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The Senate votes 50-46 to stop the annual defense debate on military spending and defense cooperation with Israel.
Democrats in the US Senate have blocked debate on the annual defense bill, arguing not only for President Donald Trump’s war on Iran but also for what would further involve the United States and Israel’s military.
The Senate voted 50-46 on Tuesday, almost along party lines, against the debate on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), one of the few legislations it has to pass.
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The annual defense bill sought to approve most of the $1.15 trillion in military spending proposed by Trump. The resolution needed 60 votes to advance in the 100-member Senate.
Democrats said Congress should not move forward with legislation as Trump escalates the war on Iran. Some members of the party also criticized the move to strengthen US military and intelligence cooperation with Israel, as well as the expansion of the Pentagon’s record budget.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Democrats to oppose the bill, calling it “authorization” for the Trump administration to continue military operations against Iran without congressional oversight.
“Republicans want the Senate to take up the NDAA … as if Congress can debate a major national security bill and ignore the most pressing issue facing the country,” Schumer said before the vote. “We can’t.”
Outside Congress, a coalition of 14 civil rights, foreign policy and anti-war organizations also urged lawmakers to block the passage of the NDAA unless senators were convinced to vote on an amendment to block what they described as Trump’s illegal war on Iran.
The coalition, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union, J Street, CODEPINK and Win Without War, said Congress should use the legal “power of the purse” to enforce its mandate on military decisions.
But the Iran war was one of several reasons the bill was opposed.
The version before Congress has also sparked debate over measures that would strengthen US military and intelligence ties with Israel.
One important thing would have required the Pentagon to appoint a military officer to coordinate between the US and Israel on defense technology. This will include joint research, development and integration of each country’s technologies into the other country’s armed forces.
The system also calls for controversial “data fusion”, which Human Rights Watch described in June as combining feeds from multiple sensors and intelligence sources into a single, focused picture.
The group said the plan would see the US take Israeli intelligence that may have been gathered by what it described as mass surveillance problems.
A separate provision in the 2027 Intelligence Authorization Act, often considered alongside the NDAA, would expand intelligence sharing with Israel.
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Several Democratic senators, including Chris Van Hollen, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley and Peter Welch, urged other senators in a letter last week not to move forward with the NDAA before it is passed.
“As Senate Democrats, we should not vote to force (Trump) to expand US relations with the extremist Netanyahu government,” the lawmakers wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter urging their colleagues to oppose advancing the bill.
In a video sent to X before the vote, Van Hollen said the bill would pave the way for a “destroyed budget” for the Pentagon and put “no restraint on Trump’s illegal war with Iran”. He also referred to the Israeli food industry as “not too complicated which just goes quietly”.
“Why would the United States Congress order the executive branch to share so much intelligence, regardless of what the Israeli government is doing?” he asked.
The effort by Senate Democrats reflects a major shift within the Democratic Party, as support for Israel began in November’s midterm elections.
Approval of Israel among Democrats has fallen from 59 percent in 2018 to 22 percent in May, according to a June Reuters/Ipsos poll.
