House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is facing the prospect of another high-wire act to keep his unruly caucus in check before the holidays and pass the annual defense bill, the House’s last major legislative hurdle of the year.
The compromise agreement on the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which is $8 billion more than what President Donald Trump requested from Congress earlier this year, was released by congressional leaders on Sunday, with the House eyeing a vote sometime this week.
While legislation often receives bipartisan support, it will be imperative for Johnson to keep most of his caucus on board so he does not have to rely on a large number of Democratic votes to get the bill over the finish line.
So far, Johnson has already lost one Republican vote in the form of outgoing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Greene was one of four Republicans to vote against the House’s previous version of the bill that passed in September.
Greene, who is retiring from Congress in January, said the bill is “once again, filled with American’s hard earned tax dollars used to fund foreign aid and foreign country’s wars.” She said the country is on the “verge of a healthcare crisis” and funding countries abroad is “America Last and is beyond excuse anymore.”
“I would love to fund our military but refuse to support foreign aid and foreign militaries and foreign wars,” Greene said. “I am here and will be voting NO.”
In all likelihood, he will lose the vote of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has not yet spoken publicly about the NDAA. However, the conservative fiscal hawk, who voted against the House’s version in September, will likely balk at the price tag increase.
“Rep. Massie hasn’t declared how he will vote on the NDAA, but he’s never voted for the NDAA during his time in Congress,” John Kennedy, a spokesman for Massie, said in an email.
Massie’s vote against the bill in September stemmed from the exclusion of an amendment to prohibit the use of propaganda by the federal government. It’s unclear if the lawmaker will try to attach the amendment to the NDAA once again.
On top of that, Johnson is facing the tricky prospect of convincing Reps. Tim Burchett (R-TN) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) to vote for the bill. Both voted against the bill back in September. Burchett is undecided on the bill, according to a spokesperson, while Luna has said she is opposed to $400 million allocated to Ukraine as part of the NDAA.
Luna has not come out fully as a “no” on the legislation, but she said in a post to X that she does not support the NDAA providing $400 million to Ukraine. It is part of a two-year extension of funding for the foreign country, which has long been a point of contention within the GOP conference.
“The U.S. government should NOT be giving $400 million to Ukraine — especially with Zelensky refusing to respond to the President on the peace deal,” Luna said. “The Ukrainian government was just busted for public corruption, and you can guarantee money laundering is involved. The fact that Congress is still sending them funding is horrifying. This needs to be taken out of the NDAA.”
Luna and Greene have both been publicly opposed to Johnson and leadership’s decisions as of late, most recently over Luna’s discharge petition for a bill to ban congressional stock trading and Greene’s support of a successful petition on a bill to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
In the past few votes on the NDAA, several Republicans have offered amendments ahead of a final passage vote to strip funding for Ukraine to zero, but those amendments have not been adopted.
The Rules Committee noted on Monday that it will meet on Tuesday afternoon to consider the NDAA. A vote to send it to the floor would set the bill up for a procedural rule vote, followed by a final passage vote as early as Wednesday.
Given the razor-thin margins in the House, Johnson can only afford to lose three Republican votes to pass the bill along party lines. However, the NDAA has historically received minor bipartisan support, with 17 Democrats joining most Republicans in voting for the House’s legislation.
One area of contention, however, that could stall Democratic support is the exclusion of an expansion of in vitro fertilization. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), who led the provision to require coverage of IVF in TRICARE, slammed the decision to remove the clause from the NDAA on Sunday night.
She said Johnson “stole” the opportunity for service members to build families through IVF, putting his “personal beliefs over their dreams.”
“It’s an unbelievably selfish and callous move against people who’ve served and sacrificed so much for us, especially when he and his own staff have access to health care plans that provide IVF coverage,” Jacobs said in a statement.
Jacobs and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who has pushed for the provision in the Senate, have both called on Trump to persuade Johnson from removing the IVF clause from the bill. Duckworth has repeatedly blasted the speaker for taking a stance on the matter because of his religious and anti-abortion views, particularly as anti-abortion advocates have raised concerns about the disposal of unused embryos.
“The President of the United States promised on the campaign trail to make IVF available to all Americans. And I can’t think of a better place to make it available than the men and women who wear the uniform of this great nation,” Duckworth said last week on CNN.
A spokesperson for Johnson said in a statement prior to the NDAA’s release that the speaker is “supportive of access to IVF when sufficient pro-life protections are in place, and he will continue to be supportive when it is done responsibly and ethically.”
Johnson has faced a complex year, particularly over significant pieces of legislation, such as budget reconciliation, spending deals, and the NDAA. Conservative Freedom Caucus members and like-minded allies, such as Greene and Luna, have held up votes on the floor or threatened to tank final passages of bills they disagree with, often to get leverage on a separate matter.
Last week, he was drawn into a public spat with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a member of his leadership team, over her provision’s inclusion in the NDAA. Stefanik’s amendment requires the FBI to notify Congress if candidates for federal office are under investigation.
The congresswoman accused Johnson of torpedoing the language and getting “rolled” by Democrats, which the speaker said was a “misunderstanding of the facts.”
Johnson said last week that many members of his caucus are unhappy with many things, particularly in the aftermath of the government shutdown. His decision to keep the House out of session for 54 days, 43 of which were during the longest shutdown in U.S. history, has received major criticism from several in the GOP.
“People have their emotions, and all that, but — you can always find a few people who are disgruntled about things,” he added.
With the small margins, it “creates friction,” sometimes, he said, noting that “everybody has different ideas.”
“As I say every day, I’m in the consensus-building business,” Johnson said. “I gotta get every Republican to ‘yes.’ There’s a wide range of opinions and priorities among our conference because people come from all across the country from very different kinds of districts, but at the end of the day, everybody’s got to get together. So they have.”
House Republican leadership aides said Sunday night that the NDAA is a “really good consensus product” that was done through extensive negotiations between Democrats and Republicans.
“As always, no one gets everything they want, but everyone has something in here,” the aides said. “Everyone’s priorities are reflected in the final product.”
