Senate Unites Behind Trump’s Sweeping Defense Overhaul—Kelly, Hegseth Clash Erupts

Paul Riverbank, 12/18/2025The Senate passed a landmark $901B defense bill reforming Pentagon bureaucracy, boosting tech, and repealing old war powers—amid rare unity, heated debates over transparency, and the enduring influence of defense industry lobbyists.

For the Pentagon, the stakes went far beyond dollar signs. The endgame? Shaking loose of the bureaucratic shackles that have slowed defense spending and adaptation since before some senators were born. “Decades of bureaucratic inefficiency,” as Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker bluntly put it, are now on the chopping block. He wasn’t alone—both hawkish and dovish lawmakers have grumbled for years that military procurement and planning move at the speed of molasses.

However, this year’s defense wrangling wasn’t entirely par for the course. The NDAA arrives reliably each December like a stubborn tradition, but the 2026 edition saw lawmakers crank up the volume, especially around the question of transparency in military operations overseas. The September destruction of a drug-running boat—and the push for full, unedited release of its strike footage—became a flashpoint. Senators were emphatic: If War Secretary Pete Hegseth wanted travel funds, he’d better bring the tape.

Behind the leather doors of a closed briefing, Hegseth tried to mollify senators. But if the aim was consensus, what transpired was a skirmish with Sen. Mark Kelly—a former combat pilot now under review for his own recent video. Kelly, along with a few colleagues, had exhorted troops to “refuse illegal orders,” not exactly heresy by Pentagon standards, but fraught when played on Capitol Hill’s big stage. Hegseth turned the spotlight back on Kelly, sidestepping pointed questions about transparency. Kelly left the room visibly irritated and later told reporters, “Even in this closed briefing with a bunch of senators, he’s focused on this thing about me and didn’t even want to get to my questions.” The fallout: the Defense Department escalated its review of Kelly. From a reprimand to a possible court-martial, his fate remains a question mark, even as the FBI has indicated it’s not preparing a case.

But the legislative sausage-making churned on. The authorization bill nudged defense spending even higher—by $8 billion. If you’ve watched the Defense Department long enough, such increments tend to favor the defense giants, but this year lawmakers inserted language to curb their appetite for gobbling up smaller competitors. “Allowing some of the bureaucracy to go away,” as Sen. Markwayne Mullin put it, isn’t an idle turn of phrase. Rules were added to make it easier for small upstarts to win contracts, while backstops against big-firm mergers were dialed up.

Tomorrow’s wars, lawmakers agreed, won’t be won on yesterday’s platforms. The bill makes a show of catching up with China in fields like hypersonic missiles and directed-energy weapons, areas where, according to Sen. Angus King, “We’ve been late… and we’ve got to get going.” Congress’s slow-footedness in the face of foreign tech competition has been a bipartisan embarrassment, and this year’s NDAA bears the fingerprints of lawmakers determined not to be left behind another cycle.

Not everything in the legislative wish list survived. An effort to establish a "right to repair"—championed by both Hegseth and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll—collapsed under concerted opposition from the defense lobby. At stake was whether troops could fix their own gear instead of waiting on costly manufacturer service. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s bitter parting shot: "The defense industry lobbyists made it pretty clear that they believe nothing becomes law in the United States without their sign-off.”

Some old ghosts were laid to rest: the bill decisively repealed decades-old authorizations for the Gulf War and the 2002 Iraq War, even as the far more ambiguous 2001 AUMF (which powered two decades of counterterrorism actions) remains stubbornly intact.

With air safety in the headlines after a tragic D.C. airspace collision, Sen. Ted Cruz pushed—for a while—for an overhaul, before shelving his bid so as not to derail the broader package.

As the ink dried, lawmakers from both parties found something to praise, if not everything to celebrate. Majority Leader John Thune called it “a step in the right direction,” and others privately admitted the defense bill, for all its imperfections, gave a tired Congress something it could stand behind before the holiday rush.

No doubt, this year’s NDAA will be unraveled and dissected by defense contractors, think tanks, and foreign analysts alike. But on the Hill, at least for a few hours, it stitched together a patchwork of uneasy consensus—an echo, perhaps, of an era when rare agreement was the rule, not the exception.

For weeks, a bruising marathon in the U.S. Senate played out with more tension than the marble halls have seen in years. This time, the brawl revolved around the $901 billion national defense bill—a sum so vast, it’s almost abstract. Yet, the 77 to 20 final vote wasn’t what you’d call contentious. In fact, in a chamber that thrives on drama, this was a rare and visible détente, maybe even a sigh of relief, with lawmakers facing end-of-year deadlines and unrest on distant continents.For the Pentagon, the stakes went far beyond dollar signs. The endgame? Shaking loose of the bureaucratic shackles that have slowed defense spending and adaptation since before some senators were born. “Decades of bureaucratic inefficiency,” as Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker bluntly put it, are now on the chopping block. He wasn’t alone—both hawkish and dovish lawmakers have grumbled for years that military procurement and planning move at the speed of molasses.However, this year’s defense wrangling wasn’t entirely par for the course. The NDAA arrives reliably each December like a stubborn tradition, but the 2026 edition saw lawmakers crank up the volume, especially around the question of transparency in military operations overseas. The September destruction of a drug-running boat—and the push for full, unedited release of its strike footage—became a flashpoint. Senators were emphatic: If War Secretary Pete Hegseth wanted travel funds, he’d better bring the tape.Behind the leather doors of a closed briefing, Hegseth tried to mollify senators. But if the aim was consensus, what transpired was a skirmish with Sen. Mark Kelly—a former combat pilot now under review for his own recent video. Kelly, along with a few colleagues, had exhorted troops to “refuse illegal orders,” not exactly heresy by Pentagon standards, but fraught when played on Capitol Hill’s big stage. Hegseth turned the spotlight back on Kelly, sidestepping pointed questions about transparency. Kelly left the room visibly irritated and later told reporters, “Even in this closed briefing with a bunch of senators, he’s focused on this thing about me and didn’t even want to get to my questions.” The fallout: the Defense Department escalated its review of Kelly. From a reprimand to a possible court-martial, his fate remains a question mark, even as the FBI has indicated it’s not preparing a case.But the legislative sausage-making churned on. The authorization bill nudged defense spending even higher—by $8 billion. If you’ve watched the Defense Department long enough, such increments tend to favor the defense giants, but this year lawmakers inserted language to curb their appetite for gobbling up smaller competitors. “Allowing some of the bureaucracy to go away,” as Sen. Markwayne Mullin put it, isn’t an idle turn of phrase. Rules were added to make it easier for small upstarts to win contracts, while backstops against big-firm mergers were dialed up.Tomorrow’s wars, lawmakers agreed, won’t be won on yesterday’s platforms. The bill makes a show of catching up with China in fields like hypersonic missiles and directed-energy weapons, areas where, according to Sen. Angus King, “We’ve been late… and we’ve got to get going.” Congress’s slow-footedness in the face of foreign tech competition has been a bipartisan embarrassment, and this year’s NDAA bears the fingerprints of lawmakers determined not to be left behind another cycle.Not everything in the legislative wish list survived. An effort to establish a "right to repair"—championed by both Hegseth and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll—collapsed under concerted opposition from the defense lobby. At stake was whether troops could fix their own gear instead of waiting on costly manufacturer service. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s bitter parting shot: "The defense industry lobbyists made it pretty clear that they believe nothing becomes law in the United States without their sign-off.”Some old ghosts were laid to rest: the bill decisively repealed decades-old authorizations for the Gulf War and the 2002 Iraq War, even as the far more ambiguous 2001 AUMF (which powered two decades of counterterrorism actions) remains stubbornly intact.With air safety in the headlines after a tragic D.C. airspace collision, Sen. Ted Cruz pushed—for a while—for an overhaul, before shelving his bid so as not to derail the broader package.As the ink dried, lawmakers from both parties found something to praise, if not everything to celebrate. Majority Leader John Thune called it “a step in the right direction,” and others privately admitted the defense bill, for all its imperfections, gave a tired Congress something it could stand behind before the holiday rush.No doubt, this year’s NDAA will be unraveled and dissected by defense contractors, think tanks, and foreign analysts alike. But on the Hill, at least for a few hours, it stitched together a patchwork of uneasy consensus—an echo, perhaps, of an era when rare agreement was the rule, not the exception.