Sen. Cornyn defended requests for additional financial documents from the Defense nominee as "reasonable" and "legitimate."

Senior Republicans in the Senate dismissed that plan as unrealistic.

President Obama will press Middle East nations to usher in democracy when he visits Israel, Jordan and the West Bank next month.

President Obama endorsed the Pentagon’s recent policy change allowing women to serve in combat in his State of the Union address.

“We will draw upon the courage and skills of our sisters and daughters and moms, because women have proven under fire that they are ready for combat,” Obama said in a section of the speech talking about veterans.

The president also said Tuesday that he supported the recent expansion of some benefits for military spouses in same-sex relationships, saying that his administration “will ensure equal treatment for all service members, and equal benefits for their families – gay and straight.”

He told lawmakers that America must show leadership in order to isolate nuclear rogue states like North Korea and Iran.

President Barack Obama announced he would be slashing in half the total number of American troops in Afghanistan, down to just over 30,000, as part of the White House's efforts to end the over decade-long war by 2014. 

President Obama defended his administration’s counterterrorism operations Tuesday, which have come under fire from liberal Democrats in recent weeks.

Obama did not use the word “drone” in his State of the Union address, but he said that the administration has created a “durable legal and policy framework” for counterterrorism operations, a reference to the recent disclosure of the administration’s “white paper” justifying the killing of American citizens with drone strikes if they are al Qaeda leaders.

“As we do, we must enlist our values in the fight,” Obama said. “That is why my administration has worked tirelessly to forge a durable legal and policy framework to guide our counterterrorism efforts.”

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday voted to approve former Sen. Chuck Hagel’s nomination as Defense secretary.

The Topline: The nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) took a major step forward Tuesday as the Senate Armed Services Committee approved him on a party-line 14-11 vote.

But not before a whole lot of fireworks.

Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) got into it with committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) over financial documents that Hagel has not disclosed. Cruz said that without the disclosures, there was no way to know if Hagel had “received compensation for giving paid speeches at extreme or radical groups.”

But Levin cut him off, repeatedly asking Cruz to provide evidence that he was connected to any extreme groups or those with ties to foreign governments.

“We are not going to accept your suggestion or innuendo that there is some kind of a conflict of interest here, because there is no conflict of interest here,” Levin told Cruz.