Thune On the Hot Seat After Trump…b See more

The president has made his priorities crystal clear. The question, as always, is whether the Republican Congress will actually listen.

Trump posted his demands over the holiday weekend with the kind of specificity that leaves no room for misinterpretation: Reconciliation 3.0, $350 billion for national defense, and the SAVE America Act. Not suggestions. Not negotiating positions. Demands. From the President of the United States to a Republican-controlled Congress that has spent months finding creative new ways to fumble a historic mandate.

The defense funding number alone should end any debate. The Pentagon didn’t dream up $350 billion arbitrarily — this is what military leaders say they need to fund the Golden Dome missile defense system, modernize the armed forces, restore the warrior ethos that the Biden administration spent four years systematically dismantling, and ensure that America’s military dominance isn’t just rhetoric. As Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell put it plainly: “The fate of our future military dominance hangs in the balance.” That’s not a press release. That’s a warning.