WASHINGTON — Defense agenda items including the sweeping annual defense policy bill and the administration’s goal of a $1.5 trillion defense budget are in the balance during what is expected to be a busy lame-duck session after the elections.

In addition to a hefty to-do list awaiting Congress when it returns, defense hawks have increasingly warned that President Donald Trump’s moves away from Ukraine and toward Russia could endanger his lame-duck agenda.

Meanwhile, underscoring the uncertainty of the agenda, Republicans could try to load up bills with their priorities if they lose control of one or both chambers in November, and some fiscal hawks appear unconvinced at a major defense spending hike.

“I’d have to take a look at all of it,” Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., a member of the Freedom Caucus, told reporters Monday when asked about the possibility of including defense funding and a debt ceiling increase in a partisan reconciliation bill.

“Anytime you get a big thing like a reconciliation bill, there’s going to be some things that you don’t like, so you have to weigh it out and decide whether there are more good things than bad,” added Griffith, who said he would like to see his hemp regulation bill included in a reconciliation package.

Lawmakers left town to campaign for the midterm elections with numerous defense items up in the air, chief among the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act and full-year Pentagon funding.

The NDAA has been tied up in partisan politics over the Iran war and the administration’s Pentagon funding request, with Democrats balking at authorizing a record high budget and advancing a defense policy bill without any guardrails on the Iran war.

Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters in mid-October that the NDAA was in the process of informal bicameral staff negotiations, and defense observers have expected the NDAA to be easier to move after the elections. Still, Democrats have given no public indication on what if anything would cause them to budge before the end of the year.

Similar dynamics have played out over Pentagon appropriations, where the administration has requested a $1.15 trillion base budget, $350 billion in a partisan reconciliation bill and about $60 billion in supplemental funding for Iran war-adjacent costs.

Administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, continue to push Republicans hard on the massive infusion of Pentagon cash.

And with Democrats opposed to the $1.5 trillion request and Iran war funding, any effort to move forward will undoubtedly require strong support from defense hawks.

But defense hawks have objected in recent weeks to Trump’s decision to waive sanctions on Russia and reportedly work with SpaceX to throttle Starlink and Starshield satellite services that Ukraine’s military relies on to intercept Russian drones.

On Sunday, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, became the latest Republican to raise the prospect that Trump’s actions related to Ukraine and Russia could endanger his agenda for the rest of the year.

“Mr. Trump has high hopes for a lame-duck legislative agenda, including the one-time defense spending I’ve urged the administration instead to build into full-year appropriations,” McConnell wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Sunday.

“Passing this agenda will require working with Republicans who know the difference between the good guys and the bad guys,” McConnell added. “Ending the obeisance to Mr. Putin may be table stakes for the end-of-year legislation. The president should plan accordingly.”

—Aris Folley contributed to this report.

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