Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, speaks during a committee hearing on April 29, 2026. —Tom Williams—CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
A framed bill hangs on a blue wall inside Rep. Adam Smith’s office, easy to miss among the accumulated artifacts of nearly three decades in Congress. It’s a copy of the National Defense Authorization Act from 2020, during the final months of Donald Trump’s first presidency. Smith was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee then, one of the most powerful positions in Washington’s national-security apparatus. Trump vetoed the defense bill, objecting to, among other things, provisions that constrained troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Europe and authorized the renaming of military bases honoring Confederate generals. Days later, Congress overrode the veto.
The bill occupies no special place in the room. But Smith points to it as a reminder of something he is no longer sure exists. A majority of Republicans in the House and Senate voted against a Republican President on a matter of national security. Congress asserted itself. The legislative branch behaved as a coequal branch of government.
“Can you imagine that happening today?” Smith tells me in May as he paces around his office, before pausing. “I can’t.”
Congress’ weakened oversight role weighs heavy on Smith’s mind. The Washington state Democrat is now the ranking member on Armed Services and a likely candidate to reclaim the chairmanship should his party retake the House. The assumptions that guided his first tenure atop the committee, he says, have largely collapsed.
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