Senate

Defense bill talks set to start amid wall fight

by Jordain Carney - 09/18/19 8:50 PM ET

House and Senate lawmakers will formally start trying to reconcile their mammoth defense policy bills on Thursday with a fight on President Trump’s border wall looming.

Members of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) conference committee are set to meet Thursday morning, marking the formal start to negotiations.

{mosads}The Senate voted 87-7 on Wednesday evening to go to conference with the House to work out the differences on their defense bills.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) voted no.

The House had already voted to start the conference committee. Though Thursday will mark the first formal meeting, staffers and key lawmakers have been talking behind the scenes for months.

Lawmakers face a looming fight over whether or not to green light an effort to replace the $3.6 billion in military construction funding that the administration shifted toward the border wall as part of Trump’s emergency declaration.

The Senate defense bill “back fills” the funding, while the House bill does not. Democrats are fuming over Trump’s decision to leapfrog Congress and shift the military funds toward the wall.

“The House already voted this down. Democrats, myself, Speaker Pelosi, Chairwoman Lowey, and Ranking Member Leahy, have been crystal clear: we are not going to bless the president stealing money from the military by backfilling it later. This would render the Congress toothless, and the appropriations process meaningless,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Wednesday.

Republicans made an 11th-hour effort to get it in the House bill before voting to go to conference but their “motion to instruct” negotiators to support backfilling the money failed largely along party lines.

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, argued the motion would “ensure that, as we continue to argue about border security and a whole variety of other issues, that our troops do not suffer as a result of that argument.”

Negotiators will also need to cut deals on other controversial issues including ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and a provision in the House bill that would block military action against Iran.