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The US House of Representatives narrowly muscled through a $1.15 trillion defense policy bill Wednesday, but the victory came at a steep political cost — nearly every Democrat in the chamber walked away, driven off by a combustible mix of the ongoing war with Iran and President Donald Trump's push to overhaul voting rules nationwide.

The National Defense Authorization Act, a cornerstone of Trump's broader plan to funnel $1.5 trillion into the military for fiscal year 2027, cleared the Republican-controlled chamber by the slimmest of margins — 216-212. All but six Democrats voted no, while seven Republicans crossed the aisle in the opposite direction, defecting from their own party. The bill now heads to the Senate, where its fate is anything but guaranteed.

A Bill That Usually Unites, Now Divides

In most years, the NDAA sails through Congress with comfortable bipartisan support, its enormous price tag treated as an unavoidable cost of maintaining generational military strength. This year looked nothing like most years.

"For the first time in 40 years, we've been presented a budget that accounts for the true cost of American deterrence. This topline begins to reverse the damage caused by decades of underinvestment in the US military," said Mike Rogers, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, framing the bill as a long-overdue correction rather than a partisan gamble.

Iran War Casts A Long Shadow Over The Vote

The bill's path forward has been anything but smooth, complicated significantly by Trump's decision to join Israel in striking Iran without first seeking congressional authorization — a move that effectively poured gasoline on an already smoldering partisan divide.

Senate Democrats Already Sounded The Alarm

Just last week, Senate Democrats blocked their chamber's version of the NDAA entirely, staging their own protest against the war, which has reignited after a memorandum of understanding meant to jump-start peace talks collapsed like a bridge built on unstable ground.

Voting Restrictions Push Democrats Further Away

If the war weren't enough to sink Democratic support, House Speaker Mike Johnson added fuel to the fire by caving to demands from right-wing lawmakers and folding the Save America Act into the legislation — a Trump-backed measure that would ban mail-in ballots and impose stricter identification requirements at the polls and during voter registration.

Two Issues, One Unified Opposition

Together, the Iran conflict and the voting provisions formed a perfect storm, driving Democratic opposition to near-total unanimity just two days before lawmakers were set to leave Washington for a recess stretching all the way to the end of August.

Price Tag And Spending Cuts Add Fuel To The Fire

Cost was another major flashpoint. Democrats balked not just at the bill's overall $1.15 trillion price tag, but at plans to slash funding elsewhere in government — a particularly bitter pill given that Republican majorities had extended lower tax rates indefinitely just a year earlier.

Smith Warns Against Trading Domestic Programs For Military Spending

"Our country faces threats and DoD has modernization needs, but I cannot and do not support meeting these needs by making massive cuts to critically important domestic programs and slashing taxes," said Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. He called instead for a more measured approach: "We need to be more fiscally responsible and DoD needs to become more innovative and efficient in terms of developing capabilities to meet our national security needs in a more cost-effective manner."

Israel Provisions Spark Fresh Progressive Backlash

Amid a broader wave of Democratic unease over US support for Israel, some lawmakers pointed to specific provisions in the bill that would deepen defense-industry cooperation between the two countries as a dealbreaker in its own right.

Ocasio-Cortez Calls Provision An "Existential Threat"

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among those voting no, didn't mince words about her concerns. "This amendment is an existential threat to American sovereignty and democracy," she said — a warning that framed the provision as something far graver than a routine policy dispute.

Amendments Reveal The Party's Fault Lines

Before final passage, the House worked through dozens of amendments, and the results offered a revealing map of just how far the Republican-controlled chamber was willing to go on the era's most contentious issues.

Ukraine Aid Survives, Transgender Ban Narrowly Fails

A proposal from Republican Eli Crane to halt all military aid to Ukraine went down in a lopsided 76-350 vote, a resounding rejection that left little room for ambiguity. Meanwhile, an amendment from Republican Lauren Boebert seeking to codify Trump's executive order banning transgender service members failed by the narrowest of margins, 212-217 — close enough to suggest the issue remains far from settled within the party itself.

Other Measures Targeting Transgender Policy Succeed

Despite that near-miss, the House did approve separate amendments from Rep. Nancy Mace barring the military's health insurer from covering certain gender-related care and banning transgender athletes from participating in girls' sports at defense department-run schools — a mixed outcome that underscores just how contested these social issues remain even within a single piece of legislation.

A Second Spending Fight Looms

Beyond the NDAA itself, House Republicans are pressing forward with a separate, party-line effort to authorize $60 billion in new military spending, much of it earmarked to cover costs tied to the Iran conflict. That figure, however, falls dramatically short of the $350 billion the Pentagon had originally requested to push overall defense spending up to the full $1.5tn defense bill target for the coming fiscal year — leaving a massive gap between what the Pentagon wants and what Congress appears willing, for now, to approve.