The Big Story 

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

© AP

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.

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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 …

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