Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tours military units in Powidz, Poland, on Feb. 15, 2025. (Alexander C. Kubitza/Defense Department)
WASHINGTON — Some lawmakers are decrying the call from the Trump administration for sweeping cuts to the defense budget, while others see it as an opportunity to reinvest the money in other areas.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered senior leaders at the Pentagon and throughout the U.S. military to develop plans for cutting 8% — or $50 billion — from the defense budget in each of the next five years.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Thursday that the order was “hasty” and “indiscriminate.”
“I’m all for cutting programs that don’t work, but this proposal is deeply misguided. [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s] rushed, arbitrary strategy would have negative impacts on our security, economy, and industrial base,” Reed said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chairman of the committee, said Hegseth’s order enables the strategic reallocation of defense spending with “common-sense reforms.”
“This process will enable the secretary to offset needless and distracting programs — such as those focused on climate change and [diversity, equity and inclusion] — and direct focus on important warfighting priorities shared by the Congress,” Wicker said.
Wicker likened Hegseth’s order to a similar review conducted in 2022 under former President Joe Biden for the defense budget. The defense budget request for fiscal 2026 was increased by the Biden administration to $926.5 billion — up from $850 billion in fiscal 2025.
Hegseth’s office released a statement late Wednesday that said the order was “guided by” President Donald Trump’s priorities to secure U.S. borders, build the Iron Dome and end spending on government diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The money identified could be “realigned” with programs that support Trump’s priorities, according to the statement.
“Through our budgets, the Department of Defense will once again resource warfighting and cease unnecessary spending that set our military back under the previous administration, including through so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs, as well as excessive bureaucracy. The time for preparation is over — we must act swiftly to deter current and impending threats and make the best use of taxpayers’ dollars in doing so,” read the statement from Robert Salesses, a senior Pentagon official.
Hegseth ordered the proposed cuts to be drawn up by Monday and includes a list of 17 categories that the Trump administration wants exempted, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post. Among them: operations at the southern U.S. border, modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense, and acquisition of submarines, one-way attack drones and other munitions.
The list endorses “support agency funding” for Indo-Pacific Command and Northern Command, which oversees homeland defense. But it does not extend similar significance to several other major geographic commands. Those include European Command, which has had a major role in overseeing U.S. support for Ukraine during its three-year war with Russia, Central Command, which manages operations across the Middle East, and Africa Command, which directs a force of several thousand U.S. troops spread out across that continent.
Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee and retired Air Force brigadier general, posted to X that “Congress is not going to cut our military by 40%.” His post was shared Wednesday night after the Defense Department’s statement was released.
In response to a comment that “Elon [Musk] will” cut the Pentagon budget rather than Congress, Bacon said, “We’ll set the budget.”
The House and Senate Armed Services committees are tasked each year with crafting the National Defense Authorization Act, a massive must-pass bill that sets expenditures and policies for the Defense Department.
Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has expressed the committee’s support for Hegseth.
“Secretary Hegseth and I are in total agreement, we need to increase investments in defense, reform how we buy technology to better support the warfighter, and cut waste,” Rogers said Feb. 6.
A spokesperson for the committee said Thursday that the budget should reflect Trump’s priorities.
“As DoD said, this is not an effort to cut defense spending, this is an effort to review the Biden administration’s [fiscal 2026] budget to ensure the FY26 budget delivers on President Trump’s defense priorities efficiently and effectively,” the spokesperson said.
In a letter dated Feb. 14, the leaders of the House Armed Services Committee called on the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force to identify obsolete programs and weapons for potential cuts as Congress begins crafting the NDAA.
Rogers and Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the panel, said they want the services to present a list by March 1 of infrastructure, weapon systems, programs or processes “that are no longer a priority” and “could be divested, right-sized or made more efficient.”
The letter was sent a day after the House Budget Committee signed off on a spending blueprint that, if approved by Congress, will ask the House Armed Services Committee to write a bill detailing up to $100 billion in additional defense spending in the next 10 years.
The Senate is working on its own version of the budget resolution, which mandates $150 billion in extra defense spending. The two chambers must agree on a compromise budget resolution before Congress can pursue legislation that would beef up spending on defense, security at the U.S.-Mexico border and energy independence while providing for trillions in tax cuts.
Stars and Stripes reporter Corey Dickstein contributed to this report.
