House advances annual defense policy bill, upping pressure on boat strike video release

(CNN) — The House on Wednesday advanced the National Defense Authorization Act for the next fiscal year, sending the massive defense policy bill to the Senate for final passage.

Both Democrats and Republicans voted overwhelmingly to approve the measure, which sets out the nation’s defense policy agenda and authorizes nearly $900 billion in funding for military programs, including a 3.8% pay raise for service members. The Trump administration has urged passage of the bill.

GOP leaders scrambled and worked Wednesday afternoon to persuade their own members to take a critical step to allow a vote on the bill, with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking with the holdouts to negotiate various priorities. But the bill ultimately passed the House, 312-112.

The bill includes a provision that increases pressure on the Pentagon to provide Congress with videos of its strikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. The inclusion of the provision in the must-pass legislation, which was negotiated by top House and Senate Democrats and Republicans, reflects lawmakers’ continued desire for the Trump administration to disclose more information about the military’s controversial September 2 “double-tap” strike on a suspected Venezuelan drug boat.

The specific provision would withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget unless the Pentagon complies with various oversight requirements, including providing the House and Senate Armed Services committees “video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command.”

It also requires the Pentagon to provide Congress with copies of any “execute orders” it issues.

Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services committee who helped negotiate the behemoth bill, said Tuesday the boat strikes language and other provisions would help Congress reassert itself as a coequal branch of government.

Some on Capitol Hill, however, have signaled a desire to move on from the follow-up strike controversy. House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, a committee aide told CNN, is prepared to end his panel’s investigation into the September 2 attack in the Caribbean.

“The video and classified briefings from the Pentagon were sufficient to convince him this was a legal action. But he’s also been clear that we need a classified briefing where the rest of HASC’s members can see the video, and we expect that to happen next week,” the committee aide told CNN.

Republicans can claim wins in the bill. Top House Republicans are touting how the NDAA codifies over a dozen Trump executive orders and much of his agenda at the southern border and abroad. They also say the bill eliminates diversity initiatives in the military.

Other provisions of the NDAA would repeal 1991 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force against Iraq, repeal sanctions on Syria, and seek to limit the Trump administration’s ability to significantly draw down troops from Europe.

Another aims to support efforts to recover Ukrainian children who have been abducted by Russia. The provision, based on bipartisan, bicameral legislation, would restore US support for the work to track and return the stolen children. Earlier this year, the Trump administration cut funding to the leading organization that tracks evidence of Russian war crimes, including the forced relocation of the estimated tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been taken by Russia.

Many lawmakers were dismayed by the omission of language to expand coverage of fertility services like in vitro fertilization for service members on TRICARE. Earlier House and Senate versions of the bill contained such language, but it was left out of the final product.

Holdouts land concessions in exchange for greenlighting bill

In order to clear a key procedural hurdle to allow for the final vote, a handful of House GOP holdouts switched their votes in the eleventh hour after concessions from senior party leaders.

Three hardliner Republicans – Reps. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida and Lauren Boebert of Colorado – told CNN that they spoke with Rubio on a private call about their concerns that federal funding was going to the Taliban.

“We talked to the secretary of state. He’s going to ensure that NGOs that are funneling money to the Taliban are going to officially stop,” Luna told CNN.

“He’s going to work with us on that,” Burchett added.

The phone call with Rubio took place in a private GOP room off the House floor, where party leaders huddled with their hardline holdouts in the middle of the stalled vote Wednesday afternoon. As Johnson and his team worked over the holdouts, the vote was open for roughly 80 minutes. In the end, GOP leaders flipped roughly a half-dozen votes.

This group suggested they secured a promise from Johnson’s team to bring a bill to block stock trading by members of Congress to the floor in the future, a nod to Luna’s months-long pressure campaign on the issue. It’s not clear exactly what bill would come to the floor, or when. (Pressed about the details of that agreement, Luna said: “We’ll let you ask the speaker on that.”)

They also won another commitment from Johnson related to cryptocurrency. Months after conservatives held up a different vote to pressure Johnson on crypto, the group said they secured another promise to bring up a bill that would prevent the creation of what’s known as a Central Bank Digital Currency, which comes with major privacy concerns for the hard-right.

“The House will go to war with the Senate” on the issue, Luna said, conveying the message from party leaders.

Asked about a promised vote to ban stock trading, Johnson denied the notion, “There’s all sorts of things about what I supposedly promised in the room, that’s not true.”

“What I told them is that we continue to go through that process. There’s a lot of ideas on that. And so, I just committed to what I’d already committed to,” he told reporters Wednesday evening.

This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Alison Main, Jennifer Hansler, Annie Grayer, Donald Judd contributed to this report.