Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attempt to lock Democrats out of Pentagon talks is backfiring after GOP lawmakers expressed concern to Politico.
Hegseth has been keeping congressional Democrats out of classified briefings, according to reporting by Politico, which described Republicans as “shocked by the brazen partisanship.”
“He calls himself the secretary of war, but ironically, he doesn’t want to go to war and win the argument with nearly half the members of the Senate,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said, referring to Hegseth’s reluctance to invite Democrats into discussions about taking military action. “You got to engage.”
According to Politico, Hegseth excluded Democrats twice in recent weeks from closed-door meetings where he pitched his record $1.5 trillion defense budget. Before that, congressional Democrats were also shut out of meetings about the Pentagon’s boat strikes in the Caribbean and the decoy Air Force One flight in response to threats by Iran.
“I know that sometimes you want to have smaller groups,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said. “But I think it needs to be bipartisan.”
Politico noted that Hegseth blowing off Democrats could doom President Donald Trump’s unprecedented Pentagon budget increase. Republicans who support it are “worried” as Democratic support in the Senate is needed for it to pass, Politico added.
“They’re preaching to the choir when they have Republicans on the Armed Services Committee, and they’re making a case for the budget,” an anonymous GOP member of the committee told Politico. “It’s a briefing that should be provided to 100 senators.”
Congressional Republicans are urging the White House to change its approach and maintain good faith with Democrats, according to Politico.
“The Democratic members need to be brought up to speed,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told Politico. “But there has to be a clear understanding that the information that’s being provided to them cannot be publicly discussed. And for some reason, some of the administration feels as though there’s a possibility that some of it would be leaked.”
An anonymous former defense official described Hegseth’s strategy as “extremely short-sighted because you have got to have bipartisan majorities over a longer period of time to really build defense capability,” adding that “it’s not built one year at a time. And some of the more frustrated people are the senior Republicans.”
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