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The ongoing absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) from Capitol Hill is throwing another wrench in President Trump’s uphill push for a massive $1.5 trillion defense spending package next year.
McConnell, who has been in the hospital for more than three weeks, chairs the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, the panel that controls Pentagon spending. His absence means lawmakers in the upper chamber can’t move forward on any defense funding bills without the support of Democratic lawmakers — backing they don’t have.
Congress is also racing against the clock, with only 24 days left in the legislative calendar. With McConnell out and the days ticking down, the stalled defense budget process sets the stage for a gap in military funding even as the U.S. continues to trade attacks with Iran and carry out operations in the Caribbean.
“If he’s going to be absent for an extended period of time [and] if they want to get this bill done, they may have to look at doing something pretty drastic, like potentially removing [McConnell] from his role on the Appropriations Committee and appointing a new Republican,” said Katherine Thompson, a former Congressional aide and Trump administration official now with the Cato Institute.
“I think they’re so limited on time that whatever pathway they’re going to choose, it’s going to have to be one that they can execute fast. And I’m just not sure that they can execute it that fast without canceling part of a recess,” she added.
McConnell, 84, has been in a hospital since June 14 for undisclosed medical issues. His staff has given few details on his health, though an emergency dispatch audio indicated that someone at McConnell’s Washington, D.C., home suffered “cardiac arrest” the day he was hospitalized.
At the time of his health issue, he was due to step down from his seat in January 2027.
McConnell’s staff earlier this week said he “continues to improve” and remains engaged in Senate work, with several of his GOP colleagues this week asserting they had spoken with him by phone.
Still, there is no timeline for when he might return to Congress, and the limited information about his condition has set off a firestorm of speculation across social media as to whether his staff is downplaying the severity of his condition and if he is coming back at all.
With this backdrop, the appropriations process has stalled in the Senate due to partisan clashes over defense spending, and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) has delayed a markup scheduled for late June. Without McConnell, Republicans can’t receive the deciding vote needed to advance their proposals along party lines.
Thompson told The Hill that without McConnell, Republicans would likely need to cut some sort of bipartisan deal to get Democrat support and move the bill out of committee, “which they’re probably not going to get.”
And the GOP already has such a slim majority, 53 to 47, that even if you advance the bill to the floor, “you’re going to have potentially similar problems if you have Republican defections,” Thompson said.
Not only does a missing McConnell risk the annual military spending measure, but also any Senate-originated defense reconciliation package, something the Trump administration was hoping to use to pad a topline budget of $1.15 trillion with another $350 billion.
McConnell has been vocal in his dislike of the administration’s approach to reach its desired defense number via another reconciliation bill, a special legislative procedure that bypasses the Senate filibuster to allow the majority party to pass legislation with a 50-vote threshold. But it is a lengthy and difficult process, and GOP leadership can only afford to lose two Republican votes to pull it off with McConnell gone.
McConnell has taken issue with the fact the administration looks to fund several major Pentagon priorities, including munitions production and missile defense, with a reconciliation bill — given the high chance it won’t pass.
“The reliance of this budget request on one-time reconciliation spending is really quite a risky approach,” he said during a May hearing on Army funding.
And in a June 9 hearing on next year’s budget for the Air Force, shortly before his hospitalization, McConnell said it was “safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill, so it’s really not an option.”
The saga is another roadblock for the White House in seeking a historic $1.5 trillion military budget for fiscal 2027, a figure that was already unpalatable to Democratic lawmakers.
Should a defense budget not be passed by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, that spells trouble for the Pentagon, which already has had to pull funding from various accounts to fund the Iran war.
The White House has asked Congress for a $87.6 billion supplemental to backfill resources used in the conflict — with a large chunk meant to restore depleted munitions — but the legislation has not been received well in Congress.
Naval Operations Chief Adm. Daryl Caudle told lawmakers in May that without the supplemental funding, he would have to implement cuts in training, routine operations and personnel by this month.
“From my vantage point, I think it could potentially be a huge blow,” Thompson said of the possible funding gap.
Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute, had a more dire prediction, saying there is already a “deep squeeze across the force” when it comes to funding.
“Things are very bad now,” she told The Hill. “I’ve been traveling to military bases for months now. . . . Broadly speaking, money was shifted months ago to cover [Iran] operations, then accounts were cut outright, and now there is no money — zero — left for” the repair, maintenance, and upkeep of existing military infrastructure, as well as base operating support.
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