And in a pivot, Hoyer, in a speech Monday to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, will explicitly tie the ballooning national debt to the nation’s security, prodding Congress to cut wasteful defense programs.

“As a matter of fact, on the path we’re on, the day will come, I fear, when we can’t afford a national security policy at all – because we’ll only be able to afford entitlement programs and interest payments to the Chinese and other creditors,” Hoyer plans to say in the speech Monday morning. “So it’s time to stop talking about fiscal discipline and national security threats as if they’re separate topics: debt is a national security threat, one of the greatest we know of.”