The Big Story 

Prominent defense hawks on Capitol Hill on Friday slammed President Trump’s 2026 budget request as inadequate, amid growing threats from China, Russia and other adversaries.

© Allison Robbert

House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said Friday he was “very concerned” about the president’s defense spending request.

“We are currently at the lowest level of defense spending as a percentage of GDP since before World War II. That is no longer sustainable in the threat environment we face,” he warned in a statement.

“I am very concerned the requested base budget for defense does not reflect a realistic path to building the military capability we need to achieve President Trump’s Peace Through Strength agenda,” he said, adding he looks forward to working with the president and Senate allies to “achieve real growth in the defense budget.”

Former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who now chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, said the White House request would extend the Biden administration’s “material neglect” of defense spending needs.

“The Trump administration missed a tremendous opportunity to answer their predecessor’s chronic underinvestment in the U.S. military with robust, full-year funding for [fiscal 2025.] Now, it appears the Trump Administration’s FY26 defense budget request will double down on the Biden administration’s material neglect for the glaring national security threat challenges about which they speak with great alarm,” McConnell said in a statement.

While the White House budget office touted its proposal for raising defense spending by 13 percent to $1.01 trillion in fiscal 2026, critics on Capitol Hill argued the Office of Management and Budget plans to meet that target by pulling $119 billion from the pot of money expected to be included for defense in the budget reconciliation bill — the package that will extend the 2017 tax cuts and provide $175 billion for border security.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) criticized the White House proposal for keeping the annual discretionary defense spending level flat at $893 billion.

“For the defense budget, OMB has requested a fifth year straight of Biden administration funding, leaving military spending flat, which is a cut in real terms,” Wicker said in a statement.

And Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she had “serious objections” to what she called “the proposed freeze in our defense funding,” citing the “security challenges” the nation faces.

Read the full report at TheHill.com.

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