Trump’s $1.5 Trillion Defense Budget to Be Blocked by Democrats

(Bloomberg) -- Republicans' midterm defeat is crushing any remaining hopes that Congress would approve President Donald Trump's unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense budget request amid an unpopular war in the Middle East.

Democrats, who won solid majorities of both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, were already largely opposed to the 44% increase from the previous fiscal year and are now signaling they will block any efforts to push it forward.

At the same time, Republican lawmakers returning to the lame-duck session before the new Congress is seated in January may not be able to muster the support or political will to ram through the massive defense spending package, especially amid the Pentagon's unpopular war against Iran that cost many of them their jobs.

"We must push for the development of a more realistic and sustainable approach to our national security — one that does not require a defense budget in excess of $1 trillion or one paid for with draconian cuts to critical domestic programs," Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement after the election.

The Democratic resistance risks imperiling some of Trump's splashiest defense ambitions, including the Golden Dome missile shield and his Trump-class battleship plan, and bodes poorly for defense contractors — some of which also face the prospect of congressional scrutiny over alleged conflicts of interest with the Trump administration.

Shares of major contractors, including Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp., fell this week as the midterm results eroded expectations of a ramp-up in US military spending.

Lawmakers returning to Washington on Monday are going to have to grapple with the annual defense policy bill and a spending plan for fiscal year 2027 — which began on Oct. 1 under stopgap funding that runs out on Dec. 11. Both those measures are now in limbo.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth justified Trump's steep fiscal 2027 budget request by arguing the funds would kickstart badly needed defense modernization efforts as autonomous systems change modern warfare.

But the sheer size of the increase — combined with domestic spending cuts, the growing costs of the Iran war and expensive projects like the Trump-class battleships — grated on lawmakers, including Republicans. And newly emboldened Democrats are likely to be far more motivated to kill off these massive defense spending plans than Republicans are to defend them in the lame-duck session.