[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 113 (Monday, July 13, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3731-S3735]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
National Defense Authorization Act
Madam President, I rise in strong opposition to the fiscal year 2027
National Defense Authorization Act as it is currently written. This
bill lays the groundwork for a bloated Pentagon budget that would
further embolden President Trump's reckless and illegal war against
Iran.
It represents a huge increase in taxpayer-funded and debt-financed
Pentagon spending at a time when families across the country are
struggling to afford groceries, rent, gas, and other necessities.
This bill authorizes this whopping increase in funds for the U.S.
military, despite the fact that the Department of Defense has never--
and I mean never--passed a clean audit. And when we dig deeper into the
bill, there are several other new significant provisions that haven't
gotten much attention, but they should.
One of them would mandate the establishment of a new United States-
Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative. It is a provision
which essentially orders the President--orders the executive branch--to
expand our technology sharing and defense cooperation with the
Government of Israel.
The other new provision would mandate that the President expand and
enhance intelligence sharing with the Government of Israel and, at the
same time, constrain the President's ability to limit such intelligence
sharing with the Government of Israel.
Now, I want my colleagues to think about that for a minute. Even when
the Government of Israel may be taking actions that are inconsistent
with our interests or values, whether that is now or sometime in the
future, this provision requires that the U.S. Government share
intelligence information with them.
Now, why in the hell would the U.S. Congress mandate more cooperation
with the Government of Israel at a time we cannot even get
accountability and justice for nine American citizens who have been
killed by Israeli settlers or security forces in the occupied West Bank
over the last 4 years? We have been seeking accountability in these
killings year after year--no results.
And why would we require--mandate--this cooperation of intelligence
sharing when a 20-year-old American citizen student, Sama Safi, is
being imprisoned by the Israeli Government on trumped-up political
charges as we speak, as we gather here? She has spoken about the
abusive conditions she has faced during that imprisonment.
And why would we mandate greater engagement with the Government of
Israel while the Israeli Minister of Defense boasts about leveling 90
percent of the homes in southern Lebanon and says the plan is to do to
southern Lebanon what Israeli forces did with American weapons in
Rafah, which is a city in southern Gaza that was reduced to rubble?
And why would we mandate this increased cooperation in defense and
intelligence sharing at a time when violent settlers are running
rampant on the West Bank, destroying Palestinian lands, pushing people
off of their land and often with the complicity of the IDF? Why would
we be doing these things?
The Senate should fully debate and vote on these new proposals before
we mandate such major changes in policy. In other words, we, the
Senate, should demand transparency and accountability from ourselves,
from Senators. Let's debate and vote on these provisions and see where
Senators stand.
These provisions are just part of the problem with this deeply flawed
bill. This bill allows the Pentagon and military contractors to gorge
at taxpayer expense, at the expense of my constituents and people all
over this country.
This bill would authorize a $1.15 trillion national defense budget,
which is almost a 30-percent increase from the fiscal year 2026-enacted
level; in other words, the current level of funding.
And President Trump is calling for even more. This authorization
would increase that funding over current balances by $500 billion. But
as we speak, the House is talking about moving forward with another
$350 billion as part of another reconciliation bill.
And then, on top of that, the Trump administration is asking for
another $87 billion in supplemental funding to pay for their disastrous
war against Iran. And let's not forget that the Pentagon got an
additional plus-up of $152 billion from President Trump's so-called Big
Beautiful Bill, which was beautiful if you were a billionaire but not
for anybody else back in 2025.
If Congress were to appropriate all of these funds, it would exceed
$1.7 trillion paid for by American taxpayers and financed on our
national credit card; again, ultimately paid for by our taxpayers.
So how can we possibly move forward with this huge expanse of
taxpayer funds for the Pentagon's adventures overseas when the American
people are struggling right now paycheck to paycheck here at home?
I talk to my constituents. I know my colleagues do too. Our fellow
Americans are fed up--and rightly so--with inflation, the high cost of
groceries, exploding healthcare costs, rising housing prices, and huge
electric bills as we see more and more data centers being built.
As Americans suffer amid an affordability crisis, this bill--the bill
that will be voted on tomorrow in terms of
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cloture on the motion to proceed--would instead authorize wasteful
spending for things like what? Like the President's so-called Golden
Dome, which the Congressional Budget Office--the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office--found could cost $1.2 trillion over 20
years, as well as a list of other very costly projects.
On top of that, as I said, the Pentagon consistently fails to pass an
audit. In fact, just last December, it again failed to pass an audit.
And so into this organization that can't pass an audit, the bill that
we will be moving on would add trillions of dollars into that system
that can't account for the money that it already has.
We would not tolerate such a lack of transparency and good governance
in any other Federal Agency, and yet this bill awards those failings at
the Pentagon instead of fixing them.
Fiscal mismanagement at Department of Defense is a longstanding
problem, but the Trump administration has made things worse. President
Trump and his family have engaged with the Defense Department in ways
that raise serious questions about self-dealing and misuse of public
office.
We have seen this administration repeatedly award major Defense
Department contracts to companies soon after those companies establish
ties with members of the President's family. Just take a look at a
headline from the Washington Post today, it reads:
Trump's sons invest heavily in defense tech as father's
administration pours money in.
So on top of a bloated Pentagon, we now have this very real issue of
self-dealing. The reality is that the bloated Defense Department budget
is not going to make us any safer. It will enrich private corporate
interests while deepening our budget deficits.
At the same time, it is going to deliver a blank check, a blank check
for Donald Trump's illegal war in the Middle East. And I have said
again and again: I will not vote to provide one dime for that illegal
war in Iran. Granting this request for this huge increase would be a de
facto authorization of this reckless war.
Our colleagues have refused to have an up-or-down vote on an
authorization to use military force in Iran. We haven't had that vote,
but if we vote in favor of these trillions of dollars for the Defense
Department, in my view, that is a de facto authorization, a de facto
green light for this war, and I will not support it.
Over 4 months ago, President Trump together with Israeli Prime
Minister Netanyahu launched this war against Iran. President Trump did
so without congressional authorization, and the American people have
already paid too high a price for this disaster. And this from a
President who said he was going to keep us out of wars, said he was
going to focus on lowering costs right here at home. As we can see, he
has done the opposite: started a war, prices are going up. And this is
a war that has already cost the lives of 14 American servicemembers.
Hundreds more have been wounded. An American Tomahawk missile strike
killed more than 150 Iranians in Minab, most of them children; and
months later, while the U.S. military's investigation has reportedly
been completed, it has not been released to the public, leaving
questions about that strike unanswered even as we consider legislation
to provide trillions of dollars more to the Defense Department.
On top of those killings of schoolkids, thousands of other civilians
have been killed and injured across Iran and the region. Thousands more
have been killed in Lebanon. Thirty civilians have been killed in
Israel. All these lives lost, and for what? Estimates show that this
war has already cost the American people, consumers and taxpayers,
about $132 billion, and the amount is growing by the day.
It is a strategic blunder of huge proportions. And then we thought we
were finally on the way to ending this war when the MOU between the
United States and Iran was signed in June. At that time I said on this
floor that I wanted peace to prevail, and I hoped that the deal would
become the foundation for a broader diplomatic settlement.
That is looking less and less likely by the day as the United States
and Iran continue to ramp up the tempo of strikes, and now President
Trump says the United States will take control of the Strait of Hormuz,
reimpose the blockade on Iran, and charge a 20 percent toll on
shipping.
CENTCOM said in a statement over the weekend that they struck 140
targets in Iran on Saturday alone. Iran has said the strait is closed
and continues to attack ships. Everything--everything--points to
renewed war, a war that was a disaster from the start.
I hope that President Trump would have learned something from this
needless tragedy, that military adventurism, that promises of quick
victory, that fantasies of regime change, and the endless effort to
undermine diplomacy led us directly to this disaster. But apparently he
has not learned from those mistakes. But we, the U.S. Senate, we should
not add more fuel to those mistakes with this defense authorization
bill.
When you have dug yourself into a hole, the first thing you should do
is stop digging. Beyond Iran, this bill also has no guardrails on the
Trump administration's overreach on warmaking and warmongering anywhere
else in the world. It does nothing to restrain the strikes in the
Caribbean that have murdered people on the high seas or the grabbing of
Venezuelan oil or any adventure the President may dream about in
Greenland or the ongoing humanitarian disaster being visited on the
people of Cuba.
It does nothing to constrain the President in those areas, nothing to
prevent the use of those moneys that are authorized for any of those
purposes or anything else.
When Congress fails to exercise its constitutional responsibility, we
leave the American people with wars that are easy to start, difficult
to end, and driven by agendas that may not serve our national
interests. It was just a few weeks into the Iran war that Prime
Minister Netanyahu said ``[W]e are also bringing to this campaign the
assistance of the United States, my friend, US President Donald Trump,
and the US military. This coalition of forces allows us to do what I
have yearned to do for 40 years,'' said Israel Prime Minister
Netanyahu.
Yep, for 40 years, four decades, Binyamin Netanyahu has wanted this
war, and he finally found an American President who was stupid enough
and reckless enough to do it with him. That broader context is
important when considering some of the new provisions in this NDAA that
I mentioned earlier.
They don't exist in isolation. They don't exist in a vacuum. They are
part of the same pattern, one that would further tie the United States
to the agenda of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Government of Israel
at precisely the moment that Congress should be reclaiming its
constitutional role, not surrendering more of them.
The first provision, section 1217, would mandate the creation of a
``United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.''
This would require--it would require--the expansion and acceleration of
the United States-Israel defense relationship, including technology
sharing, coproduction of weapon systems, and bilateral research and
development across sensitive domains like biotechnology, autonomous
systems, artificial intelligence, and cyber warfare.
And Prime Minister Netanyahu has openly stated that this initiative,
it was his idea. In a letter to Congresswoman Stutzman who led a
resolution calling for a similar effort to section 1217 in the House,
Prime Minister Netanyahu wrote:
I was glad to receive your proposed Congressional
resolution endorsing my plan to shift the framework of US-
Israel defense cooperation from aid to partnership.
That was the way he put it.
Just this weekend, Prime Minister Netanyahu acknowledged on FOX News
that this was about merging and meshing Israel's military procurement
with that of the United States. Again, he said:
Yeah, I'm calling it, `from aid to partnership.'
If the United States and Israel were to sign additional coproduction
and technology sharing agreements as envisioned by this provision, they
would threaten United States national security interests by handing the
Netanyahu government leverage over American weapon systems and military
technology.
[[Page S3733]]
And this is not a hypothetical statement. The Netanyahu government
has already leveraged its existing coproduction agreement with the
United States on missile defense to block American Iron Dome batteries
paid for 100 percent by United States taxpayers from reaching Ukraine--
directly against our own national security interests.
In fact, in late June 2023, Senator Lindsey Graham and I sent a
letter to the chair and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee
asking that this issue be addressed and that Israel work with the
United States to assist Ukraine, specifically referencing the American
Iron Dome batteries we would have liked to transfer to Ukraine.
In fact, the Ukrainian Government had specifically asked for the Iron
Dome system to help with its air defenses. They were not asking for
Israel to send its Iron Dome batteries; we were talking about Iron Dome
batteries in the United States coproduced between the United States and
Israel. And they were ready to go.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the one-page letter
Senator Graham and I sent to Chairman Reed and Ranking Member Wicker in
June 2023 be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate
June 23, 2023.
Hon. Jack Reed,
Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Roger Wicker,
Ranking Member, Senate Armed Services Committee,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Reed and Ranking Member Wicker: As Ukraine
continues its brave fight against Russia's unprovoked
invasion, we write regarding the urgent need to support
Ukraine's air defense and help defend its territorial
integrity. Ukraine has repeatedly emphasized its need for
enhanced air defense capabilities to protect its citizens and
its territory. While the United States has transferred
equipment and munitions for Patriot and HAWK air-defense
systems, there is more we can and should provide.
On May 9, [2023] U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense
Commanding General LTG Daniel Karbler told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that the United States has ``two Iron Dome
batteries right now. One completed new equipment training,
new equipment fielding. It is prepared for deployment. The
other one is wrapping up its new equipment training right
now. So the army does have one [Iron Dome battery] available
for deployment if we get a request.''
Ukraine has reaffirmed its need for air defense assets,
including at the 13th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact
Group on June 15 in Brussels where Defense Secretary Lloyd
Austin said ``I ask this contact group to continue to dig
deep to provide Ukraine with the air-defense assets and
munitions that it so urgently needs to protect its
citizens.'' As we write, Russia's indiscriminate bombardment
of Ukraine's sovereign territory continues, including in
civilian areas. Following the destruction of the dam near
Kherson, the Kremlin's continued shelling forced Ukrainian
officials to suspend rescue efforts aimed at evacuating
residents inundated by catastrophic flooding. And on June 13,
a Russian barrage struck an apartment building in Kryvyi Rih,
killing nearly a dozen people and injuring many more. Each
Iron Dome battery can protect an area of approximately 150
square kilometers. We can save more Ukrainian lives today if
we transfer those batteries. However, due to serious
concerns, the Government of Israel has blocked the United
States from transferring these batteries.
To be clear, we are not asking Israel to transfer its own
Iron Dome systems which are critical to their own security,
but simply to allow the United States to transfer our own
batteries to help the people of Ukraine. If not practicable
to transfer these assets to Ukraine, we ask that you look at
other ways to assist, including moving them to another United
States ally under the control and supervision of our own
forces, thus freeing up other United States air defense
assets to be transferred to bolster Ukraine's air defense
needs and save more Ukrainian lives.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter and
we look forward to working with you to address Ukraine's air
defense needs.
Sincerely,
Chris Van Hollen,
U.S. Senator.
Lindsey O. Graham,
U.S. Senator.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. What you will see is at the end of the day the
Government of Israel, the Netanyahu government, exercised its veto
authority under the coproduction agreement preventing the United States
from sending our own Iron Dome batteries to Ukraine to help Ukraine
with its air defense system.
And now in this NDAA bill that we are about to consider in the United
States Senate, there is a provision requiring the United States
Government to do more coproduction arrangements with the Netanyahu
government and the future governments of Israel. Give me a break.
The second provision that I mentioned earlier, section 622 of the
fiscal year 2027 Intelligence Authorization Act mandates--and I say
mandates--that the United States Government, the executive branch
``expand and enhance intelligence sharing with the Government of
Israel.''
It also states that intelligence sharing with Israel ``shall not be
suspended, reduced, or otherwise materially limited.''
The intent of this provision is clear to not only enhance
intelligence sharing with Israel, but also to block the President from
limiting such intelligence sharing.
Now, colleagues, any time the United States Government wants to or
chooses to, of course we can share intelligence with the Government of
Israel or any other government we choose for our own interests.
Why would we hardwire into the law a requirement that that
intelligence be shared with Israel or any other country?
And there is a peculiar procedural wrinkle here I want to mention.
This provision isn't in the text of the NDAA yet. As I said, it sits in
the fiscal year Intelligence Authorization Act that passed the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence. But, as my colleagues know, that bill
typically--typically--gets added to the NDAA right here on the floor of
the Senate before final passage, meaning that the Senate may be asked
to adopt this provision that hardwires and requires U.S. intelligence
sharing with the Government of Israel with no real debate.
And that should concern us all, especially since, according to public
reports, this administration recently raised--raised--the
counterintelligence threat level from the Government of Israel to its
highest level. At the same time, this Senate is talking about adopting
a provision mandating intelligence sharing.
As I said, any President can share intelligence at their discretion,
but this requires it. And we should not be forcing this administration
or any other administration to share U.S. intelligence with the
Government of Israel or any other government, for that matter.
This is also happening, as I said, at a time when we are seeing
accelerated violence and expansion of settlements on the West Bank. We
have heard outrageous statements from Finance Minister Smotrich and
from Ben Gvir, who controls many of Israel's security forces.
It is simply not in our interest to mandate that the U.S. Government
enter into coproduction agreements with the Netanyahu government or any
other Government of Israel. You can always do this on a case-by-case
basis, as we did with the Iron Dome, and not require by law that we do
it in a whole range of other areas.
And, as I said, this bill also comes before us with a huge proposed
increase in funds for the Pentagon, which continues to fail to pass a
budget audit, and at a time when it appears that the President of the
United States is, again, ramping up the war against Iran--an
unauthorized war.
And so I urge my colleagues that, when we consider the motion to
proceed tomorrow--specifically, the motion for cloture on the motion to
proceed; the vote on the cloture for the motion to proceed--that we
oppose that and then come together as Senators and say to the American
people: We are going to ensure accountability. We are going to ensure
that, when that bill comes to the floor of the Senate, we will have
votes on all of these issues. We will have a vote to bring down this
huge, bloated number for military spending in the NDAA. We will have a
vote to require some accountability with respect to military
operations. And we will have a vote with respect to these new
provisions that currently mandate intelligence sharing and mandate
defense procurement cooperation with the Netanyahu government and
future Governments of Israel.
I hope we will show the American people that we believe in
transparency
[[Page S3734]]
and accountability by having those votes. But to do so, we have to
first vote against the motion--the cloture motion on the motion to
proceed.
With that, I yield my remaining time to my friend and colleague the
Senator from Vermont, Senator Welch.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Marshall). The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Senator from
Maryland, for leading this discussion on what is an absolutely critical
decision that this U.S. Senate is going to have to make.
One of the most important things we do is pass the National Defense
Authorization Act. That is the moment where, through the committee
process and the floor debate, America lays out a pathway to secure the
defense of this country against all threats. It is an extraordinarily
important piece of legislation that sets the course for a year.
This National Defense Authorization Act fails to address the critical
question that is before this country right now, and that is the war in
Iran. It fails to address the changing nature of warfare by spending a
half a trillion dollars more on weapons systems that are the weapons
systems of yesterday.
Third--and this is a point my colleague has been making, and I am
going to talk about it very immediately--it outsources to another
country those decisions on intelligence sharing and weapons production
that should only be made by our country.
Fourth, it commits the taxpayers of this country to the obligation of
another half a trillion dollars with absolutely no outline of how we
are going to pay for it, and this on top of a deficit that is the
highest we have ever had in this country.
So let me talk about these one by one.
First of all, it is absolutely catastrophic what is going on, in the
Middle East, to our economy. We are in a war that was decided by the
President of the United States unilaterally to enter into that war. It
was done with the expectation that B-1 bombers would be able to blast
their way into victory. And it was done without an appreciation or
awareness that, once the extraordinary power of the U.S. military was
applied with weapons that are only ours to deploy, the asymmetric
response by the Iranians allowed them to close the Strait of Hormuz,
which to this day is not open to the passage of ships.
That is having an incredible impact on our economy, on our farmers,
on our manufacturers, and on grocery prices. And there is no end in
sight.
And the fact that we are going to have a debate about authorizing a
$1.5 trillion defense budget without having any discussion about what
is driving the cost or what is the major defense threat right now--and
that is this ongoing war in Iran--is not acceptable. We have the
obligation to debate that, and many of my colleagues have indicated
already by their vote that they oppose the authorization of warfare in
Iran.
This NDAA bill comes before us as though that is not even going on.
That is wrong. We have an obligation to debate that, and we have an
obligation to vote on it.
But, second, there are provisions in this bill that do outsource
fundamental responsibilities and obligations of our military and our
national security organizations and our President to make decisions on
the basis of what is in our national interest and what is required for
national security.
My colleague mentioned them. There are provisions in this bill that
create a legal obligation for the United States to do information and
intelligence sharing with another government and to enter into joint
production agreements with another government.
When it comes to sharing intelligence, I want our generals, I want
our national security officials, I want our President--our Chief
Executive and Commander in Chief--to have unfettered discretion to make
those decisions about with whom we share information, what information
we share, and under what circumstances to be our decision and our
decision alone.
And, of course, our military and our national security organizations
work very hard to have cooperative relationships with neighboring
countries or with fellow countries that are aligned with us on
interests, and that can include Israel, as it has at times.
But we have never, ever had an obligation to relinquish the exclusive
right of decision making that has to fundamentally be made in the best
interest of what is in the national security interest of the people of
this country. We cannot relinquish that right and that responsibility.
So this provision that ``the President, acting through the Director
of National Intelligence and, as necessary, the Secretary of Defense,
shall''--shall--``subject to applicable law and the protection of
intelligence sources and methods, expand and enhance intelligence
sharing with the Government of Israel''--my concern here is less the
Government of Israel. It is about the national security interests in
this country and the unfettered right of our military, national
security, and President to make decisions on behalf of the American
people and exclusively for what is in the best interest of the national
security of this country. That provision has no place in this national
defense authorization.
A third point I want to make is that what we have seen with the
extraordinary conflicts in Ukraine, in Iran, and Lebanon is that the
old weapons systems that are so expensive don't win the victories. The
drone warfare in Ukraine has allowed them, through their ingenuity, to
turn the tide on Russia.
The B-1 bombers--the exquisite weapons systems that cost so much
money--are not winning the conflict in Iran for the United States. And
we are seeing these situations where there will be a $35,000 drone that
is taken out by a $1 million missile, and all of us know that is not a
sustainable situation. Our Pentagon knows that.
But in the rush to make the adjustment--and I know that the people in
the Pentagon are trying to make that adjustment. You don't make that
adjustment by suddenly coming up with a half a trillion dollars where
you don't have a plan, you don't have a strategy, and you end up
throwing money at a problem without a plan on how to solve the problem.
So I have gone through three things here: one, an NDAA that acts as
though the war in Iran is not a war that is having an impact on the
American people; No. 2, outsourcing absolutely critical decisions about
intelligence sharing and weapon-production sharing that have to be the
sole prerogative of the United States, our military, our national
security community, and our President; and then, third, the failure to
have a coherent plan about the extraordinary adjustments that have to
be made in the design of weapons systems of the future.
And the fourth point I want to make--and I know this is a topic of
great concern to you: How are we going to pay for this? We are adding
half a trillion dollars to the deficit, and there is literally--
literally--no discussion about how we are going to pay for it.
You know, we have a debate in this body about how to spend money,
what the priorities should be. And I will acknowledge that I am on the
side of spending more money on domestic efforts. I do think we should
help our farmers more. I do believe we should put more into education.
I do believe we should put more into scientific research. But when I
say we should do that, I am also willing to pay for it. And I do
believe we have to have a strong military, but we have to pay for that
too.
And what we have seen in this Congress is that the folks who want to
put more money in the military, they may be willing to pay for it by
cutting scientific research, by cutting education, by cutting nutrition
benefits for the thousands--millions--of Americans who are struggling
to feed their kids and can't do it without the SNAP program.
There is a lot of good work that has been done by our committee on a
bipartisan basis with many of the provisions--policy provisions--in
this NDAA, but we cannot act on the NDAA in a responsible way if, No.
1, we don't address the war; No. 2, we don't absolutely insist on
defense and intelligence and production decisions being the sole
prerogative of this country and not delegate authority to any other
country to interfere with what we believe is in our national security
interest. Third, we need a coherent plan to have a production system
that
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focuses on weapons of the future and not legacy weapons of the past
that are revered by the defense-industrial complex but are not
effective on the battlefield. And, fourth, we have to come to a
reckoning that, whether it comes to national defense or even domestic
programs, they don't pay for themselves, and we have got to step up and
accept that responsibility. For far too long, we have been ignoring it.
I yield the floor.
____________________