing his Democratic colleagues of “holding America hostage” and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas alleging they’re “once again playing politics with our national security instead of prioritizing the safety of the American people.”
Progressive groups campaigners cheered Tuesday’s vote.
“For once, the Senate refused to fast-track a $1.15 trillion Pentagon budget,” Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the women-led peace group CodePink, said on social media following the vote. “After sustained grassroots pressure… people power made this vote possible. Now let’s make sure senators hold the line.”
Taxpayers for Common Sense president Steve Ellis said, “The Senate just sent a clear signal to the Pentagon that its request for a $250 billion, 28% boost in its base budget is not going to fly.”
“Taxpayers deserve a Pentagon budget that invests strategically in the essentials while cutting out outdated, unnecessary, and wasteful programs,” he continued. “Instead, the Pentagon’s request would set a new baseline of unsustainable spending that would add more than $3 trillion to the debt over the next eight years.”
“With the end of the fiscal year looming, lawmakers need to get realistic and work together to pass a bipartisan Pentagon budget aligned with our genuine needs, not this grab bag of ill-advised boondoggles,” Ellis added.
At the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen, co-president Robert Weissman called the vote “both a repudiation of throwing more money at the waste-and-fraud-ridden Pentagon while Republican cuts have forced millions to lose health coverage and food assistance, and a forceful rejection of the Trump’s Iran War.”
“The American people are fed up with spending more on bombs and less on basic needs,” Weissman continued. “And they are furious with a pointless, deadly, illegal, unconstitutional, and protracted war that is costing lives and driving up gas prices.”
“Elected officials are beginning to listen,” he added. “Today’s defeat of the procedural motion on… legislation that normally sails through Congress on a bipartisan basis is a sign that the Pentagon budget will no longer get a rubber stamp.”
Senators @ChrisVanHollen and @SenSanders led the charge to vote down the NDAA unless measures to embed our military with Israel’s were stripped out.
It is not in the American people’s interest to integrate the Pentagon with the Israeli military. The Senate must remove those… https://t.co/wbzLFZHBJf
— IMEU Policy Project (@imeupolicy) July 14, 2026
Greg Williams, director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight, said in a statement that “the Senate was right to reject the National Defense Authorization Act, particularly as the executive branch continues its illegal, unsanctioned war in Iran.”
“The budget topline in the bill is recklessly high—bringing an increase in military spending not seen since World War II,” Williams added.
In a bid to address that point, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) recently introduced the Slash the Pentagon Act, legislation that would cap military spending at what some critics say is a still staggering $750 billion.
