NPR News: 07-23-2026 9AM EDT

“The U.S. has passed a trillion dollar defense policy bill to fund the military.” That is the lead from this morning’s NPR News Now, but the real story is the political collision waiting in the Senate. The House Republican majority advanced two major pieces of legislation—the defense policy bill and a separate $95 billion budget blueprint aimed at covering the rising costs of the war with Iran—but neither is guaranteed to survive the upper chamber.

Two chambers, two worlds

NPR’s Eric McDaniel explained the structural tension driving the gridlock. Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are “in the same building, but they’re also kind of in totally different worlds.” Johnson operates with a razor-thin majority—at times just a two-vote margin—and must manage a large hard-right flank that has a closer relationship with President Trump than Johnson himself often does. Thune, by contrast, has to keep more Democrats on board for legislation and deal with a “more free agent, free spirited set of legislators, the kind that become US Senators.” The result is that both leaders are “juggling a pretty different set of circumstances as they try and keep the plates spinning,” and it remains unclear whether the Senate will take up the House’s $95 billion Iran-war budget plan as written.

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