“The troops that we have in the Republic of Korea are responsible wholly for preserving peace on the peninsula and in the region,” Army Gen. Xavier Brunson, who also serves as head of Combined Forces Command, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

“They are a critical component to ballistic missile defense in the region. They are critical to helping Indo-Pacific Command see, sense and understand threats to the north and to deter a great many adversaries.”

Currently, roughly 28,500 U.S. military personnel are stationed in South Korea, working with both regional military partners and United Nations countries. The Defense Department has had at least 25,000 American troops deployed continuously there since the early 1950s.

Top general recommends US maintain current troop levels in Europe

But Trump and his advisers have questioned the value of the long-term presence of American military forces at a number of overseas locations. During an Oval Office ceremony on Wednesday, Trump was asked about reducing the number of American troops stationed in Europe, and injected Korea into his answer.

“We pay for U.S. military in Europe, and we don’t get reimbursed by much. South Korea, too,” he said. “It will be one of the things that we discuss that is unrelated to trade, but we’ll make it part of the trade conversation. It would be nice to wrap it all up together.”

At the start of Thursday’s hearing, Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., noted “there are rumors that the Defense department will direct a reduction of U.S. presence in South Korea, or retask these forces to focus on the threat from China” instead of North Korea.

Brunson did not address any of the force level change discussions directly, but said that from a military strategy standpoint, “we need to remember there is diplomacy and defense on the Korean Peninsula currently.”

He urged “strategic clarity” with any changes in force posture in the region, to ensure allies and adversaries understand America’s commitment to stability in the region.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told lawmakers at the hearing that the forces stationed in Korea benefit not only that country but also numerous other allies in the region.

“They make significant contributions outside the Korean peninsula, including in their participation in multilateral exercises,” he said.

Defense Department officials have not announced any formal plans to begin force reductions or significant posture changes in the region. Trump did not provide any additional details on when a review of troop levels in Europe or the Pacific may begin.

The unusual move — which gives Driscoll the top post in two separate, complex federal agencies — came after President Donald Trump opted to remove FBI Director Kash Patel from the acting director role in recent days.

White House officials did not release information on why Patel was relieved or why Driscoll was selected for the extra post. Defense Department officials declined to comment on whether the new role will take away from Driscoll’s focus on leading the Army.

Driscoll, 38, was confirmed to the top Army job by the Senate just 43 days ago. He is a former senior adviser to Vice President JD Vance and spent four years in the Army, including a deployment to Iraq in 2009.

VA secretary tapped to temporarily lead 2 federal oversight offices

As the temporary head of ATF, Driscoll will lead efforts within the Department of Justice to investigate federal offenses related to firearms use and sales, as well as illegal sales of explosives, alcoholic beverages and tobacco products.

White House officials under Trump have suggested merging the ATF with another agency — potentially the Drug Enforcement Administration — to cut back on bureaucracy and federal staffing. No specific plans have been outlined yet.

Meanwhile, Defense Department leaders are conducting reviews of service civilian staffing and missions for possible budget cuts in the future.

Unlike his predecessors in the White House, Trump has used his executive powers to double task a number of senior officials in temporary leadership roles.

For example, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins was sworn in by the Senate for that leadership role but is also serving as the interim head of the Office of Government Ethics and the Office of Special Counsel while the administration reorganizes both agencies.

Outside advocates have warned that the multiple jobs could distract appointees from their primary duties and create confusion about command responsibilities within the affected agencies.

The vote was 54-45, with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky as the only Republican voting against him. Three Democrats voted for Colby.

In a statement, McConnell said Colby’s “long public record suggests a willingness to discount the complexity of the challenges facing America, the critical value of our allies and partners.” And McConnell said Colby’s confirmation “encourages isolationist perversions of peace through strength to continue apace at the highest levels of administration policymaking.”

Vice President JD Vance criticized McConnell in an X post, saying that the senator’s no vote — “like so much of the last few years of his career — is one of the great acts of political pettiness I’ve ever seen.”

Vance spoke at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing early last month to urge Colby’s confirmation, saying the nominee has said things in the past that alienated Republicans and Democrats and also said things that both sides would agree on.

The vice president said Colby will be able to work with lawmakers and will strive to restore the defense industrial base, a key goal.

Sen. Jim Banks, R-Indiana, said in a post Tuesday on X that Colby “deeply understands the threat we face from communist China and is uniquely qualified to serve in this role. The Pentagon is better prepared to defend America with Bridge leading policy.”

Colby, who served as deputy assistant defense secretary for strategy during the first Trump administration, faced repeated questions from both Democratic and Republican senators during his confirmation hearing on previous statements he had made about whether Russia had actually invaded Ukraine and his suggestions that the U.S. could tolerate and contain a nuclear-armed Iran.

After initially declining several times to answer direct questions during his hearing on whether Russia invaded Ukraine, calling it a sensitive topic, Colby eventually acknowledged that Russia invaded its neighbor and poses a significant military threat to the U.S. and Europe.

Previously, Trump has falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the three-year war that has cost tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives and called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator for not holding elections during wartime. During a stunning Oval Office blowup, Trump berated Zelenskyy and said he wasn’t grateful enough for America’s support.

During a press event with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Trump offered the outline for total defense spending in the fiscal 2026 budget as part of his larger plans for U.S. national security.

“We’re going to be approving a budget, and I’m proud to say, actually, the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military,” he said. “$1 trillion. Nobody has seen anything like it.

“We are getting a very, very powerful military. We have things under order now.”

Defense officials considering cuts to military treatment facilities

A $1 trillion defense budget would represent an increase of nearly 12% from current fiscal year spending levels. Trump indicated that at least some of the new spending would come from savings found by cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency, although he did not specify any accounts.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praised the news on social media Monday evening.

“Coming soon: the first Trillion dollar Department of Defense budget,” he wrote. “President Donald Trump is rebuilding our military — and fast.”

Hegseth said that despite the significant increase, all taxpayer money for his department will be spent “wisely, on lethality and readiness.”

White House officials are expected to reveal their full budget plan for fiscal 2026 — which begins on Oct. 1 — later this spring.

Republicans in Congress have pushed for years for boosts in defense spending to counter growing overseas threats and operational demands.

But they have also called for cuts in overall government spending to balance the federal budget, and for tax relief for some Americans. Increasing defense spending will complicate those calculations, and likely add to the federal deficit unless sharp cuts are made to non-defense programs.

Democratic lawmakers have objected to those kinds of cuts, but have limited options in blocking budget moves because they are in the minority in both the House and Senate.

Even with the increase, an American military budget of $1 trillion still would not match Trump’s stated goal of all NATO countries spending 5% of their gross domestic product on defense.

Trump said the extra money for defense will allow the country to purchase new equipment and capabilities needed for the future.

“We’ve never had the kind of aircraft, the kind of missiles, anything that we have ordered,” he said. “And it’s in many ways too bad that we have to do it because, hopefully, we’re not going to have to use it.”

President Donald Trump has abruptly fired the director of the National Security Agency, according to U.S. officials and members of Congress, but the White House and the Pentagon have provided no reasons for the move.

Senior military leaders were informed Thursday of the firing of Air Force Gen. Tim Haugh, who also oversaw the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, the officials said. They received no advance notice about the decision to remove a four-star general with a 33-year career in intelligence and cyber operations, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel decisions.

The move has triggered sharp criticism from members of Congress and demands for an immediate explanation. And it marks the latest dismissal of national security officials by Trump at a time when his Republican administration faces criticism over his failure to take any action against other key leaders’ use of an unclassified Signal messaging chat that included The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg to discuss plans for a military strike.

It’s unclear who now is in charge of the NSA and the Cyber Command.

Also fired was Haugh’s civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble.

The NSA notified congressional leadership and top lawmakers of the national security committees of the firing late Wednesday but did not give reasons, according to a person familiar with the situation who insisted on anonymity to discuss the matter. The person said Noble has been reassigned to the office of the defense undersecretary for intelligence.

The White House did not respond to messages seeking comment. The NSA referred questions about Haugh to the Defense Department. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about why he was fired or provide other details.

Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, would only say, in a statement, that the department thanks Haugh “for his decades of service to our nation, culminating as U.S. Cyber Command Commander and National Security Agency Director. We wish him and his family well.”

Far-right activist and commentator Laura Loomer appeared to take credit Friday in a post on X, saying she raised concerns to Trump about Haugh’s ties to Gen. Mark Milley and the Biden administration and questioned the NSA chief’s loyalty to the president. Milley served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s first term but has since become an outspoken critic.

“Given the fact that the NSA is arguably the most powerful intel agency in the world, we cannot allow for a Biden nominee to hold that position,” Loomer wrote. “Thank you President Trump for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you and thank you for firing these Biden holdovers.”

Loomer, who has claimed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were an “inside job,” had discussed staff loyalty with Trump in an Oval Office meeting Wednesday, according to several people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel manner. A day later, Trump said he fired “some” White House National Security Council officials.

Trump fires several national security officials over loyalty concerns

Rep. Jim Himes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding to know why Haugh and Noble were fired.

“Public reporting suggests that your removal of these officials was driven by a fringe social media personality, which represents a deeply troubling breach of the norms that safeguard our national security apparatus from political pressure and conspiracy theories,” Himes, D-Conn., wrote.

Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said Friday that he has “long warned about the dangers of firing military officers as a political loyalty test.”

“In addition to the other military leaders and national security officials Trump has fired, he is sending a chilling message throughout the ranks: don’t give your best military advice, or you may face consequences,” Reed said in a statement.

He added that Trump “has given a priceless gift to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea by purging competence from our national security leadership.”

Another Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the U.S. was “facing unprecedented cyber threats” and asked how firing Haugh, who has served in the military for more than 30 years, makes America safer.

Haugh’s firing sets off a 60-day process. Unless he is moved to another three- or four-star job in 60 days he would automatically revert to a two-star.

Any new high-level job would be unlikely since that would require a nomination from Trump, who just fired him. As a result, Haugh, who was confirmed for the NSA job in a unanimous Senate vote in December 2023, would likely retire.

Trump hasn’t commented on Haugh or Noble, but on Thursday he dismissed the National Security Council firings as normal.

“Always we’re letting go of people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he made his way to Miami on Thursday afternoon. “People that we don’t like or people that we don’t think can do the job or people that may have loyalties to somebody else.”

The firings come as Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, fights calls for his ouster after using the publicly available encrypted Signal app to discuss planning for a sensitive March 15 military operation targeting Houthi militants in Yemen.

Warner called it “astonishing” that Trump “would fire the nonpartisan, experienced leader of the National Security Agency while still failing to hold any member of his team accountable for leaking classified information on a commercial messaging app — even as he apparently takes staffing direction on national security from a discredited conspiracy theorist in the Oval Office.”

Haugh met last month with Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has roiled the federal government by slashing personnel and budgets at dozens of agencies. In a statement, the NSA said the meeting was intended to ensure both organizations are “aligned” with the new administration’s priorities.

Haugh had led both the NSA and Cyber Command since 2023. Both departments play leading roles in the nation’s cybersecurity. The NSA also supports the military and other national security agencies by collecting and analyzing a vast amount of data and information globally.

Cyber Command is known as America’s first line of defense in cyberspace and also plans offensive cyberoperations for potential use against adversaries.

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Aamer Madhani, Zeke Miller, David Klepper and Lou Kesten in Washington contributed to this report.

Acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins announced the inquiry Thursday in a letter sent to Hegseth’s office, asking for two points of contact within five days to help detail what information was shared and the decisions leading up to the communications.

The investigation — requested by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., — would be the first internal Pentagon review of Hegseth’s role in the group chat, made public last week.

In mid-March, top officials across the Trump administration used the app to plan attacks on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, an Iran-backed terrorist group that has targeted commercial ships transiting the Red Sea, an important route for global trade. The group mistakenly included a reporter from The Atlantic, who later published its contents after the administration argued they weren’t classified.

‘Obviously classified’: Experts say Hegseth chat leaks invited danger

In those messages, Hegseth shared detailed information on imminent U.S. strikes, including what weapons would be used and when they would occur. Outside experts and former defense officials have argued the texts put American troops at higher risk and were almost certainly classified, something Hegseth has denied.

Signal is encrypted but not permitted for sharing classified information according to Pentagon standards.

Stebbins said the inquiry will probe whether Hegseth and others followed internal Pentagon standards for using such an app and properly handled classified material. The investigation will also cover “records retention requirements” for government communications.

President Donald Trump thus far has dismissed calls to punish Hegseth or national security adviser Michael Waltz, who started the chat group. Hegseth has called the controversy a media distraction from the successful airstrikes in Yemen.

Stebbins is serving as acting inspector general because Trump dismissed Robert Storch from the Senate-confirmed role as part of his firings of 17 inspectors general in January, less than a week after the presidential inauguration.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., in a letter to acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins said the inquiry is needed to resolve outstanding questions about the incident and security of military secrets.

The move comes after three days of controversy over a chat group on Signal, in which Hegseth shared military operations information with other top administration leaders, including national security adviser Michael Waltz, Vice President JD Vance and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was also included on the app, apparently in a mistake. He released a transcript of the discussions on Wednesday after White House officials insisted that it included no classified or secret information.

‘Obviously classified’: Experts say Hegseth chat leaks invited danger

The screenshots include details of attack plans hours before the launch of F/A-18s and Tomahawk missiles at Houthi militant sites in Yemen, particulars the lawmakers called concerning in their letter to the inspector general’s office.

“If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know,” they wrote.

White House and Pentagon officials have insisted that no information was improperly shared on the commercial app. More than 30 Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, have called for Hegseth to resign or be fired, calling his actions a serious breach of public trust.

“[Hegseth] lacks the judgement and character to lead America’s national defense,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a floor speech on Thursday.

“The information he shared on Signal is shocking. He sent very specific details about military plans over unsecured text messages. We need more answers, because more damage may have been done than the public and all of us know.”

White House officials said they will cooperate with the probe, while still insisting the scandal is a media-driven hoax.

“We have never denied that this was a mistake, and the national security adviser took responsibility for that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a press event Thursday. “And we have said we are making changes. We are looking into the matter to ensure it can never happen again.”

Hegseth and Pentagon officials have taken an even more aggressive approach, attacking Goldberg for what they call exaggerations and fear mongering.

Wicker has not committed to committee hearings on the issue, even as Democratic lawmakers have pushed for Hegseth to testify publicly on the controversy.

House Armed Services Committee leaders also have not said whether they expect to hold open sessions on the information sharing concerns.

But White House officials insist that senior leaders did nothing wrong and blasted critics for alleged exaggerations and fear-mongering instead of celebrating a successful military campaign against Houthi terrorists.

On Wednesday, The Atlantic released transcripts and screenshots of a conversation held among top national security officials ahead of the bombing of Houthi targets on March 16.

The exchange — which involved Hegseth, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Vice President JD Vance and others — included details of when the surprise attacks would occur, even before some of the aircraft involved took off.

In the chat, Hegseth included time stamps for when F-18 aircraft would launch and arrive at targets and when Tomahawk missiles would be fired at buildings controlled by Houthi members.

White House, DOD deny that Hegseth leaked military secrets in chat app

Administration officials inadvertently included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg in the unclassified chat, which was conducted over the messaging app Signal. That program is authorized for some confidential government use but has been deemed unsuitable for sensitive or classified information under Defense Department rules.

Following the release of the messages, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said his panel is planning an investigation into the issue, with a briefing from top defense officials on the information discussed and protocols ignored.

“The information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified,” Wicker said.

House Armed Services Committee member Don Bacon, R-Neb., was more critical.

“The White House is in denial that this was not classified or sensitive data,” he said Wednesday.

More than 20 Democratic lawmakers — including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. — have already called for Hegseth’s resignation over the scandal.

White House pushback

Since the existence of the group chat was first confirmed Monday, White House and Pentagon officials have worked to downplay its importance and that of the details discussed in it.

Trump said Tuesday that no “classified” information was included in the chat. Intelligence officials included in the group later testified before Congress that none of the material included was classified, a claim repeated by Trump and his spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, multiple times.

But former Pentagon officials with experience planning such attacks argued that claim is almost surely false.

“This information was clearly taken from the real time order of battle sequence of an ongoing operation. It is highly classified and protected,” said Mick Mulroy, a former Marine who was the Pentagon’s top official for Middle East policy during the first Trump administration.

Speaking with reporters Monday while traveling to Hawaii, Hegseth argued the group chat contained no “war plans,” as The Atlantic story initially alleged. Leavitt defended Hegseth’s claim Wednesday by arguing the information was instead part of an “attack plan,” language The Atlantic later adjusted in its own reporting.

Still, former defense officials familiar with the distinction said it held little relevance, or perhaps made the leak worse. Unlike a war plan, which outlines the broad overview of a U.S. military campaign, an attack plan describes an imminent operation, which could immediately put American lives at risk.

“Attack plans are actually far more sensitive,” said a former U.S. defense official with experience planning such operations, who spoke anonymously to avoid the threat of retaliation.

Another former defense official called the information “obviously classified” and said it could have jeopardized the operation.

Dangerous details

Experts interviewed for this story insisted that if the Houthis had access to the information shared in the group chat, they could’ve protected the targets in question, putting expensive American military assets to waste.

Tomahawk cruise missiles, which were used in the attack, travel at relatively slow speeds and are hard to redirect, making it more important to hit targets by surprise.

Even worse, the official warned, the Houthis could’ve fired back.

Specifying that the planes being used were F-18s, as Hegseth did, was especially risky, the two former officials said. The fighters launch from aircraft carriers, which makes it far easier to know where they’re coming from and how to target them — as the Houthis have scores of times over the last year.

“If there is a strike package coming your way, and you have an idea about where they might be going … maybe enough information that makes it easier for the enemy to shoot down an airplane, that helps them tremendously,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former Navy pilot.

“In the first Gulf War, on my first combat mission, I almost got shot down when a missile blew up next to my airplane. I can guarantee you, if [the enemy] knew exactly where we were coming from and going to, it would have made it much easier for them.”

In a briefing from the White House on Wednesday, Leavitt said Trump had personally reviewed the transcript of the group chat and remained confident that information was handled properly. She did not directly answer questions on how the timing of a military strike would not be classified information.

The leak of internal conversations among administration officials could also benefit enemy spies, one former defense official said.

“The whole exchange starts to give other countries a sense of how this team deliberates and thinks about its allies, its tradeoffs, and generally those kinds of conversations are not public,” the official said.

Those internal conversations “are useful not just to the Houthis, but to other countries in the world who are seeking to understand America’s national security decision making, and that should be a concern.”

Amid the controversy, U.S. military operations in Yemen have continued, Leavitt said. Defense Department officials said American assets have now hit 100 Houthi targets and will continue to attack more until the group stops targeting commercial ships.

The goals are similar to those of former President Joe Biden’s administration, which launched multiple rounds of airstrikes against the Houthis for the same purpose last year.

But lawmakers — including a few Republicans — are demanding more information about top administration officials’ use of a group chat on the commercial app Signal that accidentally included a journalist from The Atlantic in conversations ahead of the launch of the military operation, to see if any laws were broken.

Officials from the National Security Council have publicly acknowledged that numerous top administration officials used the app to communicate ahead of the first airstrikes on March 16. The participants list included Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Vice President JD Vance, among others.

It also included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, apparently added by mistake. In a story published Monday, Goldberg said the conversation included “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”

Top Trump officials accidentally shared war plans with media

White House officials dismissed concerns about the mistake on Tuesday. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on social media that “no ‘war plans’ were discussed” in the chat and disputed claims from Goldberg that he saw classified material on the thread.

Similarly, in a press gaggle Monday, Hegseth attacked Goldberg as a “deceitful journalist” and accused him of “peddling hoaxes” without directly addressing the use of the non-secure channel for operational planning.

He also called the attacks a success, and said that should be the focus of the issue.

Still, in a statement to reporters on Monday, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., called the existence of the chat group “definitely a concern” and said he believes “that mistakes were made” by senior officials. He vowed to hold classified briefings on the issue in the coming days.

Democratic lawmakers said that doesn’t go far enough.

A group of 14 Democratic senators on Monday demanded disciplinary action against some or all of the chat group participants for an “egregious breach of public trust” in the information leak.

“It does not take much imagination to consider the likely ramifications if this information had been made public prior to the strike – or worse, if it had been shared with or visible to an adversary rather than a reporter who seems to have a better grasp of how to handle classified information than your National Security Advisor,” the senators wrote.

“This is an astonishingly cavalier approach to national security.”

House Armed Services Committee ranking member Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said in a social media post that “it’s time to start seriously worrying about the competency of President Trump’s national security team.” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called for Waltz and Hegseth to resign.

Trump, in an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, brushed aside the controversy, saying that “Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”

On Monday, in a press event with reporters, he joked that the information leak could not be too serious because the strikes against the Houthis were effective and lethal.

Potential violations

Military operations — especially those about to occur — are highly sensitive U.S. secrets, which can put service members and American intelligence methods at risk. And while many of the officials participating in the group have the authority to declassify information themselves, there’s no public indication that they took formal steps to that effect.

Trump himself has a history with classified information. In his first term, he posted a picture of a rocket explosion inside Iran on Twitter, the social app now known as X. The image was taken from a highly classified U.S. spy satellite, but the president chose to release it without a formal approval process, usually required to publish such information.

U.S. government regulations also prohibit the use of personal devices or commercial messaging apps like Signal to discuss national security information. And though Signal is an encrypted app, that doesn’t mean it’s secure. Foreign governments can hack into and monitor personal cell phones, recording every keystroke made on the device. Such a breach wouldn’t immediately be clear, a former senior national security official said, speaking anonymously to avoid potential retaliation.

“The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible,” Leavitt wrote Monday. Her post didn’t address whether Signal was one such platform, or what it would mean for broader U.S. intelligence standards.

That said, the president could retroactively say that he had authorized group chats like the one Goldberg was invited to, shielding the officials involved. Trump argued in his interview with NBC Tuesday morning that there was no immediate consequence to the chat, calling the episode a “glitch.”

“There’s a very real world in which this whole thing happens and it’s embarrassing and its mortifying, but no one gets fired,” said Jamil Jaffer, head of George Mason University Antonin Scalia School of Law’s National Security Institute.

A Defense Department memorandum from October 2023 specifically instructs senior military leaders not to use “non-DOD accounts or personal email accounts, messaging systems or other non-public DOD information systems — except approved or authorized government contractor systems — to conduct official business involving controlled unclassified information” or for classified national security files.

Department officials have also not publicly announced Signal as an authorized platform for military personnel use.

On Tuesday, John Ratcliffe, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that Signal is “permissible to use for work purposes” for his agency provided that the messages are also preserved elsewhere to conform with public records standards.

Ratcliffe confirmed that he was also on the Houthi airstrike chat group. Both he and Gabbard insisted that no classified information from the intelligence community was shared in the conversation.

FBI officials said they are still reviewing the incident, and have not yet committed to a full investigation. Warner and other Senate Democrats are pushing for one, calling it critical to public confidence in the administration.

In a story released Monday titled “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans,” Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg said he was added to the group on Signal — an open-source, privacy-focused messaging app — earlier this month by someone identifying themself as Michael Waltz, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.

The conversation — which eventually included messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others — included “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” according to Goldberg.

US strikes dozens of Houthi sites in Yemen as broader campaign begins

Because of messages sent in the group chat, Goldberg learned of the airstrikes more than two hours before they were made public by government officials, he said.

“The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility,” Goldberg wrote.

U.S. military units struck more than 30 targets in Yemen over several days earlier this month as part of an ongoing campaign targeting Iran-backed Houthi rebels, a terrorist group that has halted international shipping for more than a year.

Defense Department officials referred questions on the issue to the National Security Council. NSC officials did not respond to requests for comment.

In a statement National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said that “the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

He also asserted that the thread “is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our service members or our national security.”

But officials may have violated rules regarding sharing secure military information, sensitive operations data and preservation of government records, whether Goldberg was included on the list accidentally or intentionally.

Goldberg wrote that in addition to the sensitive military discussions, senior leaders discussed concerns with Trump’s strategy in the Middle East and complained about European allies’ lack of action in the region.

He also said that Hegseth assured chat participants that “we are currently clean on OPSEC” despite the accidental inclusion of a journalist in the conversation, and the use of an outside-of-government platform.

The 181-page document, obtained by Defense News, includes the standard funding tables attached to lawmakers’ annual defense spending legislation, which call for cuts to major service-led efforts like the Air Force’s drone wingmen program, Army missile procurement and the Space Force’s missile warning and tracking satellite architecture.

But the FY25 appropriations process has not been standard. The full-year continuing resolution passed by Congress may lower defense spending, but it also grants the Defense Department far more authority to decide how to spend its budget.

Because Congress failed to pass a full FY25 appropriations bill, the plans now sent to the Pentagon are not legally binding, instead serving merely as spending recommendations, according to Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“Congress ceded a significant degree of authority to the executive branch in the FY25 defense budget, and they can’t get that back by issuing a letter that basically says, ‘This is what we intended,’” Harrison told Defense News. “Good luck getting DoD to adhere to this.”

Climate change out, ‘lethality’ in

Congressional appropriators recommend a $1.2 billion cut from the Army’s FY25 request for operations and maintenance FY25, but add an additional $501 million to the service’s personnel account to cover pay raises for junior enlisted service members, according to the document.

Additional funding — to the tune of $265 million — would bolster Army procurement. Another $248.7 million would be added to RDT&E accounts.

While missiles have flowed from the U.S. to Ukraine and the Army has led the way in replacing and replenishing those munitions, lawmakers are recommending a cut of $247 million in missile procurement.

The Army’s future missile defense radar — the Lower-Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, or LTAMDS, is recommended for a $129 million cut. The most capable variant of the Army’s Patriot missile would also be cut by $58 million due to a delivery backlog. The delayed Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon program would be cut by $75 million.

Yet Congress is recommending a $100 million increase for the legacy Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, beyond just the $3.3 million the Army asked for in its FY25 budget as it works to phase the missile out and field the longer-range Precision Strike Missile. Congress proposes a $25 million cut for PrSM procurement and another $10 million for the Army’s pursuit of a second variant.

Certain vehicles buys would also take a hit if the Army took the congressional recommendations. Lawmakers recommend slashing Armored Multipurpose Vehicle procurement by $134 million. The document contains an increase for the Paladin Integrated Management System by $158 million at a time when the service is looking at exactly how it might modernize its howitzer fleet.

Congress also suggests a major funding boost of $248 million for a modular artillery production facility and another $41 million for Army ammunition plant modernization.

Army aviation procurement would be increased as well, to include $240 million for National Guard-bound Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft systems and another $60 million for National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

Lawmakers recommend an injection of cash into Humvee modernization for both the active ($90 million) and reserve forces ($50 million) as well as additional $120 million for the Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles, or FMTV. Congressional appropriators would also add $167 more in funding for the Family of Heavy Tactical Vehicles, or FHTV.

In RDT&E funding, lawmakers cut more than $140 million deemed to be associated with climate change initiatives, including $29.5 million from the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle program and $7.4 million from a “soldier lethality technology” line. They also recommended cuts to all hybrid electric vehicle prototyping efforts in the force.

Lawmakers proposed additional funding in technology development areas affiliated with lethality enhancements.

Cuts to future Air Force programs

The document recommends a nearly $3.2 billion spending reduction from the Air Force’s original 2025 budget request.

That includes cuts of $2.3 billion from research and development funding, $1.4 billion from operations and maintenance. $130 million from personnel, and nearly $115 million from missile procurement. Aircraft procurement would receive almost $64 million more than originally requested, and “other” procurement programs would see a plus-up of about $679 million.

Lawmakers proposed a $325 million cut to the Next Generation Air Dominance program, which they didn’t justify but simply called a “classified adjustment.” This would bring funding for NGAD — the Air Force’s effort to build a sixth-generation crewed fighter that would fly alongside autonomous drone wingmen and other systems — down to $2.4 billion in FY25.

The document also breaks the high-priority drone wingman program known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft into its own line item, but also proposes trimming more than $70 million. CCAs would have nearly $487 million in funding this year if the document’s funding levels were enacted.

Travis Sharp, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who studies the defense budget, noted that CCA is one of the programs Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has indicated as a priority for funding.

“This seems to be a case where mostly everyone agrees that CCA is a promising capability, but they don’t agree with what [that] means in spending terms,” Sharp told Defense News in an email.

Funding for the Air Force’s advanced engine development programs would get another $100 million. This would be apart from the program to build cutting-edge adaptive engines for NGAD — known as next-generation adaptive propulsion, or NGAP — which would retain the original 2025 budget request’s proposed funding of $562 million.

The E-7 airborne battle management program would get an overall bump up of $189 million over the 2025 budget request. This is the Air Force’s program to acquire a fleet of up to 26 of the Boeing-made aircraft, sometimes referred to as the Wedgetail, to replace the aging E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system, or AWACS, planes.

Lawmakers want to strike $50 million in funding proposed in the 2025 budget proposal — called an “unjustified request” — for prototyping the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, or HACM. This would leave HACM with nearly $467 million in funding.

Lawmakers would also provide the services money to buy six more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters than originally requested. The Air Force would get another $196 million to buy two more F-35As, and the Navy would receive another $524 million to buy four more carrier-based F-35Cs

The F-35 program would also get a $10 million bump to improve its power thermal management system. The F-35′s Continuous Capability Development and Delivery, or C2D2, approach to developing, testing and delivering incremental improvements to the fighter will receive more than $1.1 billion in 2025.

And the document recommends providing another $200 million for the HH-60W Jolly Green II combat rescue helicopter program to buy two more aircraft than requested.

Space Force missile tracking cuts

The Space Force’s fiscal 2025 funding would drop $700 million under this proposal — a seemingly small decrease presented as the service pushes for its nearly $30 billion budget to triple amid growing threats in orbit.

The reductions include $222 million from the service’s operations and maintenance request, $147 million from research and development and an increase of about $1.4 million to its personnel account.

As the Trump administration crafts a plan to develop a homeland missile defense shield composed of advanced space sensors — a project known as “Golden Dome” — lawmakers are proposing cuts to the space-based missile warning and tracking systems that would likely make up the foundation of that system.

The proposal includes a $283 million reduction to that layered architecture, including $33 million from the Space Development Agency’s low-Earth orbit satellite constellation. Another $180 million could come from the spacecraft the service is developing to monitor missile threats from geostationary orbit and $170 million from its medium Earth orbit layer.

Lawmakers also recommend cutting $246 million from the Space Force’s classified procurement account and adding $351 million to its classified development account. While details on those funding lines are largely veiled, a large portion is used to develop counter space weapons and defensive systems.

The document lays out some potential additions for the Space Force, including $30 million for a Resilient Global Positioning System program that’s being designed to augment the current GPS fleet. The proposal would also create a new funding line for commercial services, appropriating $40 million in FY25. Lawmakers also suggest an $80 million add to fund additional satellite payload processing capabilities at the Space Force’s overtaxed launch ranges.

The statement from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., followed an NBC News report this week that Trump is considering canceling plans to expand U.S. Forces Japan and vacate the U.S. military post of NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

Both would be significant breaks in longtime American military strategy. The White House and Defense Department leaders have not formally announced any changes.

The reports triggered concern from the GOP congressional leaders, who warned they “will not accept significant changes to our warfighting structure that are made without a rigorous interagency process, coordination with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, and collaboration with Congress.”

They also said moves withdrawing U.S. leadership from NATO and the Pacific region “risk undermining American deterrence around the globe and detracting from our negotiating positions with America’s adversaries.”

Trump has long been a critic of NATO, arguing that European countries should shoulder more of the costs of operating and maintaining the alliance.

NATO holds its biggest exercises in decades, involving 90K personnel

The post of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe was first held by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and is the second-highest military position within NATO, held exclusively by American military officials over the last seven decades.

Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli currently serves in the role, as well as holding the title of lead of U.S. European Command.

Wicker and Rogers noted that they broadly support “President Trump’s efforts to ensure our allies and partners increase their contributions to strengthen our alliance structure” but also emphasized the need to continue American leadership abroad.

Last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Jim Slife in moves that drew condemnation from Democratic lawmakers.

But Republicans in Congress have generally supported or stayed silent on the military leadership shake-ups, making the statement from Wicker and Rogers more significant.

Both committees are expected to hold posture hearings over the next few months on military budget and strategy plans for Europe, the Pacific and other major military areas of operation.

Reporter Steve Losey contributed to this story.

The issue of shipyard workers has become a rallying point for numerous advocates and lawmakers in recent days, especially after President Donald Trump vowed in his address to Congress earlier this month to establish a new office of shipbuilding within the White House in order to protect the industry.

Last week, sixteen Democratic lawmakers from districts with links to shipbuilding firms sent a note to the White House and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asserting the civilian defense employee hiring freeze had caused “chaos and uncertainty,” which in turn has hurt “the important growth that is needed at our shipyards.”

Pentagon leaders agreed. In a memo over the weekend, Hegseth clarified shipyard workers should be exempted from the hiring freeze, even as other areas see potential job cuts designed to “optimize our federal workforce, reduce inefficiencies, and align our resources with the president’s top national security priorities.”

Trump to launch new White House office focused on shipbuilding

Officials previously said critical needs areas would not be precluded from hiring vacant spots, but the new memo specifies shipyards, depots and military medical sites as among that group.

“DoD will only hire mission-essential employees into positions that directly contribute to our warfighting readiness,” the memo stated.

The news drew praise from both Republicans and Democrats, the latter of whom have been fiercely critical of the administration’s federal workforce cutbacks.

“I’m relieved that the administration heard our calls to protect jobs that are vital to national security at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and at shipyards across the country from ill-considered hiring freezes,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. and the second-ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

“While I’m glad that President Trump and Secretary Hegseth now understand our shipyard workforce to be an essential component of our national defense and preparedness, it should have never come to this in the first place. And the uncertainty that has swept through shipyards in the last two months has done real damage.”

White House officials have yet to announce specifics of the new office to oversee the shipbuilding industry. Several lawmakers have offered legislation to codify such an oversight agency, but it is not clear if those plans would align with Trump’s vision for the office.

Earlier this year, officials from the Congressional Budget Office said the Navy would need to spend more than $40 billion annually for 30 years for the service to fulfill its proposed plans to expand its battle force fleet.

There are currently 295 battle force ships in the fleet, with that number expected to drop to 283 ships by 2027 because of planned retirements. The service has stated it hopes to grow the fleet to 381 ships by 2054.

Defense Department officials have said that even with the exemptions, they plan to trim the civilian defense workforce by up to 8%, or 60,000 workers, in coming months, in keeping with broader administration plans to scale back the size of the federal bureaucracy.

The vote was 54-46. Democrats voiced frustration that Republicans went ahead with a measure they said included little input from them, and one they viewed as shortchanging key priorities such as health care and housing assistance. But in the end, some of them viewed a shutdown as a worse outcome and supported Democratic leader Chuck Schumer’s effort to allow the bill to come to a final vote.

Democrats were confronted with two painful options: allowing passage of a bill they believe gives President Donald Trump vast discretion on spending decisions or voting no and letting a funding lapse ensue.

Congress faces Friday budget deadline to avoid government shutdown

Schumer gave members of his caucus days to vent their frustration about the options before them, but abruptly switched course and made clear on the eve of voting that he will not allow a government shutdown. His move outraged many in the party who want to fight the Trump agenda, but gave senators room to side with Republicans and allow the continuing resolution, often described as a CR, to advance.

Democrats from all corners looked to pressure senators to kill the bill. House members wrote letters, posted on social media and held press conferences in the hours before the vote.

“The American people sent Democrats to Congress to fight against Republican dysfunction and chaos,” said a letter from 66 House Democrats to Schumer.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and his team dashed back to the Capitol urging senators to block the bill and negotiate a true compromise with Republicans.

Some Democrats also argued that Republicans would take the blame for a shutdown, given they controlled all the levers of power in Congress and the White House.

“If you refuse to put forward an offer that includes any Democratic input and you don’t get Democratic votes, that’s on Republicans,” said Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In contrast, Schumer picked up one unexpected nod of support — from Trump himself, who just a day earlier was gearing up to blame Democrats for any shutdown.

“Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took ‘guts’ and courage!” the president posted on his social media account.

Schumer has acknowledged the difficult choice he faced, but insisted Democrats would not allow a government shutdown and warned of the havoc Trump and Musk could bring if federal offices shuttered.

“A shutdown will allow DOGE to shift into overdrive,” Schumer said, referring to the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency. “Donald Trump and Elon Musk would be free to destroy vital government services at a much faster rate.”

Congress has been unable to pass the annual appropriations bills designed to fund the government, so they’ve resorted to passing short-term extensions instead. The legislation before the Senate is the third such continuing resolution for the current fiscal year, now nearly half over.

The legislation would fund the federal government through the end of September. It would trim non-defense spending by about $13 billion from the previous year and increase defense spending by about $6 billion, which are marginal changes when talking about a topline spending level of nearly $1.7 trillion.

The Republican-led House passed the spending bill on Tuesday and then adjourned. The move left senators with a decision to either take it or leave it. And while Democrats have been pushing for a vote on a fourth short-term extension, GOP leadership made clear that option was a non-starter.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and others made the case that any blame for a shutdown would fall squarely on Democrats.

“Democrats need to decide if they’re going to support funding legislation that came over from the House, or if they’re going to shut down the government,” Thune said.

Progressive groups urged Democratic lawmakers to insist on the 30-day extension and oppose the spending bill, saying business as usual must not continue.

“There’s still time,” said Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico at a House Democratic retreat in Leesburg, Virginia. “So, any of my colleagues in the Senate who are considering voting on cloture, the American people are shouting: Please do not hand the keys over to Elon Musk.”

But Schumer said Trump would seize more power during a shutdown, because it would give the administration the ability to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff with no promise they would ever be rehired.

Democrats have been critical of the funding levels in the bill. But they are more worried about the discretion the bill gives the Trump administration on spending decisions. Many Democrats are referring to the measure as a “blank check” for Trump.

Spending bills typically come with specific funding directives for key programs, but hundreds of those directives fall away under the continuing resolution passed by the House. So the administration will have more leeway to decide where the money goes.

For example, a Democratic memo said the bill would allow the administration to steer money away from combating fentanyl and instead use it on mass deportation initiatives.

Democrats also object to clawing back $20 billion in special IRS funding, on top of the $20 billion rescission approved the year before through legislation passed by Democrats during Joe Biden’s presidency.

The spending bill before the Senate is separate from the GOP effort to extend tax cuts for individuals passed in Trump’s first term and to partially pay for them with spending cuts elsewhere in government.

That second package will be developed in the months ahead, but it was clearly part of the political calculus.

“You’re looking at a one-two punch, a very bad CR, then a reconciliation bill coming down, which will be the final kick in the teeth for the American people,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said the Democratic arguments for voting against the bill were hypocritical because they were essentially calling for shutting down the government to protect the government.

“Democrats are fighting to withhold the paychecks of air traffic controllers, our troops, federal custodial staff,” Cotton said. “They can’t be serious.”

Senators also announced they would be voting on a bill to fix an unexpected provision in the spending measure that hit the District of Columbia. The spending package effectively forced the District to revert to prior year’s budget levels, requiring a cut of some $1.1 billion over the months ahead, even though the district raises most of its own money. Mayor Muriel Bowser objected and residents have been flooding senators’ offices. The Senate bill, which would next go to the House, would reverse that provision and allow the spending at 2025 levels.

Associated Press writer Matt Brown contributed to this story from Leesburg, Virginia.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge William Alsup called for “immediate offers of reinstatement” because of improper procedures ahead of the dismissals. His decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions and organizations opposed to federal worker cuts proposed by President Donald Trump.

Despite the judicial order, if or when the dismissed federal workers will get their jobs back remains unclear. The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling and has already moved to delay or refuse other judicial orders contrary to its policy priorities.

Workers in the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury are also covered under the ruling.

At least 2,400 probationary employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs were included in the initial attempts by Trump to downsize the federal workforce. Defense Department officials announced earlier this month plans to dismiss 5,400 probationary employees from its ranks, although leaders on Thursday did not say how many have been removed so far.

VA officials had promised the dismissals would not impact patient care or benefits processing efforts within the department. However, Democratic lawmakers have called the worker cuts erratic and poorly executed, with little clear analysis of the potential impact.

VA secretary insists massive staff cuts needed to refocus department

At least two support staffers at the Veterans Crisis Line — which handles emergency calls from suicidal veterans — were included in the initial staff cuts.

Although only probationary employees were included in the groups dismissed, in several cases that included senior federal workers who had switched jobs within the past year, technically giving them “new employee” status despite years of government employment.

Trump has promised even more federal staff cuts in coming months.

VA officials have confirmed they are considering returning to fiscal 2019 staffing levels, which would mandate eliminating more than 80,000 jobs.

Similarly, Defense Department leaders have called the dismissals of probationary workers the first step in broader workforce cuts. Those cuts will cover 5% to 8% of the Pentagon’s civilian workforce, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote in a February memo.

Defense News Reporter Noah Robertson and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

The 78-year-old former New Hampshire governor has been a prominent national security and military policy voice for Senate Democrats for more than a decade. In addition to her 14 years on the armed services panel, Shaheen was the first woman ever to serve as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In a statement, Shaheen said she planned to serve out the remainder of her current term.

“There are urgent challenges ahead, both here at home and around the world,” she said. “And while I’m not seeking reelection, believe me, I am not retiring. I am determined to work every day over the next two years and beyond to continue to try and make a difference for the people of New Hampshire and this country.”

Shaheen has been a vocal supporter of U.S. assistance to Ukraine and restarted the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group in 2018 to help strengthen U.S. support for that alliance.

She has also been a driving force in efforts to expand the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa program to help former foreign nationals who assisted with U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan relocate to safer areas.

Senators warn more visas are urgently needed for Afghans who aided US

Shaheen has served as co-chair of the Senate’s bipartisan National Guard Caucus, pushing for friendlier personnel policies and increased investment in the force. And she has been a longtime advocate for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and further investment in New England’s shipbuilding workforce.

Fellow Senate Armed Services Committee Democrat Gary Peters of Michigan announced last month that he also will not seek reelection next year. Both states are expected to be key battlegrounds for control of the Senate in 2027.

Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the chamber, with two independent senators caucusing with the Democrats.

That’s because the proposal — which holds government spending at last fiscal year’s levels, with a few adjustments — would provide less funding for military projects than Pentagon leaders had hoped for this fiscal year and dump the controversial Toxic Exposures Fund for the VA next year. Democrats immediately decried the proposal as unworkable and unfair.

“This continuing resolution is a blank check for Elon Musk and creates more flexibility for him to steal from the middle class, seniors, veterans, working people, small businesses, and farmers to pay for tax breaks for billionaires,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.

“Veterans will suffer with higher housing costs, poorer quality of health care at the VA, and no advance funding for treatment from exposure to toxic chemicals.”

The funding bill — or an alternative spending package — must be approved by lawmakers before midnight Friday to prevent a partial government shutdown. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump took to social media to urge support for the measure, calling it “a very good funding bill” that will sustain critical government programs until next fall.

“Great things are coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the country’s ‘financial house’ in order,” Trump wrote.

Congress faces Friday budget deadline to avoid government shutdown

House lawmakers are hoping to advance the measure Tuesday night. Republicans hold the majority in both the House and the Senate, but they will need Democratic support in the upper chamber to quickly pass the funding bill.

That may be difficult, given the numerous conservative priorities packed into the legislation.

The bill cuts overall nondefense spending by $13 billion this fiscal year while increasing defense spending by $6 billion.

That would bring total defense spending for this fiscal year to roughly $847 billion, still short of the $850 billion-plus that defense planners had hoped for in fiscal 2025. Officials have warned the smaller number will mean delays in some program starts and new equipment purchases, although specifics will still need to be finalized after a budget deal is passed.

The extra $6 billion for VA is also about $600 million less than what the last administration predicted would be needed to cover shortfalls within department operations, largely due to increased medical care and benefits among veterans.

VA Secretary Doug Collins has not weighed in with new budget estimates since taking office last month, but he has touted nearly $1 billion in savings from cutting contracts in recent weeks. That money could offset some of the budget gaps.

So far, Democrats have focused their concerns for VA funding on the Toxic Exposure Fund, a target of Republican lawmakers in recent years.

Fight over VA toxic exposure funds could stall other vets legislation

The account was created after passage of the 2022 PACT Act as a way to ensure that money would be available to cover the costs associated with expanded benefits for illnesses linked to military toxic exposures, like burn pit smoke and Agent Orange water contamination.

Republicans have charged that the account is essentially a slush fund without any oversight, and they pushed to move that money back into the standard VA budgeting process. However, such a move would create complications for how nondefense spending is calculated, leading to cuts in other programs and no guaranteed funding account for the toxic exposure benefits.

Under the Republican plan, the Toxic Exposures Fund would not be affected in fiscal 2025 but would be dropped in fiscal 2026. Lawmakers could add the roughly $23 billion in advance money planned for the fund next year into other parts of the budget in later fiscal legislation.

But debate over those future issues won’t come until later. Lawmakers have only four days left before the possibility of a government shutdown, which could halt paychecks for military members and furlough hundreds of thousands of employees in the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments.

The vow — which came during the national security section of Trump’s nearly two-hour speech — was included among broader plans to “boost our defense industrial base” for America.

“We are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding,” Trump said, eliciting applause from Republican lawmakers in the House chamber for the address.

“We used to make so many ships. We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact to further enhance our national security.”

Navy shipbuilding plan would cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years

Trump also promised “special tax incentives to bring this industry home” but did not offer any more specifics. The White House did not immediately provide any other details of what the new office will oversee or who will lead the effort.

Last month, during the confirmation hearing for John Phelan, Trump’s pick to serve as Navy Secretary, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., lamented that “just about every major U.S. shipbuilding program is behind schedule, over budget or irreparably off track.”

He called for a complete overhaul of Navy shipbuilding goals and processes.

“We must stabilize shipbuilding programs, adopt commercial best practices and incentivize the shipyards to address workforce and productivity issues in a collaborative rather than combative manner,” Wicker said. “And we can quickly inject innovation into naval procurement, particularly on unmanned ships.”

Phelan voiced support for that approach, but he did not mention any specifics related to the new White House office.

Earlier this year, officials from the Congressional Budget Office said the Navy would need to spend more than $40 billion annually for 30 years for the U.S. Navy to fulfill its proposed plans to expand its battle force fleet.

There are currently 295 battle force ships in the fleet, with that number expected to drop to 283 ships by 2027 because of planned retirements. The service has stated it hopes to grow the fleet to 381 ships by 2054.

The new shipbuilding office would be a direct counter to the Chinese shipbuilding industry, the largest in the world. Industry officials estimate that Chinese firms have built nearly half of the world’s merchant vessels, and the country has publicly invested heavily in their own naval build-up.

In Tuesday’s speech, Trump also promised to build a new missile defense shield to protect America and continue other military reforms to strengthen the armed forces.

In a statement after the speech, officials from the Shipbuilders Council of America praised the announcement.

“Since the founding days of our nation, the U.S. shipyard industry and industrial base has played a central role in national and domestic security, and remains steadfast in its commitment to maintaining our nation’s security vessels while building the fleet of the future,” said Matthew Paxton, president of the group. “By fully utilizing the existing domestic shipyard capacity, the shipyard industrial base can meet the growing demands of national defense, restore American competitiveness, and create thousands of skilled jobs in communities across the nation.”

In a statement on social media following the meeting, Trump stated that Zelenskyy “is not ready for peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want peace.”

White House officials did not immediately clarify whether Trump’s statement means a full end to U.S. military and humanitarian support for Ukraine, which has received nearly $70 billion in military aid from America over the last three years.

The Pentagon has said it has no more money to replace equipment it has sent to Kyiv, and Congress is unlikely to continue such support.

Trump expresses Russia-Ukraine war nearing end as he meets with Macron

Zelenskyy was in Washington to sign a deal with the administration permitting American access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in exchange for its economic and security aid so far in the war. Officials in Kyiv have negotiated the agreement in an effort to salvage U.S. support as Washington draws closer with Russia.

The Trump administration has taken a harsh approach toward Europe in its opening months. At a gathering of countries who support Ukraine’s self defense in February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that Europe would need to assume far more responsibility for its own security, including in Ukraine.

At a separate conference in Munich later in the month, Vice President JD Vance warned European officials that the U.S. military was retrenching from the continent in favor of more vital areas of the world.

Friday’s Oval Office meeting started out cordial but quickly devolved into an angry debate between the three leaders.

At one point, Vance told Zelenskyy that he was “disrespectful … to come to the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring you into this conference.”

Trump then joined in.

“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people,” he said. “You’re gambling with World War III, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that’s backed you far more than a lot of people say they should.”

In recent weeks, Trump has called Zelenskyy a “dictator” and accused the Ukrainian president of provoking the war, which Russia started. In the meantime, the United States has started negotiating a peace deal directly with Moscow, relegating Ukraine to the sidelines.

For his part, Zelenskyy warned that the United States would not be safe from Russian aggression forever, and that supporting his fight against the invading military force would benefit all free democracies.

“You have a nice ocean and don’t feel it now,” he said. “But you will feel it in the future.”

Zelenskyy left the White House after the shouting match, which was supposed to have been followed by a joint press conference with Trump.

The leaders of Britain and France visited Washington this week in an effort to lobby Trump to maintain American support for Europe and Ukraine specifically.

The Associated Press reported that Zelenskyy is still expected to sign a economic agreement with the U.S. aimed at financing the reconstruction of war-damaged Ukraine, a deal that would closely tie the two countries together for years to come.

The deal, which is seen as a step toward ending the three-year war, references the importance of Ukraine’s security. Earlier in the meeting, before tempers flared, Trump said the agreement would be finalized on Friday.

In the bill, submitted Feb. 5 by Sens. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., the senators lay out a plan for missile defense for the continental U.S. that would include Aegis Ashore systems (only two such systems exist and are operating in Poland and Romania). The plan also calls for using blimps for detection of complex threats, expanding the current Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, or GMD, at Fort Greely, Alaska, and adding a brand new interceptor site on the east coast.

According to the bill, the amount authorized for the endeavor to establish a new missile defense shield for fiscal 2026 would total approximately $19.5 billion, which comes to nearly twice as much as the Missile Defense Agency’s fiscal 2025 budget request of $10.4 billion.

If the bill passes, it would require all operations and sustainment of missile defense systems to be transferred to the services, freeing up the Missile Defense Agency, or MDA, to focus entirely on capability research and development. While this has been done for certain programs, such as the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System — developed by MDA but then transferred to the Army — the agency has opposed the transfer of other capabilities to the services, like the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System.

Slippery slope: MDA boss fights transfer of missile defense system to Army

Trump’s executive order to develop a next-generation homeland missile defense shield marks a shift in the country’s long-standing homeland missile defense strategy, which has focused on threats from rogue nations like North Korea and Iran, rather than from peer adversaries like China or Russia.

The order – titled “The Iron Dome for America” in a nod to the successful, lowest tier of Israel’s multilayered air defense system of the same name – also addresses a broader array of complex threats, from hypersonic weapons to cruise missiles and drones.

“Senator Cramer and I are introducing legislation to build a homeland missile defense system that can protect our country from the intensifying threats and growing arsenals of China and Russia,” Sullivan said in a statement Thursday.

The bill, named the “Iron Dome Act” builds upon both Trump’s order for a missile defense shield and recommendations from the 2022 Missile Defense Review, Sullivan noted.

Making a comeback

This year marks a decade since a giant tethered aerostat – the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, as it is better known – broke free from its mooring station near Baltimore and took a three-hour jaunt through the skies of Pennsylvania, dragging its several-thousand-foot tether, which hit power lines along the way and caused significant power outages.

JLENS ultimately landed in a grove of trees in the countryside where Pennsylvania state troopers were ordered to open fire on the blimp to deflate it.

The Raytheon-made aerostat was designed to work in a pair, one with a fire-control system, and the other with powerful surveillance sensors capable of tracking swarming boats and vehicles and detecting and tracking cruise missile threats from Boston all the way to Norfolk, Virginia. It was canceled during its operational exercise at Aberdeen Proving Ground following the incident.

Sullivan and Cramer’s bill would require the Army secretary to field dirigibles, including airships and aerostats, “in support of the missile defense of the United States homeland from ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles and drones,” it states. The legislation would authorize $100 million for the effort.

The bill would also authorize $25 million for the Missile Defense Agency to plan and design an east coast-based missile defense interceptor site at Fort Drum, New York, much like the GMD system at Fort Greely.

In 2016, the MDA was in the process of choosing a preferred site for a potential east coast location, but the agency never ended up settling on a spot after conducting environmental and feasibility studies of such an architecture.

MDA’s director at the time stressed the agency was not advocating for an east coast site, stating repeatedly that the site was not necessary and the agency would prefer to focus on other efforts, including improving the GMD system with better interceptors. But various lawmakers have continued to push for it over the past decade. One of its supporters is Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who has Fort Drum in her district. Stefanik is set to leave Congress after Trump selected her to serve as the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Trump’s “Iron Dome” executive order also included a renewed pursuit of space-based interceptors. The bill would support that effort, in addition to continuing to pursue a robust space-based threat detection layer. The legislation would authorize $60 million for space sensors and $900 million for space-based missile defense.

Building up

The legislation calls for the additional procurement of a variety of missile defense systems already in operation and the acceleration of a variety of development programs for next-generation interceptor capability.

The bill would also allow for an expansion of the GMD system at Fort Greely up to 80 missile silos – doubling the number of silos already in place – and it would accelerate the development of the Next-Generation Interceptor, or NGI, that will replace all of the ground-based interceptors in the system. A total of $12 billion would be authorized to expand the system.

MDA wants to field NGI by 2028, but Congress is pushing for an earlier deadline. Lockheed Martin was chosen last year to develop the system, in a surprise decision that came one year earlier than planned. The company was competing against a Northrop Grumman-Raytheon team.

Under the bill, the defense secretary would be required to field a minimum of 80 interceptors at Fort Greely no later than Jan. 1, 2038.

The bill also requires MDA to accelerate the development of its Glide-Phase Interceptor. The agency chose Northrop Grumman over Raytheon in September to build an interceptor capable of defeating hypersonic weapons in the boost phase of flight. The decision also came earlier than originally planned.

The Pentagon would also have to look into conducting parallel development of an alternative interceptor, according to the bill.

Part of the new missile defense shield would include the establishment of Aegis Ashore sites in Alaska, Hawaii and on the east coast, according to the legislation. The bill authorizes $1 billion for site selection and an execution plan for construction of the sites on the east coast and in Alaska, as well as an additional $250 million to complete and certify the paused Aegis Ashore system in Hawaii.

The number of THAAD systems and interceptors would also increase, should the bill pass. The legislation would authorize $1.4 billion to “accelerate the production and fielding of the [THAAD] system (including AN/TPY-2 radars) for forward deployment and homeland defense as the secretary and president consider appropriate,” the bill states.

The legislation also pushes to boost production numbers for SM-3 Block IB and Block IIA missiles that are fired from U.S. Navy Aegis weapon systems, for a total of $1 billion. The MDA attempted to end SM-3 Block IB production in its fiscal 2025 budget request in order to pursue higher development priorities, but Congress has restored funding to keep the line hot in the annual defense authorization bill. It has yet to approve fiscal 2025 funding.

Another $1.5 billion would cover the production of Patriot missiles and batteries.

The Office of Management and Budget on Monday issued a memo directing federal agencies to temporarily pause “all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance,” according to multiple news reports. The order appears to pause any new grant awards and exempts programs like Social Security and Medicare that provide assistance directly to individuals.

The Pentagon has several initiatives to aid small businesses looking to make inroads with the Defense Department, most notably the Small Business Innovative Research, or SBIR, and Small Business Technology Transfer, or STTR, programs. These congressionally mandated efforts require all federal agencies — not just DOD — to set aside funding to incentivize small companies to engage in early-stage research and development.

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, several lawmakers expressed concern that the White House’s grant funding pause could impede these efforts. But a Pentagon spokesman told Defense News the department does not believe the programs fall within the scope of the memo.

“SBIR/STTR programs are funded through contracts,” the spokesman said. “They are not considered grants or financial assistance. As such, we have not been applying the OMB memo to the SBIR/STTR program.”

Funding for SBIR and STTR was last reauthorized in 2022 and that authority is set to expire this September.

While these initiatives are largely supported in Congress and in the Pentagon and offer small companies a chance to use DOD’s interest to woo investors, there are ongoing efforts to reform the programs. In a report released last fall, the Government Accountability Office reviewed 34 incidents of fraud in SBIR/STTR programs and found that most agencies do not conduct fraud risk assessments.

In one case study, a business owner who misrepresented his companies received seven awards from the Army, Air Force, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Missile Defense Agency, NASA and the Energy Department.

Sen. Joni Enrst, R-Iowa, said during Tuesday’s hearing that while she thinks SBIR and STTR are important tools for small businesses, she’s concerned that a subset of funding recipients are abusing the mechanism.

“In the past decade, 25 companies — they’re notoriously known in my circles as SBIR mills — received 18% of all award dollars at DOD, amounting to about $2.3 billion,” Ernst said. “That’s a $92 million windfall per company in a program meant for small businesses.”

Nathan Diller, the former director of the Air Force’s AFWERX innovation hub and a witness at the hearing, said one option for reforming the programs is to make the awards available to a wider pool of companies. That may mean issuing smaller dollar contracts initially that can be followed up with larger awards to firms with promising technology.

“We also need to be very deliberate about scaling — and scaling quickly — to those best companies,” he said.

Whether that approach will get him the Republican support he needs to get the job will be decided in the next few days.

Hegseth, the FOX News commentator tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead American military forces, described himself to Senate Armed Services Committee members as “a change agent” who will be focused on “the health and wellbeing of troops and a strong and secure America” if confirmed to the job.

The 44-year-old National Guard veteran, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, vowed to “rebuild our military” through improvements to personnel policy and increased investment in procurement.

Trump picks Fox commentator Pete Hegseth as his next Defense Secretary

Since Trump announced the pick in a late-night post on social media in November — surprising even members of his own party — Hegseth’s nomination has become a political storm.

Hegseth in recent years has been a fiery supporter of Trump and a critic of what he has labeled “woke” military policies. In several books, he wrote pointedly against a sense that America’s military has become obsessed with cultural issues, such as diversity and inclusion.

“We need to make sure every warrior is fully qualified on their assigned weapon system, every pilot is fully qualified and current on the aircraft they are flying and every general or flag officer is selected for leadership based purely on performance, readiness and merit,” he told senators.

But Hegseth’s own chances of confirmation have been shaky in recent weeks because of questions about his qualifications.

The nominee has been accused of financial mismanagement while working at veterans nonprofits, public drunkenness in past professional settings and committing a sexual assault at a Republican Party event in 2017.

Hegseth has denied all of the accusations, in particular the 2017 case, in which no charges were filed. However, he did pay a settlement out of court to resolve the claims.

Hegseth has also pledged not to drink if confirmed to the top defense position, while insisting he has not had a substance-abuse problem in the past.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., brushed off the allegations as largely stemming from anonymous sources, and he praised Hegseth as a strong candidate to lead the military.

But Democrats on the committee deemed the allegations disqualifying. They also criticized Hegseth’s past comments about women in combat roles, the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the importance of military diversity efforts.

“You will have to change how you see women to do this job well, and I don’t know if you are capable of that,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., told the nominee.

Committee Ranking Member Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., took issue with Hegseth’s lack of experience running any organization as large as the Defense Department, as well as his inflammatory past comments criticizing military engagement rules and the Geneva Convention.

“The secretary is expected to be a fair, nonpartisan and responsible leader, as well as a trustworthy advocate for men and women he leads,” Reed said. “Mr. Hegseth, I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job.”

Even if they all oppose Hegseth’s nomination, Democrats in the Senate don’t have enough votes to block his confirmation if Republicans present unified support.

One member of the GOP with an unclear position on Hegseth is Iraq War veteran Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who focused her questions Tuesday on allowing women to serve in combat roles if they meet qualification standards and ensuring military sexual assault victims receive appropriate support.

In response, Hegseth pledged support for both issues, part of an overall effort to soften his previous positions during the hearing.

Hegseth also listed out his other priorities if confirmed, which was received with interest, given his lack of Washington experience. Aside from cultural issues, he pledged to fix the Pentagon’s exhaustive business practices — a top priority for Wicker, who is calling for a massive defense buildup — and restore a “deterrence” against U.S. adversaries that he said has waned in recent years.

The hearing opened with cheers and a chant of “U-S-A” from members of the audience with hats sporting “For Hegseth” logos. Several people laughed during tense questioning between Hegseth and Democratic senators, mocking the lawmakers.

Other protesters who were angry over Hegseth’s nomination, as well as U.S. support for Israel, interrupted his opening statement several times.

Committee members are expected to vote on Hegseth’s nomination in the coming days. If he is advanced by the committee, Hegseth could be confirmed in the role shortly after Trump’s inauguration, scheduled for Jan. 20.

In separate notices sent to Congress, the State Department said it was moving $95 million in military assistance intended for Egypt and $7.5 million for Israel toward supporting the Lebanese army and its government. The notices were dated Jan. 3 and obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Most of the money will go to the Lebanese Armed Forces, which have a critical role in standing up the ceasefire that was agreed to in November following an all-out war that battered much of southern and eastern Lebanon for two months.

It is intended to help the LAF deploy in the south of the country and supplement the role of the U.N. peacekeeping mission patrolling the so-called Blue Line, which has separated Israel and Lebanon since the end of a 2006 war between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.

“Successful implementation [of the ceasefire] will require an empowered LAF, which will need robust assistance from the United States and other partners,” the State Department said in the notices, both of which used nearly identical language to explain the funding shifts.

Both Israel and Hezbollah agreed to pull their forces out of southern Lebanon before the end of January, with compliance to be overseen by the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers.

“U.S. security assistance to the LAF increases its capacity as the country’s only legitimate military force and defender of Lebanon’s territorial integrity, enables the LAF to prevent potential destabilization from ISIS and other terrorist groups, and enables the LAF to provide security both for the Lebanese people and for U.S. personnel,” the State Department said.

Critics of U.S. assistance to the Lebanese military have often complained that it has been infiltrated by Hezbollah, but the notices rejected that claim.

“U.S. support to the LAF reinforces the LAF as an important institutional counterweight to Hezbollah, which receives weapons, training, and financial support from Iran,” the State Department said. “The LAF continues to be an independent, non-sectarian institution in Lebanon, and is respected across all sectors.”

In a third notice, also sent to Congress on Jan. 3, the department said it was going to provide $15 million to Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces to ensure that they become the primary law enforcement entity in the country and assist the LAF in controlling areas in the south.

That money will primarily be used to rebuild police stations, improve radio communications and purchase vehicles, the notice said.

The third notice also informed lawmakers that the administration would provide $3.06 million to the Palestinian Authority police to support its operations in the West Bank and $2.5 million to Jordan’s Public Security Directorate to support its response to public demonstrations.

Gen. Jay Raymond, its inaugural chief of space operations, likened the newest military branch to a startup company, telling lawmakers the service would leverage its size to move fast and stay nimble.

“We are establishing a Space Force that is lean, agile and mission-focused,” Raymond said in a March 2020 House Armed Services Committee hearing.

Since then, the service’s budget has doubled to around $30 billion in fiscal 2025, and today’s leaders have called for even more resources in the coming years to strengthen the military’s defenses against adversaries in space, build an arsenal of offensive-capable systems and take on new missions.

“That budget is going to need to double or triple over time to be able to fund the things we’re actually going to need to have,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told Defense News last summer. “Somebody’s going to have to make some decisions about whether to give us a bigger budget overall for this or do some internal trades.”

The path to a larger Space Force budget isn’t clear — even as former President Donald Trump, who oversaw the creation of the service, prepares to begin his second term in the coming weeks. Despite his administration’s past emphasis on space policy, analysts and former defense officials told Defense News Trump’s enthusiasm for space doesn’t necessarily portend a larger budget for the Space Force.

Todd Harrison, a senior defense policy fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said it’s unlikely Trump will get directly involved in the ins and outs of the Space Force’s budget.

“We know that Trump is obviously very supportive of the Space Force,” Harrison said in an interview. “When it comes down to actually proposing big increases in the Space Force’s budget, I’d say what matters more is the Secretary of Defense.”

Trump plans to nominate Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and Army veteran, to lead the Pentagon. Harrison noted there’s no indication of Hegseth’s posture toward the Space Force — whether he’d be willing to go along with a larger space budget at the expense of another service.

“I think he’s walking into it with basically a clean slate,” Harrison said. “So, then I would think it would be up to the Space Force leadership to get in early and make their case.”

Trump has yet to reveal who he plans to nominate as Air Force secretary, or SECAF in Pentagon parlance, a role that provides civilian oversight of the Space Force’s budget. Were the president to choose a secretary with a space background, that could drive more investment, Harrison noted.

“That would be revolutionary,” he said. “If you had a SECAF that was very supportive of space, you could very well see them go forward with a [proposal] that significantly increases the Space Force’s budget, either using a higher overall topline or using offsetting cuts within the Air Force’s budget.”

Doug Loverro, a consultant who has held key space leadership roles in DOD, NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office, said regardless of who fills the leadership role, the Space Force will have to make a strong case to the new administration that it needs more funding.

That task, according to Loverro, will likely be an uphill battle. While the service has made plans for new architectures and has worked to speed up its acquisition programs through organizations like the Space Rapid Capabilities Office and the Space Development Agency, he said it hasn’t proven it can field operational capabilities on faster timelines.

“I think when the new administration comes in, they are going to look at that and they’re going to say, ‘What the heck have you been doing with all the money,’” Loverro said.

Strength in numbers

Loverro said he expects the incoming class of Pentagon leaders to put more of an emphasis on fielding new systems than on demonstrating concepts — an approach that features heavily in Project 2025, a 900-page conservative blueprint for the second Trump administration.

While the president-elect sought to distance itself from Project 2025 during his campaign, he has since acknowledged he supports some of its policy recommendations. The document includes a section on needed Space Force reforms that calls for the service to “end the current study phase of concept development and fielding of offensive systems.” It also specifically mentions the Space Development Agency, or SDA, recommending the organization adhere to more aggressive timelines for fielding satellites.

SDA is on a path to launching hundreds of spacecraft to support the Space Force’s missile tracking and data transport missions, but its first few launches are largely focused on demonstrating the capability and have been delayed by several months. The agency expects to have its first tranche of operational satellites in orbit by 2026.

“They want them to stop being experiments. They want them to be operational capability,” Loverro said.

Project 2025 also recommends the Space Force “restore architectural balance” between offensive and defensive capabilities, advocating for an approach to deterrence that includes protecting assets and fighting back against adversaries that threaten its systems.

That approach could drive more investment in so-called counterspace systems, most of which are funded through the Space Force’s roughly $6 billion classified budget. While the service has been talking more about the need for offensive weapons, much of its public-facing strategy for dealing with threats in space has centered on proliferated architectures like those SDA is launching.

The idea is, essentially, strength in numbers — having enough satellites in orbit that if an enemy destroys a few, the military can still perform its mission with the remaining spacecraft.

Sam Wilson, director of strategy and program support at the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy, said that while the first Trump administration supported proliferation as a method for deterrence, the next four years could expand on that approach. Whether that will include a more open discussion about fielding the types of space weapons China and Russia are demonstrating, or pursuing new operational approaches like sustained maneuver, is yet to be seen, he told Defense News.

“Based on the unclassified budget, the Space Force, to me, has largely thought about protecting its spacecraft using proliferation,” Wilson said. “But these other approaches could get attention to resources as well in the new administration.”

A strategy that centers on large fleets of small satellites could carry with it a hefty price tag, he added, especially if the Space Force continues to expand that approach beyond SDA’s missile tracking and data transport constellations to other mission areas like positioning, navigation and timing and space domain awareness.

“It’s expensive,” Wilson said. “We’ve seen it in several missions, and I think we may see it in more, but the degree to which that continues to be a point of emphasis is something to observe.”

Loverro said a greater focus on counterspace systems could come as soon as the fiscal 2026 budget request, which the White House traditionally releases in February or March but is often delayed during a presidential transition.

“It’s always in the conversation, but we haven’t really demonstrated that we’re fielding anything or that we intend to,” he said. “And we haven’t really talked about what’s the true intent of our counterspace ambitions.”

That shift could come with more funding attached, but Harrison noted that the Space Force can demonstrate its dominance in space without a larger budget. For example, he said, if Moscow continues jamming and spoofing GPS signals over Ukraine — as it has been doing since the start of the war — the U.S. could turn off GPS access over Russia.

“There are things you could do that would be fairly immediate that wouldn’t even cost anything, but it would show a lot more strength,” he said. “If Trump is trying to be buddy-buddy with Putin, maybe he wouldn’t do that. But if he wants to show strength when our space systems are being attacked, that would be one way of doing it.”

Favorite child?

At the White House, Trump has named Russell Vought as his pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a position he also held during Trump’s first administration.

OMB is responsible for coordinating a yearly federal budget proposal that reflects the president’s policy objectives. Given Trump’s likely interest in seeing the service he helped create succeed, that could bode will for the Space Force.

“I suspect you’re willing to spend more money on your child than you are to spend money on somebody else’s child,” Loverro said. “So, there will be a natural tendency for Trump to want to save the Space Force because it’s his child, or at least he perceives it as his child.”

However, because the president doesn’t typically get involved in the details of the budget process, Vought will likely be the gatekeeper for significant program increases.

Vought was a co-author of Project 2025 and is known for being a fiscal hawk. During the first Trump administration, Vought played a central role in budget fights between the president and Congress. His office helped devise a plan to pull billions of dollars from the defense budget to pay for the president’s plan to build a wall on the southern U.S. border.

Harrison said it’s not clear what stance OMB would take in a Space Force funding debate, but Vought’s reputation as a budget hardliner makes a major increase unlikely.

“I don’t think the prospects look good right now unless Trump is able to change the politics around the budget,” he said. “His OMB choice is very much a fiscal conservative wanting to cut government spending.”

Another area to watch for signs of Space Force budget growth is Congress.

A Republican majority in both the House and the Senate traditionally means a funding boost for defense initiatives. But current divisions in the party over defense spending could change that narrative.

On the Senate side, Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., has called for a $55 billion increase in defense spending. In a 52-page paper outlining his proposal, he advocated for more funding to protect U.S. space systems and target China’s growing arsenal of space weapons.

“The U.S. Space Force has enjoyed real budgetary growth since its inception, but that does not mean it cannot do more. Classified programs in development must be procured at scale,” he said. “China’s over-the-horizon kill chains are all deeply reliant on space. Without these capabilities, the ‘bubble’ shrinks,” he added, referring to the notional radius in which Beijing operates its forward defenses.

In the House, the chances of a seeing larger defense budget in the near term are “not good,” Harrison said, especially as the House Freedom Caucus — a small group of budget hawks with outsize influence due to the Republican party’s narrow majority — proposes aggressive cuts to government spending.

“They are pushing for such a high level of spending cuts that there’s no way to get what they want without at least capping defense, if not cutting,” he said.

Loverro also predicted a “decreased stomach” for major budget increases, particularly the tripling proposed by Kendall.

“Obviously nobody’s going to take $60 billion away from the Navy or the Army to give it to the Space Force,” he said. “So, unless Congress is willing to raise the budget by $100 billion, I think the likelihood of seeing a large increase in the Space Force budget of the kind of numbers they’re talking about is extremely low.”

Trump’s wild card

While it’s unclear whether leaders within the Pentagon, Congress and the White House will support more funding for the Space Force, experts pointed out that Trump’s outward aversion to the status quo could uproot many of their assumptions about the next four years.

In fact, they noted, the Space Force’s establishment came amid major resistance within the Pentagon and with the support of small cadre of powerful advocates in the House Armed Services Committee, including Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and now-retired Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn.

“All of those senior leaders had come out publicly said,’ No, this is a bad idea,’” Harrison said. “Trump came in separately after that . . . and said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to create it.’”

One known wild card in Trump’s second term is Elon Musk’s role as an advisor to the president-elect. The billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is set to co-lead a new government efficiency office and could influence the White House’s space policy priorities.

SpaceX has billions of dollars in government contracts with NASA and the Pentagon and is one of the top providers of military space launch services for the Space Force. The firm’s Starlink and Starshield communication satellites are also in high demand from commercial and government customers, including the military.

While Musk’s proximity to Trump could have implications for the Space Force’s budget, Harrison and Loverro suggested his influence is more likely to affect policies, particularly those that affect SpaceX.

Unless Musk goes to Trump with requests to increase funding for specific programs, Loverro noted, it’s unlikely he’ll drive decisions at that level.

“If [Trump] gets the bit in his mouth that he wants to get something done and somehow he’s convinced that we need to double the Space Force budget, that could happen,” he said. “But that kind of detail typically flows below him.”

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., was a key player in establishing the Space Force five years ago. At the time, he and others in Congress advocated for a small, agile force that could quickly establish the processes and organizations needed to get the service up and running.

“We’ve come a long way since those early tasks,” Rogers said Tuesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Now, it’s time to increase the size of the Space Force to meet growing threats.”

Rogers didn’t specify to what extent he thinks the service needs to expand.

Acknowledging that many lawmakers do not support a major increase in overhead, he noted that he’s not calling for a “wholesale” end strength increase. Yes, Congress should approve more general officers, he said, but the Air Force and the defense secretary should also transfer billets to the service.

“If we want the [branch] capable of doing what the nation expects, it has to have enough people — and the right people [to] carry out its mission,” Rogers said.

Along with manpower growth, Rogers also advocated for more development opportunities for guardians across career fields, particularly technical and acquisition roles.

He and the committee’s Ranking Member Adam Smith, D-Wash., elaborated on these concerns on Tuesday in a letter to Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman.

In the letter, obtained by Defense News, the lawmakers suggest the Space Force may be placing too much emphasis on its operational community to the detriment of its acquisition, training and testing workforce.

“We believe this is needed to not only be successful in developing the next generation space warfighter, but also to ensure that the service will have the skillset and workforce to design, develop, and acquire systems that guardians are going to need in the future,” the letter states. “We fear a divide that elevates operators at the detriment to other core functions of the Space Force will have negative impacts, potentially not immediately, but as we look to 2030 and beyond.”

For its part, the Space Force over the last few years has been working to better align its acquisition and operator communities. Last year, the Saltzman announced a pilot program to create integrated Mission Deltas as a way to better coordinate responsibility, authority and resources within mission areas.

The pilot was widely viewed as successful in its first two mission areas — positioning, navigation and timing and electronic warfare. In April, the Space Force expanded the pilot to include space domain awareness and missile warning and tracking. The service now plans to expand the concept to additional Mission Deltas over the next year.

Rogers and Smith said in their letter they want more detail on how those integrated deltas will be staffed with additional acquisition personnel in the coming years. They also asked for a breakdown of the Space Force’s officer selection boards by rank between 2021 and 2024.

Further, the committee leaders ask for more information on how acquisition training personnel are developed through the Space Force’s force generation model, known as SPAFORGEN, and what specific recruiting, training and retention efforts are in place.

In his speech Tuesday, Rogers noted that his concerns about operator emphasis within the service are linked to the Air Force’s tendency to promote fighter pilots over airmen in other career fields. He said he’ll be watching closely to ensure the Space Force doesn’t follow similar patterns.

“The Space Force has to be led by more than just operators,” he said. “It must represent the contributions of all career services if it’s to be successful. A deep understanding and connection with technology is at the core of the Space Force. Operators, acquisition, intel and cyber professionals all must be on equal footing.”