A group of senior House Republicans gathered at the Pentagon on Thursday morning to discuss military funding with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, signaling intensified negotiations over how to fund the Pentagon’s expanded budget as the Trump administration pushes for a massive cash infusion through a party-line bill.
House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger, and other senior GOP lawmakers attended the closed-door meeting, according to four people granted anonymity to discuss the private gathering. The meeting comes as President Trump called Wednesday night for Congress to approve $350 billion in Pentagon spending as part of a third reconciliation bill—a legislative maneuver that would allow Republicans to bypass the Senate filibuster.
Arrington told reporters after the meeting that lawmakers and Hegseth discussed how the defense funding would serve two purposes: replenishing resources consumed in the ongoing conflict with Iran and modernizing the military for future readiness. “Part of that is to replenish the resources that have been utilized in the current conflict, so it’s, I would call it, supplementing the resources for our troops in conflict,” Arrington said. “And then the larger portion of it is future readiness. It’s modernizing our military, and it’s kind of a one-time capital infusion to accomplish that.”
The Pentagon meeting reflects broader tensions within the Republican conference over how to handle Trump’s ambitious defense spending agenda. Just one day before the meeting, House Republicans unveiled a $1.072 trillion Pentagon spending bill for fiscal year 2027, which the House Appropriations Committee said would be the largest defense budget in U.S. history and represent a $234 billion increase over 2026. Yet Trump’s request for $1.5 trillion in total defense spending for 2027 has faced skepticism from some Republicans who worry about the fiscal implications.
Arrington also indicated that lawmakers discussed how to offset the costs of increased military spending. He said that “reconciliation was going to provide an opportunity to codify a lot of what the president and his administration [are] doing in the war on fraud and that savings can be used to offset the spending on the military, so that we’re not increasing the deficit.” This suggests Republicans are exploring ways to use savings from anti-fraud initiatives to help pay for the defense increase without widening the budget gap.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, responding to Trump’s push for a third reconciliation package, expressed cautious openness but did not commit to the effort. “We’re, as I’ve said before, open to using reconciliation if we make the calculation that we can achieve an outcome that [it’s] something we can get 50 votes for and 218 for,” Thune said Thursday. “I’ve said before, at the moment I’m not sure what that is.” His hesitation reflects the procedural and political hurdles any third reconciliation bill would face, particularly given that some Senate Republicans have already signaled opposition to further party-line packages this year.
Sources
- Politico — Reported the House Republican meeting with Hegseth at the Pentagon, the attendees, Trump’s $350 billion demand, and Arrington’s post-meeting comments about the bill’s purpose and deficit offsets
- Bloomberg Government News — Reported House Republicans’ proposal of a $1.072 trillion Pentagon spending bill for fiscal year 2027, described as the largest in U.S. history with a $234 billion increase over 2026
