Senate Armed Services chair frustrated with stopgap, Dems staying mum

WASHINGTON — With a shutdown deadline fast approaching, Democrats not showing their cards, and no vote scheduled for the stopgap bill, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) expressed frustration in a subcommittee meeting and to reporters Wednesday.

Wicker, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said at the beginning of a hearing Wednesday morning in the readiness subcommittee that he’ll “have to swallow my words again this year and go ahead and pass it because the alternative is so unpalatable and so dangerous.”

The continuing resolution (CR), which would fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, narrowly passed the House Tuesday evening. Senators have until 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Saturday, March 15 to send the bill to President Donald Trump’s desk, or the government runs shuts down.

“Let me say this about the CR,” Wicker said at the hearing. “We repeatedly say, House and Senate, Republican and Democrat, that we never need to do this again. And for some reason, something comes up, some group is unwilling to compromise and look at the long picture and we find ourselves in this position.”

Wicker also called the bill a “hybrid” CR due to its anomalies and slight plus-up of $6 billion for defense, instead of “clean,” which would imply zero carve outs. 

The “real flaw” with the stopgap, which Wicker said the Senate would “be voting on later this week,” is that it doesn’t provide enough money for defense, “regardless of the anomalies and the tiny plus-ups here and there.”

Wicker also said the CR goes against the Armed Services Committee’s effort to give a $25 billion boost in defense spending through the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which passed in early January. Wicker added he was not included in the final conference report.

“I would not vote for the CR if there weren’t the prospect of our reconciliation package that begins to give us what we need,” Wicker said to reporters, including the Exchange Monitor, outside the Senate floor. “But considering what’s in the CR with the anomalies and its light plus-ups, we’re going to need more than 150 billion.” 

Wicker said he would need a minimum of $175 billion for defense.

The Senate needs 60 votes to pass the stopgap funding bill, and only has 53 Republicans in the majority. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has staunchly opposed the bill, but Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) said on X he would “never vote to shut our government down,” meaning seven more Democrats would need to vote for the bill.

Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), who oversees Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories in his state, told the Monitor and other reporters outside the Senate floor, “I’m still reviewing to get a close look at this, but just very disappointed in that House Republicans didn’t even want to chat with anybody to work together.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) also hurriedly told reporters as he got into the Senate elevator that he “had decided” his vote, but wasn’t ready to reveal yet as he was in discussions with his colleagues.