Trump budget calls for more than $1T in defense spending, massive…

May 2, 2025

President Trump unveiled his 2026 budget outline Friday, proposing cuts totaling $163 billion in education, foreign aid, energy and environmental protection — while boosting defense spending to over $1 trillion.

The $163 billion cut in non-defense discretionary spending is 22.6% below current levels, according to an outline of the budget released by the White House.

Trump disembarks from Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport on May 1, 2025. REUTERS

Meanwhile, the president proposed a 13% increase for the Pentagon, bringing the total to $1.01 trillion. The administration is also calling for $175 billion “to, at long last, finally secure our border.”

Congress will still have to come up with its own budget plan, which could take months to hammer out.

An FA-18 Hornet launches from the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman. Ricardo Reyes/U.S. Navy
Members of the US Army in Lithuania on Oct. 21, 2019. AFP via Getty Images

The White House is urgently pushing Congress to pass a spending plan — with chief of staff Susie Wiles telling The Post this week that securing Trump’s agenda with legislation is top of mind for the next six months.

“We ought to have a budget by then which would contain virtually all of the president’s priorities,” Wiles said Tuesday, “which are the things that he campaigned on, and renewal of the Trump tax cuts.”

“And if, if that is all we do, which it won’t be. That is an enormous accomplishment, because it’s the framework for everything else we will work to do.”

Trump disembarks from Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport on May 1, 2025.
Trump disembarks from Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport on May 1, 2025. REUTERS
An FA-18 Hornet launches from the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman. Ricardo Reyes/U.S. Navy
Members of the US Army 1st Division 9th Regiment 1st Battalion unload heavy combat equipment including Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles at the railway station near the Pabrade military base in Lithuania, on October 21, 2019.
Members of the US Army in Lithuania on Oct. 21, 2019. AFP via Getty Images

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