WASHINGTON — The House passed the $838.7 billion defense spending bill today, completing the final step needed for President Donald Trump to sign the fiscal 2026 defense budget into law.
Upon being enacted, federal funding will resume for the Pentagon and other agencies impacted by the partial government shutdown, which began on Saturday.
Lawmakers voted 217–214 to advance the funding package, which included annual appropriations for defense and several other agencies as well as a short-term continuing resolution for the Department of Homeland Security.
Despite bipartisan support for the defense portion of the bill — which was helmed on a bipartisan, bicameral basis — House Democrats largely voted against the funding proposal, with only 21 Democrat votes in favor of passage. The deal was the result of an agreement between the White House and Senate Democrats, who had vowed to block an earlier version of the spending agreement with full-year DHS appropriations after federal agents killed Minnesota man Alex Pretti last month.
During a news conference before the vote today, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Republicans would support the new version of the bill, despite his preference for passing a previous full-year appropriations bill for DHS.
“The president agreed with [Senate Minority Leader] Schumer that they would separate [DHS], and we’ll do that, and we’ll handle it. We’re going to pass the rule today. It was never in doubt to me, the Republicans are going to do the responsible thing,” he said, adding that the lack of Democrat support on the bill was “crazy.”
Jeffries said during a Monday news conference that “it’s hard to imagine a scenario” where House Democrats would lend their support to Republicans to pass the bill.
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Despite the intraparty sniping, passage of the spending bill is a boon to House and Senate appropriators, who failed to pass an appropriations deal in fiscal 2025, forcing the Pentagon to operate under a continuing resolution for the entire year for the first time ever.
The defense funding proposal includes $8.4 billion more than the Pentagon’s request, with hundreds of millions in additional money needed to sustain programs like the E-7 Wedgetail — which the Air Force attempted to cancel — and the Navy’s F/A-XX fighter jet, which has been criticized by the White House.
Despite the $8 billion in added funds, because the Pentagon has submitted more than $50 billion in additional funding requests since its budget request was sent to Capitol Hill in June, the department will still be short some of the money it wants for FY26.
Those additional requests include $26.5 billion to mitigate funding discrepancies between its FY26 request and the reconciliation bill — essentially a laundry list of accounting errors that resulted in shortfalls to key programs like the Virginia-class submarine. While some of those shortfalls were addressed by the $8 billion increase, not all are covered.
The late requests also included an additional $2.3 billion in “emergent requirements” and a whopping $28.8 billion sum for multiyear munitions procurement contracts, which largely went unfunded.
For more on the details of the FY26 defense appropriations agreement, click here.