{"id":42203,"date":"2026-08-13T02:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42203"},"modified":"2026-08-13T02:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:54:13","slug":"you-got-to-engage-gop-senators-scold-hegseth-for-shutting-dems-out-of-briefings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42203","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You Got to Engage\u2019: GOP Senators Scold Hegseth for Shutting Dems Out of Briefings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5716537\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5716537\" class=\"wp-image-5716537 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/04\/hegseth-1-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"Pete Hegseth\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5716537\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Defense Secretary <strong>Pete Hegseth<\/strong> is facing pushback from Senate Republicans over his decision to shut Democrats out of Pentagon budget briefings, with the lawmakers warning the partisan approach could ultimately undermine the Trump administration\u2019s own defense priorities.<\/p>\n<p>In a Wednesday Politico <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/08\/12\/hegseth-pentagon-classified-briefings-no-democrats-01035467?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter\">report<\/a>, Sen. <strong>Thom Tillis<\/strong> (R-NC) criticized the defense secretary for failing to make his case to Democrats as the Pentagon seeks congressional backing for President <strong>Donald Trump\u2019s<\/strong> proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe calls himself the secretary of war, but ironically, he doesn\u2019t want to go to war and win the argument with nearly half the members of the Senate,\u201d Tillis told the outlet. \u201cYou got to engage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hegseth has made at least two recent trips to Capitol Hill to pitch lawmakers behind closed doors, according to Politico, but Democrats have reportedly been excluded from the sessions. That has alarmed Republicans who say the Pentagon will need Democratic votes to pass much of its defense spending package.<\/p>\n<p>Revealing that he raised the issue directly with defense officials, Sen. <strong>Mike Rounds<\/strong> (R-SD) added, \u201cThe Democrat members need to be brought up to speed. But there has to be a clear understanding that the information that\u2019s being provided to them cannot be publicly discussed. And for some reason, some of the administration feels as though there\u2019s a possibility that some of it would be leaked.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sen. <strong>Lisa Murkowski<\/strong> (R-AK) similarly pushed for the briefings to include members of both parties, telling Politico, \u201cI know that sometimes you want to have smaller groups, but I think it needs to be bipartisan.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One Republican Armed Services Committee member told Politico the administration was \u201cpreaching to the choir\u201d by pitching Republicans alone, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s a briefing that should be provided to 100 senators.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Expectedly, Pentagon spokesperson <strong>Sean Parnell<\/strong> maintained that the department \u201cremains fully committed to working with Congress to ensure our warfighters have the resources necessary to execute their mission.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And importantly, Democrats may not be the only votes Hegseth has to worry about. While Politico notes that Republicans are \u201clargely supportive\u201d of the budget increase, Sen. <strong>Mitch McConnell<\/strong> (R-KY) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/mcconnell-warns-trump-admin-defense-budget-will-put-key-priorities-at-unnecessary-risk\/\">warned<\/a> in June that the request could put \u201ckey priorities at unnecessary risk\u201d of \u201cmajor disruptions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/you-got-to-engage-gop-senators-scold-hegseth-for-shutting-dems-out-of-briefings\/\">\u2018You Got to Engage\u2019: GOP Senators Scold Hegseth for Shutting Dems Out of Briefings<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\">Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta) Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing pushback from Senate Republicans over his decision to shut Democrats out of Pentagon budget briefings, with the lawmakers warning the partisan approach could ultimately undermine the Trump administration\u2019s own defense priorities. In a Wednesday Politico report, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) criticized the defense secretary for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/04\/hegseth-1-scaled.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}