President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged a first ever $1 trillion defense budget proposal on Monday, a record sum for the military.
Trump, during a press event with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the upcoming budget would be “in the vicinity” of $1 trillion.
Hegseth went further in an X post on Monday evening, saying Trump “is rebuilding our military — and FAST.”
“COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar @DeptofDefense budget,” Hegseth posted from his personal account. “(PS: we intend to spend every taxpayer dollar wisely — on lethality and readiness).”
The number would be a significant increase from the $892 billion funding Congress allocated for national defense programs this year, which includes the Pentagon, nuclear weapons development and security programs at other agencies. It also comes as the armed services seeks to cut 8 percent of their individual budgets and reinvest the money in modernization efforts.
Hegseth is also planning to slash tens of thousands of department civilian employees across the globe as the Pentagon starts work on what is expected to include consolidation of domestic and overseas bases.
Their comments came as a surprise since the rollout of the federal budget isn’t expected until late May.
Trump did not specify if the $1 trillion would be solely for the Pentagon or the overall national defense budget, which includes other agencies. But national defense spending was already projected to exceed $900 billion in the upcoming budget.
“Nobody’s seen anything like it,” Trump told reporters. “We have to build our military, and we’re very cost-conscious, but the military is something that we have to build. And we have to be strong because you’ve got a lot of bad forces out there now.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill, separately, are planning an interim defense budget increase of up to $150 billion as part of their party-line efforts to boost military and border spending and slash taxes. Lawmakers haven’t settled on a final figure — the Senate has pushed for $150 billion while House Republicans have proposed $100 billion — although the Defense Department could likely spend that additional money over a decade.
