Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Thursday evening that the Pentagon is not cutting defense spending, despite some reports that he was planning on cutting up to 40% of the defense budget.
Hegseth clarified his agenda in a video that the Department of Defense posted in which he said that he was looking to shift $50 billion, or roughly 8% of the budget — which was put in place by the Biden administration — to priorities that align with the Trump administration.
“We are refocusing, that’s a key word, our existing budget, away from the Biden priorities that frankly, were all over the map, to President Trump’s priorities of building a lethal fighting force,” he said. “The media wants to call these exclusively cuts, but it’s the opposite, of course, as always is the case.”
“I’ve got the memo right here. It’s clear as a bell. Now, beginning right away, we are pulling around 8% or $50 billion from the Biden budget,” he continued. “We’re planning. This is planning for this year, that we will move away from woke Biden-era non-lethal programs and instead spend that money on President Trump’s America First, peace through strength priorities for our national budget.”
Hegseth stressed that at this point, everything was just in a planning phase and that there were no cuts.
“It’s refocusing and reinvesting existing funds into building a force that protects you, the American people,” he said. “We also list on page two, which I’ve marked up here in our memo, what is not part of the 8% refocusing of funds.”
“It’s stated very clearly here: Southwest border activities, combating transnational criminal organizations, an audit, nuclear modernization, Virginia class submarines, the Golden Dome, or Iron Dome, one way attack drones, UAVs, cybersecurity, core readiness, training, the defense industrial base, and it goes on,” he continued.
He said that the aforementioned programs were too important for U.S. national security to be ignored, which is why they are now being prioritized.
A Message From @SecDef To The American Warfighter, And The American Tax Payer. pic.twitter.com/iRSPfrd6w0
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) February 20, 2025
The move is part of a larger effort within the Trump administration to audit and reorient the federal bureaucracy toward Trump’s agenda. The effort is led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project and aims to cut waste, fraud, and abuse while shrinking the size and scope of the federal government.
Hegseth previously said he would welcome DOGE and tech titan Elon Musk, who the administration has said is overseeing the project, to the Department of Defense to help discover and cut fraud and waste.
