{"id":8653,"date":"2025-12-26T13:55:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T13:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/12\/26\/republican-defense-hawks-broke-with-trump-repeatedly-in-2025-roll-call\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T13:55:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T13:55:40","slug":"republican-defense-hawks-broke-with-trump-repeatedly-in-2025-roll-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/12\/26\/republican-defense-hawks-broke-with-trump-repeatedly-in-2025-roll-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican defense hawks broke with Trump repeatedly in 2025 – Roll Call"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Republican lawmakers rarely publicly break with the Trump administration. But the GOP leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees have done so on a number of key occasions during the first year of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Rep. Mike D. Rogers, R-Ala., both longtime lawmakers and outspoken defense hawks, have criticized the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to scale back American presence on the global stage, particularly in Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although they back President Donald Trump in general and on many of his other military priorities \u2014 including controversial ones, such as deploying thousands of National Guard members to support police in American cities \u2014 their decision to speak out illustrates a lingering divide in the Republican Party. While Trump favors a more isolationist foreign policy that focuses on the Western Hemisphere, some other Republicans want the U.S. to remain engaged in Europe and around the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In many ways, Trump has shifted the Republican Party toward his \u201cAmerica First\u201d vision. But defense stalwarts Rogers and Wicker repeatedly demonstrated over the course of the year that they will not quickly abandon long-held convictions when it comes to U.S. ability to project power globally.<\/p>\n

Combatant command shift<\/h2>\n

In March, the two Republicans panned<\/a> a potential Trump administration plan to consolidate U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command;\u00a0combine U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern Command; and relinquish the U.S. post of NATO\u2019s supreme allied commander in Europe, who also serves as the head of U.S. European Command.<\/p>\n

\u201cU.S. combatant commands are the tip of the American warfighting spear,\u201d Rogers and Wicker said, adding that they were \u201cvery concerned about reports that claim DoD is considering unilateral changes on major strategic issues\u201d without coordinating properly with Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The plan never became a reality, and the fiscal 2026 defense authorization includes language that bars the Defense Department from modifying or combining the missions, responsibilities or force structure of a geographic combatant command without certifying to Congress that the action is needed for national security and analyzing the costs of such a move.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the Armed Services committees may not be done with the issue of the command consolidation. In December, The Washington Post reported on a Defense Department plan to put U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command under a single international command, thereby reducing their autonomy and influence.<\/p>\n

Romania withdrawal<\/h2>\n

The two leaders were similarly outspoken in October about their opposition<\/a> to a Trump administration decision to withdraw troops from Romania, part of a broader effort to become less involved in European security.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They praised Trump\u2019s efforts to increase European countries\u2019 defense spending \u2014 in July, NATO countries agreed to eventually spent 5 percent of their gross domestic product\u00a0on defense \u2014 but condemned any effort to pull U.S. forces back from NATO\u2019s eastern flank.<\/p>\n

\u201cEuropean rearmament will take time,\u201d they said in a joint statement. \u201cPulling back U.S. forces from NATO\u2019s Eastern flank prematurely, and just weeks after Russian drones violated Romanian airspace, undermines deterrence and risks inviting further Russian aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Related: Senate clears fiscal 2026 NDAA<\/a>]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

They similarly sought to register their disapproval through the fiscal 2026 NDAA, which requires the Pentagon to assess the impact on U.S. security prior to undertaking certain actions that would diminish the U.S. military presence in Europe \u2014 including reducing troop levels below 76,000, giving up land or property or\u00a0 removing from the region equipment valued at $500,000 or more.<\/p>\n

Ukraine peace deal<\/h2>\n

And Wickers and Roger were rankled by reports in November that a potential peace deal negotiated by the Trump administration between Ukraine and Russia included terms favorable to Moscow and would require Ukraine to cede some of its territory.<\/p>\n

In a joint statement<\/a>, they called for a peace plan with \u201creasonably balanced\u201d terms, with Ukraine and NATO countries \u201cfull participants in its design and invested in its outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wicker, in a statement of his own<\/a>, was harsher.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis so-called \u2018peace plan\u2019 has real problems, and I am highly skeptical it will achieve peace,\u201d he said. \u201cUkraine should not be forced to give up its lands to one of the world\u2019s most flagrant war criminals in Vladimir Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n

On-again, off-again peace talks to try to resolve the conflict between Ukraine and Russia have yet to bear fruit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address in December that Russia is preparing a \u201cyear of war\u201d next year despite the ongoing negotiations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fiscal 2026 NDAA is another reflection of Rogers\u2019 and Wicker\u2019s ongoing support for Ukraine. The legislation authorizes $400 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, funding that was not requested by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican lawmakers rarely publicly break with the Trump administration. But the GOP leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees have done so on a number of key occasions during the first year of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Rep. Mike D. Rogers, R-Ala., both longtime lawmakers and outspoken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}