One of the officials, who asked not to be identified discussing figures that haven’t been released, said the 13% increase echoes a defense buildup overseen by President Ronald Reagan. The Trump administration has sought to slash some spending at the Pentagon as part of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting efforts but says it wants a higher defense budget overall.
The overall request, which includes defense-support funding at the Department of Energy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and others smaller agencies, totals about 3.2% of gross domestic product, similar to the fiscal 2024 figure. It’s up from $892.3 billion in overall national-security spending for this year.The figure will be unveiled as part of the “skinny” budget request for the 2026 fiscal year that Trump is set for release on Friday. It allows lawmakers to begin work on fiscal 2026 appropriation bills and offers a glimpse into the administration’s funding priorities. It’s a step up from a proposal in November from President Joe Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, who sought a defense-only five-year plan that started with $926.5 billion in fiscal 2026.
The Pentagon-only request is $961 billion as compared to $848.3 billion passed in January, the officials said. The Biden administration last year projected a $876.8 billion defense-only budget.
Surpassing the $1 trillion mark in defense spending will likely cause sticker shock among US lawmakers who have criticized the Pentagon’s repeated failure to produce financial statements that result in a clean audit. On Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office reported that the Defense Department disclosed about $10.8 billion in fraud in 2017-2024.
“The full extent of fraud affecting DOD is not known but is potentially significant,” the GAO report said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered a preemptive defense of the amount in a social media post last month, writing that despite asking for the first trillion-dollar budget request, the Pentagon intended “to spend every taxpayer dollar wisely — on lethality and readiness.”
Trump also earlier told reporters that the request would be high “because you’ve got a lot of bad forces out there now.” “Nobody’s seen anything like it,” the president said. “We have to build our military, and we’re very cost-conscious, but the military is something that we have to build.
