Senate advances 2026 NDAA defense bill amid ongoing government shutdown

The Senate advanced its version of the massive package to authorize funding for the Pentagon on Thursday in the midst of the ongoing government shutdown.

The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which had been gathering dust while lawmakers worked to hack the bill for more than a month, was advanced in the Senate on a bipartisan vote. The legislation would allow nearly $925 billion to be spent on defense.

However, the successful advancement of the bill after a marathon vote in the Senate on amendments came as the government entered the ninth day of the government shutdown with no clear end in sight. Lawmakers in the Senate are not expected to return until Tuesday, ensuring that military service members will not receive their paychecks next week.

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Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Mo., formally announced the hack on the Senate floor after Senate Majority Leader John Thune raised a potential vote Thursday morning. Wicker noted that in a particularly partisan moment in the Senate, the National Defense Authorization Act was able to pass committee earlier this year with a near-unanimous vote.

“At this time, when it seemed we couldn’t muster a 60-vote majority to keep us operating as a federal government, we were able to pass the National Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 26 to one,” Wicker said.

Lawmakers were finally able to move forward with the legislative package after Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., dropped his hold on the measure.

Gallego had called a vote on his amendment that would have barred Ashli ​​Babbitt, who was killed during the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, from receiving military funeral services. The Air Force performed military funeral honors for Babbitt in August.

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to reporters after the weekly Senate policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington on October 7, 2025. (Alison Robert/AP Photo)

Senators touted more than a dozen partisan amendments and a massive package of nearly 50 additions to the legislative package before moving the bill. The House of Representatives approved its own version last month.

Among the failed amendments was one introduced by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that would have blocked funds needed to modernize the Boeing 747 that President Donald Trump accepted from the Qatari government earlier this year.

Another, from Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, would have blocked Trump and state governors across the country from signing off on sending the National Guard from state to state if the governor or mayor rejected the move.

Among the successful amendments introduced by Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, was the repeal of the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq, which allowed then-President George W. Bush to use US military force as he deemed “necessary and appropriate” in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

It will also cancel a similar decision issued in 1991 during the Gulf War. The House version of the bill also repealed both mandates.

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Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., threatened to block a vote on the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

However, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., vowed to filibuster the package Thursday afternoon in an attempt to “secure a hearing to investigate these egregious abuses of our military” in response to Trump sending the National Guard to Chicago and other cities across the country.

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But she backed off her threat after Wicker promised to hold a hearing on the matter “in the coming weeks.”

“I look forward to asking the Trump administration tough questions about the unconstitutional deployment of the National Guard in American cities over the objections of state and local officials,” she said in a statement.