(The Center Square) — The Pentagon plans to move some money around to pay for President Donald Trump’s military priorities, including building an Iron Dome for America that would protect the country from missile attacks.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses said the Pentagon will put forward budgets “that revive the warrior ethos, rebuild our military, and reestablish deterrence.”
At the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Salesses said the Pentagon will come up with $50 billion in offsets from the Biden administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget. The offsets are targeted at 8% of spending, which will be used from Trump’s plans.
“To achieve our mandate from President Trump, we are guided by his priorities including Securing our borders, building the Iron Dome for America, and ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing,” Salesses said. “The Department of Defense is conducting this review to ensure we are making the best use of the taxpayers’ dollars in a way that delivers on the President Trump’s defense priorities efficiently and effectively.”
In December, President Joe Biden signed a bill authorizing $895 billion for defense spending in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
It’s unclear how much Trump can get done on major objectives such as creating an Iron Dome-like defense system for the U.S. with $50 billion.
Joe Cirincione, a national security analyst with Defense One, estimated last month that creating an Iron Dome for America would cost something like $2.5 trillion.
“Because Iron Dome is designed to intercept short-range rockets, not intercontinental ballistic missiles,” he wrote. “Each Iron Dome system can defend an area of roughly 150 square miles. We would need to deploy more than 24,700 Iron Dome batteries to defend the 3.7 million square miles of the continental United States. At $100 million per battery, that would be approximately $2,470,000,000,000.”
Cirincione noted that “it is technically impossible to build a system that can protect the United States from ballistic missile attack.”
The Department of Defense has not passed a financial audit in the past seven years. Last November, Department of Defense’s annual audit once again resulted in a disclaimer. That means the federal government’s largest agency can’t fully explain its spending. The 2024 disclaimer was expected. And it’s expected again in 2025 and 2026. The Pentagon previously said it will be able to accurately account for its spending by 2027.
It’s not clear how Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency could affect Pentagon spending. Billionaire Elon Musk, who is advising Trump on matters related to DOGE, has repeatedly said the Department of Defense would get scrutiny.
Musk also called the Pentagon’s most expensive project, the F-35 stealth fighter, “obsolete.”
