Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is greeted by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr. at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., Jan. 27, 2025. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)
WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered a review of the department’s fiscal 2026 budget plans in order to shift funds from legacy programs towards President Donald Trump’s priorities, including border security and the Iron Dome for America.
The goal: find roughly $50 billion, or 8 percent of the FY26 plan, and reprioritize it.
“Secretary Hegseth has directed a review to identify offsets from the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget that could be realigned from low-impact and low-priority Biden-legacy programs to align with President Trump’s America First priorities for our national defense,” acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses said in a Wednesday night statement.
“The Department will develop a list of potential offsets that could be used to fund these priorities, as well as to refocus the Department on its core mission of deterring and winning wars. The offsets are targeted at 8% of the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget, totaling around $50 billion, which will then be spent on programs aligned with President Trump’s priorities.”
It’s unclear what kind of programs will be targeted, although Salesses in his statement said the department will target “unnecessary spending” like “so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs, as well as excessive bureaucracy.”
While not noted in the Salesses statement, the Washington Post earlier today reported that the 8 percent shift would not just be for FY26, but for each year of the five-year long Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) that accompanies the annual budget request. The Post further reported that there are 17 exempted categories, including, per the paper, “operations at the southern U.S. border, modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense, and acquisition of one-way attack drones and other munitions.”
It’s not unusual for a new administration to take a look at the previous administration’s planned budget, though the statement tonight would seem to indicate a greater shift than previous teams go for in their first budget request.
This effort would seem to be a parallel but different one from the cuts expected to be pushed by the Elon Musk-led DOGE office, which arrived this week at the Pentagon. Those in defense circles are bracing for a wave of personnel cuts, perhaps as soon as this week, as probationary employees in the civilian workforce have been early targets of DOGE during their other stops.
How the idea of cuts lines up with proposals in Congress to increase the department’s budget by either $100 billion or $150 billion through the reconciliation process is unclear, nor is it clear how members of Congress will react to having programs — potentially major ones — in their districts impacted. It’s also unclear when the FY26 budget might actually be delivered to Congress.
