Republicans Split on Third Reconciliation Bill as Trump Presses $350B Defense Push

WASHINGTON, President Trump renewed his push this month for Congress to approve a $350 billion defense spending package through budget reconciliation, even as senior Senate Republicans declared the effort effectively dead and Speaker Mike Johnson scrambled to keep the idea alive in the House.

Trump called on lawmakers to advance the package, dubbed 'Reconciliation 3.0,' when they returned to Washington after the July 4 recess, according to reporting by Inside Defense on July 7. The president also wants Congress to include a politically contested voting security bill in the same vehicle.

Johnson said in a July 13 post on social media that he had just finished 'a very productive meeting' with House Budget Committee members and White House officials, and that House Republicans were 'continuing to drive towards a budget resolution' to begin the reconciliation process, according to a Townhall report citing the speaker's statement.

But the push faces a wall of resistance in the Senate. Two senior members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who chairs the defense subcommittee, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the committee chairwoman, said publicly that a third reconciliation package is 'really not an option,' according to Federal News Network. 'I think it's safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill,' McConnell said at a hearing on the Air Force's budget request. Collins said she agreed.

The disagreement puts GOP leaders in a bind. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers of Alabama told reporters he 'doesn't agree' with his Senate colleagues and said a defense reconciliation bill 'will have to happen,' Federal News Network reported.

This would be the third time Republicans have used the reconciliation process in the current Congress. The first bill, the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' extended Trump's tax cuts and passed Congress in July 2025. The second, called the 'Secure America Act,' provided roughly $70 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection and was signed into law on June 10, 2026, after the House passed it 214-212, according to reporting by NPR and The Hill.

The immigration enforcement bill was itself the product of a months-long standoff. Democrats refused to fund ICE and Border Patrol after federal officers shot and killed two protesters in Minneapolis earlier this year, according to NPR. When negotiations over enforcement reforms collapsed, Republicans used the reconciliation procedure, which lets a bill clear the Senate with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes normally needed, to fund the agencies without any Democratic support, according to PBS NewsHour.

The final 52-47 Senate vote on the immigration bill was nearly party-line, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska the only Republican opposed, PBS reported. In the House, Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, an independent who caucuses with Republicans, joined all Democrats in opposition because the bill included no interior enforcement reforms, according to The Hill.

Whether Republicans can summon the votes for a third reconciliation drive remains uncertain. Some House Republicans have pushed for additional cuts to safety net programs in any new package, while Trump has separately called for $350 billion in new defense spending, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Reconciliation's procedural rules, known as the Byrd Rule, restrict what can be included to provisions that directly affect federal spending, revenues, or the debt limit, which complicates efforts to include the voting security legislation Trump wants, as noted by Townhall.

Senate appropriators also warned that the reconciliation model carries execution risks. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, the ranking member of the Senate defense appropriations subcommittee, said that last year's $150 billion defense reconciliation bill produced 'errors in how shipbuilding was handled, errors in how new munitions are being acquired,' according to Defense One. Coons warned that nearly tripling that amount in a new bill 'could result in even more of those errors.'

Congress has until October 1 before the start of the new fiscal year. Without a final spending agreement on regular appropriations bills, it would need to pass a short-term continuing resolution to avoid a partial government shutdown, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Sources cited:
- Inside Defense (https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/trump-renews-call-350b-reconciliation-30-congressional-clock-keeps-ticking)
- Townhall (https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cameron-arcand/2026/07/14/reconciliation-30-is-set-to-keep-chugging-forward-n2679419)
- Federal News Network (https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2026/06/top-republican-appropriators-say-third-reconciliation-bill-is-not-an-option/)
- NPR (https://www.npr.org/2026/06/09/nx-s1-5851664/house-reconciliation-vote-immigration-enforcement-ice-border-patrol)
- PBS NewsHour (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-house-considers-reconciliation-bill-funding-trumps-immigration-enforcement-agenda)
- The Hill (https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5916924-reconciliation-ice-border-patrol-funding/)
- National Low Income Housing Coalition (https://nlihc.org/resource/house-republicans-pass-and-president-signs-law-reconciliation-20-providing-70-billion-ice)
- Defense One (https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2026/05/key-army-efforts-pinned-lawmakers-taste-new-reconciliation-bill/413703/)