Congress passes Trump’s reconciliation megabill with $150B for defense

WASHINGTON — The House has passed President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” sending the sprawling megabill with $150 billion for defense to the president’s desk ahead of his July 4 deadline.

The bill, which passed 218-214, was approved after immense difficulty. GOP leadership crafted the bill using a process known as budget reconciliation, which allows a party with a slight majority in both chambers of Congress to move legislation forward without the threat of getting caught in a filibuster by the opposing party.

However, Republicans battled over the specifics of the wide-ranging measure, which includes $150 billion for defense, additional funding for border security, an extension of the tax cuts enacted in the first Trump administration, and massive spending cuts to programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Not passing the bill would have been a disaster for the Pentagon, whose fiscal 2026 budget was built around extra funding from reconciliation. 

During a dramatic moment late last night, it appeared that the bill didn’t have the Republican votes necessary to pass. Five Republican lawmakers initially voted against a procedural motion to advance the bill — enough to prevent it from moving forward — while eight other Republicans held off from voting.

Over a period of several hours, House Speaker Mike Johnson was able to sway all of those Republican lawmakers to vote in favor of the bill save one: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. Both Fitzpatrick and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky opposed the bill during the final vote.  

Because the House opted to pass the Senate-crafted version of the bill without changes, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the defense spending increases will take effect. In its latest form, that bill included:

• $29 billion for shipbuilding and other spending tied to the maritime industrial base. This fund is crucial for the Navy to be able to pay for 16 ships requested in its FY26 request, including two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and a second Virginia-class submarine.
• $25 billion for Golden Dome, the domestic missile shield that is one of Trump’s biggest defense priorities at an estimated $175 billion total cost.
• $25 billion for munitions, spread across numerous programs. SASC’s latest version of the bill added $5 billion in investments to critical minerals supply chains.
• $16 billion to accelerate innovative technologies such as drones, AI and low-cost weapons. In the latest revision of the bill, SASC increased funding for the Strategic Capabilities Office from $250 million to $600 million.
• $15 billion for nuclear modernization, with the latest version of the bill adding $150 million to accelerate nuclear weapons delivery programs and taking out $96 million in classified spending.
• $12 billion for the Indo-Pacific deterrence requirements. In the latest revision of the bill, SASC deleted $5.1 billion in classified space funds in this section, adding $1 billion for the X-37 space plane and $3.6 billion for military satellites, among other space investments.
• $9 billion for air superiority. The latest version of the bill deleted $1 billion in spending for classified programs and inserted $600 million for an Air Force long range strike aircraft and $500 million for a Navy long range strike aircraft — two efforts that do not seem to be associated with a publicly-known program of record. 

Read more about the defense spending package here: Less ships, more bombs: Senate unveils its version of the $150B defense reconciliation package