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Welcome to The Hill’s Defense & NatSec newsletter

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Defense &
National Security

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The Big Story

House approves $832 billion Defense funding bill

The House approved legislation early Friday allocating roughly $832 billion in funding for defense programs for fiscal 2026.

The passage came just weeks after Republicans approved a separate $150 billion plan to advance President Trump’s defense priorities.

The GOP-led chamber approved the bill 221-209, mostly along party lines; five Democrats voted in favor of the bill, and three Republicans opposed it.

The measure marks only the second appropriations bill Republicans have been able to pass for 2026, after GOP appropriators said the effort to pass Trump’s tax and spending cuts megabill dominated the party’s focus over the past few months.

The bill passed Friday would boost funding for active, reserve and National Guard military personnel by $6.6 billion above current levels, to a total of $189 billion. It also allows for an increase of 3.8 percent in basic pay for military personnel, to take effect in January.

It calls for $174 billion for procurement, up $6.5 billion from current levels, and would provide $283 billion for operation and maintenance, a roughly $7 billion decrease below 2025 levels.

The bill also includes about $148 billion for research, development, test and evaluation, as well as boosts for Defense Department health programs and overseas humanitarian, disaster, and civic aid programs.

The bill comes after Republicans greenlit additional defense dollars as part of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” earlier this month.

That plan called for $25 billion to fund Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense system, with billions more aimed at items such as shipbuilding and the maritime industrial base, munitions and nuclear deterrence.

Democrats have risen in sharp opposition to the overall defense appropriations plan, which also seeks to codify Trump’s actions targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, advance prohibitions for funding for abortion-related travel, and block funds for gender-affirming surgeries.

Read the full report at TheHill.com.

Welcome to The Hill’s Defense & National Security newsletter, I’m Ellen Mitchell — your guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond.

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Essential Reads

How policy will affect defense and national security now and in
the future:

GOP senator asks Pentagon for information on Microsoft’s Chinese engineers

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) pressed the Defense Department on Thursday for information about Microsoft’s reported use of Chinese engineers to help maintain the agency’s computer systems. In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Cotton pointed to recent reporting from ProPublica indicating Microsoft relies on Chinese engineers, who are overseen by U.S. citizens with security clearances known as “digital escorts.” …

Full Story

Indiana’s Camp Atterbury to be used to house detained migrants

Indiana’s Camp Atterbury and New Jersey’s Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst will be temporarily used to detain immigrants lacking permanent legal status, according to a directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth announced the decision in a Tuesday letter to Rep. Herb Conaway (D-N.J.), the House Committee on Armed Services and other members of Congress outlining that both locations would be for “temporary use by …

Full Story

GOP’s Bacon calls Hegseth’s base name changes ‘stupid as hell’

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth looks “stupid as hell” for trying to rename military bases and resurrect honorifics for Confederate officers by using other soldiers as eponymous stand-ins. The Pentagon announced in February it would partially restore the names of two military sites that were given new monikers during the Biden administration by honoring decorated veterans …

Full Story

In Other News

Branch out with a different read from The Hill:

Greene knocks Republicans, Democrats after all her defense funding amendments fail

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) blasted her Republican and Democratic colleagues early Friday after all six of her amendments to the House’s defense appropriations bill failed. The lower chamber advanced the legislation, which allocates about $832 billion in funding for Department of Defense programs for fiscal 2026 in a vote overnight. Greene’s amendment to cut funding for the Israeli Cooperative Program — an agreement …

Full Story

On Our Radar

Upcoming things we’re watching in and around the defense world:

The Center for Strategic and International Studies will discuss “Under the Nuclear Shadow: China’s Information-Age Weapons in International Security,” on Monday at 2 p.m.:
The Council on Foreign Relations will have a conversation on “The Democratic vision for the future of U.S. foreign policy,” with Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), on Monday at 6:30 p.m.

What We’re Reading

News we’ve flagged from other outlets:

Additional military bases in New Jersey, Indiana set to host migrant detention camps (Military.com)
Army Special Operations warns retired members of terror threat (The New York Times)