Two senior Republican senators sharply criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday over the Trump administration’s handling of Russia in its efforts to end the war in Ukraine, revealing a deepening public split in the party on foreign policy.
Senator Mitch McConnell — one of three Republicans who opposed Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation in January — opened a Senate budget hearing with a blunt critique of President Trump’s approach to Ukraine.
“It seems to me pretty obvious America’s reputation is on the line,” said Mr. McConnell, the former Senate majority leader who leads the Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee. “Will we defend democratic allies against authoritarian aggressors?”
Mr. McConnell, an outspoken hawk on Russia and military issues, has been critical of the Trump administration’s defense spending plan, and countered Mr. Hegseth’s argument that the administration was making the largest investment in the military in 20 years through Mr. Trump’s reconciliation package.
Mr. McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said that putting military spending into that package and not increasing spending in the regular budget “may well end up functioning as a shell game to avoid making the most significant annual investments that we spent years urging the Biden administration to make.”
The exchange between Mr. McConnell and Mr. Hegseth offered a glimpse into the widening foreign policy gap between the diminishing cohort of internationalists in the Republican Party, like Mr. McConnell, and an emboldened wing led by figures like Mr. Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, who articulate an “America First” view of U.S. involvement around the globe.
“We don’t want a headline at the end of this conflict that says Russia wins and America loses,” Mr. McConnell told the Pentagon chief, chiding him for failing to include additional military assistance for Ukraine in the Pentagon’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, also challenged Mr. Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was going to stop at Ukraine, if successful on the battlefield there.
“I don’t believe he is,” General Caine said.
“Remains to be seen,” Mr. Hegseth said.
Mr. Graham cut off the secretary, making a reference to Nazi Germany’s territorial expansion before World War II: “Well, he says he’s not. This is the ’30s all over. It doesn’t remain to be seen.”
The interaction was more confrontational than the friendlier reception the secretary received from House Republicans at a similar budget hearing on Tuesday.
But like in that House hearing, Senate Democrats on Wednesday assailed Mr. Hegseth for the administration’s decision to call up nearly 5,000 Marines and National Guard members to Los Angeles to help quell sporadic unrest there.
Mr. Hegseth told senators that the same legal authorities the Pentagon used to send the Marines and Guard to Los Angeles could be used in other cities “if there are riots in places where law enforcement officers are threatened.”
He added, “We would have the capability to surge National Guard there, if necessary.”
In other exchanges, Mr. Hegseth struck a harsher tone with Democrats than he did with Mr. McConnell and Mr. Graham.
He twice refused to directly answer when Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, asked whether the deployment of National Guard troops to Washington was an appropriate response to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 by Trump supporters.
Instead, the secretary responded by saying the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles was appropriate. Mr. Murphy contrasted Mr. Hegseth’s reluctance to agree with the deployment of the National Guard to protect the Capitol with his willingness to deploy the force against people criticizing Mr. Trump in Los Angeles.
Mr. Hegseth did concede that the National Guard mission in Los Angeles had nothing to do with “lethality,” one of the stated priorities of his Pentagon tenure. He said the military’s mission there instead was about “law and order.” In response, Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, said that “law and order is a civic function in the U.S., not a military one.” He added that the National Guard’s presence in the city was most likely illegal and “a diminution of the military.”
Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, criticized the Pentagon for cutting military medical research while spending $45 million for a parade on Saturday celebrating the Army’s 250th birthday, which also falls on Mr. Trump’s birthday.
“This is not consistent with what the men and women in uniform deserve,” Mr. Durbin said.
John Ismay and Robert Jimison contributed reporting.
