And now, a message from Google. The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America,

and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small. Central Texas Regional Mobility

Authority is using Google AI to create smarter tolling systems and improve traffic flow for Texans.

This is a new era of American innovation.

Find out more at g.co slash American Innovation.

Hey, everyone. Hey everybody, it's Anna Palmer from The Daily Punch.

Welcome to our second edition of our special edition podcast as part of our future of defense aviation project.

Over the next three weeks, we're going to lay out the state of play, the legislative landscape, talk to key players, and more as we dive deeper into the future of defense aviation.

A big thank you to RTX for making this podcast and product possible.

You can check out the full project and all of the installments at punchbowl. News.

Today, I'm joined by Andrew Desiderio, senior congressional reporter for

Punchball News, who is going to discuss the legislative landscape when it comes to defense aviation in

Washington. Andrew, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks, Anna. All right, let's get into it. Congress

plays a crucial role in providing funding for the nation's defense. You lay out the two

vehicles, the Defense Authorization Act and the Pentagon Spending Bill as the major legislative vehicles.

Tell us a little bit about what they are and what they do. Yeah. So every year, the Congress has to

pass the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the annual defense authorization bill.

It basically sets the Pentagon policy for the next fiscal year.

You ask any member of Congress, what's the most important thing that you have to do every year?

I think 90% of them would say the National Defense Authorization Act.

And the second aspect of this is the Pentagon

spending bill itself. The NDAA is not a spending bill, as we always like to remind folks, but

...