Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will deliver a classified briefing to House Republicans on Wednesday, aimed at building support for President Trump’s push to funnel an additional $350 billion to the Pentagon through a third budget reconciliation bill.
Hegseth is scheduled to attend the Republican Study Committee’s weekly members-only lunch on Capitol Hill. Defense funding through reconciliation is expected to be the session’s central topic, according to a source familiar with the meeting. House members are also expected to press Hegseth on the administration’s ongoing negotiations with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran’s nuclear program.
The classified format signals Hegseth will address operational planning and strategic details beyond what the administration has disclosed publicly.
Trump has pushed Congress to use the budget reconciliation process, which allows legislation to clear the Senate with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, to add $350 billion to the Department of Defense budget. Two reconciliation bills have already moved through Congress this term. The president is calling for a third.
That third bill is where the coalition is straining.
Several Senate Republicans have publicly resisted the idea, citing fatigue from the last reconciliation fight. “We don’t want to have another vote-a-rama,” one Senate Republican told The Hill. “The last vote-a-rama about broke our backs. It was way too long. We ended up right where we started, and it’s frustrating for our own members.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said he supports increasing defense spending but acknowledged the difficulty ahead. “It’s going to be an enormously heavy lift in this environment to get that done, particularly with just Republican votes,” Cornyn said.
House Republicans have shown more appetite for the proposal. The RSC, a caucus of conservative House members, has been a consistent backer of Trump’s defense spending goals.
The Iran dimension adds urgency to Wednesday’s session. Hegseth is expected to face questions about what the U.S. military posture looks like in the aftermath of the Switzerland talks, where Vice President JD Vance and Iranian negotiators offered conflicting accounts of what was agreed. The Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for roughly 20 percent of global oil supply, remains a pressure point in the broader negotiations.
Trump has made rebuilding military readiness a centerpiece of his second term. The $350 billion figure would represent one of the largest single additions to the defense budget in recent history.
No final decision has been made on whether GOP leaders will advance a third reconciliation vehicle.
