Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to field sharp questions from members of Congress about his tumultuous start as Pentagon chief, including his sharing of sensitive military details over a Signal chat , in three separate Capitol Hill hearings beginning Tuesday.
Lawmakers also have made it clear they are unhappy that Hegseth has not provided details on the administration's first proposed defense budget , which President Donald Trump has said would total 1 trillion, a significant increase over the current spending level of more than 800 billion.
It will be lawmakers' first chance to ask Hegseth about a myriad of other controversial spending by the Pentagon, including plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on security upgrades to turn a Qatari jet into Air Force One and to pour as much as 45 million into a parade recently added to the Army's 250th birthday bash, which happens to coincide with Trump's birthday on Saturday.
Lawmakers may quiz Hegseth on the latest searing images coming out of the immigration raid protests in Los Angeles. Hegseth has deployed about 700 active-duty Marines to assist more than 4,100 National Guard troops in protecting federal buildings and personnel. But there are questions about what the troops will have to do and how much it will all cost.
Under the Posse Comitatus Act, troops are prohibited from policing U.S. citizens on American soil. Invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows troops to do that, is incredibly rare, and it's not clear if Trump plans to do it.