US President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged a first ever $1 trillion US defense budget proposal on Monday, a record sum for the military, POLITICO reported.
Trump, during a press event with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the upcoming budget would be “in the vicinity” of $1 trillion.
Hegseth went further in an X post on Monday evening, saying Trump “is rebuilding our military — and FAST.”
“COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar Department of Defense budget,” Hegseth posted from his personal account. “(PS: we intend to spend every taxpayer dollar wisely — on lethality and readiness).”
The number would be a significant increase from the $892 billion funding Congress allocated for US national defense programs this year, according to POLITICO.
Trump did not specify if the $1 trillion would be solely for the Pentagon or the overall national defense budget, which includes other agencies. But national defense spending was already projected to exceed $900 billion in the upcoming budget, according to POLITICO.
“Nobody’s seen anything like it,” Trump told reporters. “We have to build our military, and we’re very cost-conscious, but the military is something that we have to build. And we have to be strong because you’ve got a lot of bad forces out there now.”