WASHINGTON — House Democratic appropriators and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traded barbs Tuesday over the deployment of U.S. military forces to California in an often contentious hearing that ultimately yielded few new details about what lawmakers were ostensibly present to discuss: the fiscal 2026 budget request.

While the hearing was technically labeled as an oversight meeting, it came just hours before the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee was slated to mark up Republicans’ $831.5 billion bill to fund the Pentagon next year — legislation that was drafted without customary access to extensive programmatic details lawmakers typically rely on to craft their plans.

Though Hegseth and other DOD officials did disclose information about some planned investments, it was often unclear whether the figures being referenced were associated with numbers in the military’s base budget request or a House-passed reconciliation package that the Trump administration is relying on to boost topline national security spending in fiscal 2026.

And funding questions often went unanswered as Democratic frustration with Hegseth repeatedly boiled over on topics ranging from the mobilization of National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles to planned investments in shipyards.

The hearing, which kicks off days of testimony top Pentagon officials will provide to lawmakers surrounding next year’s national security spending plan, marked Hegseth’s first public appearance on Capitol Hill since his mid-January confirmation hearing.

While Democrats repeatedly took issue with Hegseth’s leadership at the Pentagon, Republican members of the subcommittee largely steered clear of chastising DOD leadership — despite bipartisan irritation over the tardiness of the Trump administration’s complete fiscal 2026 budget request.

Due to the delay, Defense Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Betty McCollum, D-Minn., said lawmakers are “forced” to move on a “rushed” spending bill — with only “a very rough draft” from the White House to go off of.

“How can I work with this administration in good faith when we don’t have a full blueprint of the president’s priorities?” she said.

Meanwhile, Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., underscored the need for members to have access to so-called justification books, or J-books, that provide line-by-line insight on the Pentagon’s spending plans.

“We don’t have the luxury of time,” he said. “It’s hard for us to do our jobs without the J-books, without the detailed information.”

For his part, Hegseth sought to defend the administration’s timeline, referring to last month’s release of what’s known as the “skinny” budget request: “I would just take issue with the characterization that we have not delivered a budget and don’t have details and we’re not delivering on it.”

Marines to LA

The hearing was marked by a couple of testy exchanges between Hegseth and Democratic lawmakers over President Donald Trump’s decision to place under federal control some 4,000 National Guard troops and then deploy hundreds of active-duty Marines to California in response to protests against the administration’s crackdown on immigrants.

Deploying forces to Los Angeles is expected to cost $134 million in temporary duty expenses, which includes travel, housing and food, acting DOD comptroller Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell said Tuesday.

The money is coming from the Pentagon’s Operations and Maintenance account, and specifically the Facilities Sustainment, Restoration, and Modernization program, but MacDonnell said officials are planning to backfill the funding in the fiscal 2026 budget cycle.

Two different lawmakers — McCollum and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California — pushed for information on the associated costs before receiving an answer.

In her line of questioning, McCollum sought to draw a contrast between the federal government’s response to the current protests versus those that occurred in her home state in 2020 in response to the police killing of George Floyd, during which Gov. Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard.

“At no point did we, the citizens of Minnesota, request that the Marines be deployed. Our state and local law enforcement, along with our National Guard . . . they were more than enough, they were more than capable of handling this situation,” she said.

Hegseth, a fellow Minnesotan, attacked Walz for what he characterized as a delayed response to the unrest in the Twin Cities, before pivoting to slam California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats.

“We ought to be able to enforce immigration law in this country, unlike what Gov. Walz did in 2020,” Hegseth said, as he repeatedly dodged her questions about the cost of the deployment, any missed training because of the mobilization and how the activation would affect the fiscal 2026 budget.

Shipbuilding scrutiny

Another tense moment came as Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee, sought to drill down on the fiscal 2026 budget request’s shipyard investments.

As DeLauro pressed Hegseth for details on the department’s planned resourcing of submarines and associated production levels going forward, Hegseth blamed the Biden administration for having “squandered a lot” of the money the federal government had devoted to bolstering the associated industrial base.

DeLauro then interrupted to say that while she had “difficulty with the prior administration and I don’t mind calling them out,” she pushed Hegseth to offer his “plan for the future.”

“Can we get that in writing and on paper so that we know where you’re going because we don’t have anything today,” DeLauro said. “We have zip, nada in knowing where you’re going . . . Unless this committee sees dollars and cents, and where you’re going and what your plan is then we may reconsider what you need to do to go forward. Give us the details.”

Hegseth responded that officials “have the details and will provide them.”

Thus far, the planned fiscal 2026 spending picture on shipbuilding is unclear. Details released by the Office of Management and Budget in recent weeks show that some $20.8 billion would be dedicated to Navy shipbuilding and conversion work under the administration’s request. That would be significantly less than the $33.3 billion that was made available for service shipbuilding work under the yearlong fiscal 2025 stopgap spending law.

In his written testimony submitted to the panel, Hegseth noted the Pentagon is planning to commit $5.9 billion in funding toward “revitalizing our shipbuilding industry.” In all, he said, the Defense Department intends to direct $47 billion toward shipbuilding, but it’s unclear how that would be spent or whether reconciliation funding is included in his figures.

Hegseth told lawmakers that there would be a 14% increase in the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program in fiscal 2026, paired with a “substantial increase” in money for Virginia-class attack submarines.

Budget outlook

Hegseth’s verbal and written testimony offered more — if limited — insight into the department’s fiscal 2026 budget picture.

For example, he said the Pentagon is requesting more than $62 billion to modernize and sustain the U.S. nuclear triad. That includes, he wrote in his submitted document, “$50 billion to modernize and sustain our nuclear forces and over $12 billion for nuclear command, control, and communications.”

He also told lawmakers that DOD officials “are taking a very hard look at” the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile system, which has faced cost overruns and delays, “while fully funding” it.

Beyond that, his written testimony showed that the Pentagon’s work with DOGE, or the Trump administration’s government efficiency outfit formerly spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk, has generated $6 billion in savings so far. That’s on top of $30 billion Hegseth said DOD has pulled “away from the last administration’s nonlethal priorities to reinvest into the president’s priorities.”

He separately used his written testimony to urge Congress to “support the savings and efficiencies that the Department has found in coordination with DOGE.”

_____

©2025 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.