Hegseth Outlines Pentagon’s Budget, Priorities at Senate Panel Hearing

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday testified on the Pentagon’s proposed defense budget for fiscal year 2026, articulating the Trump administration’s vision for a strong United States.

Addressing the elephant in the room, Hegseth said the decision about whether or not to strike Iran is at the presidential level, and that he would go into more detail in a classified setting. 

Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hegseth explained that his department was requesting about $961.6 billion from Congress. That’s a more than $110 billion increase from the request for fiscal year 2025, which was $849.8 billion.

The defense secretary emphasized that some of the money was going to improve the quality of life for the military’s warfighters.

Hegseth explained that the budget “makes historic investments in living conditions in barracks, in base housing,” adding:

The best part of my job is meeting and interacting with troops and their families. We hear their concerns.

“Each of these initiatives responds to feedback that improve quality of life for our warriors and their families, things that include making historic investments,” the defense secretary said. 

Hegseth noted that his three guiding priorities for his time at the Defense Department are to restore the military’s warrior ethos, rebuild the U.S.’s military, and reestablish deterrence of America’s enemies.

“We’re working with the Department of Homeland Security to increase border security, to reduce China’s malign influence in the Western Hemisphere, to defend freedom of navigation in the Red Sea,” he explained. 

Hegseth emphasized that the budget proposal would provide $25 billion to start construction of the Golden Dome, a network of radars, sensors, and other systems to detect a variety of threats to the U.S., including ballistic and hypersonic missiles. The system is estimated to cost approximately $175 billion in total. 

Hegseth also said the military would be focusing once again on merit.

“[Diversity, equity, and inclusion] is dead. We replaced it with a colorblind, gender neutral, merit-based approach, and the force is responding incredibly, because of President [Donald] Trump and his America first priorities. Recruitment and retention are higher than they’ve been in decades,” the defense secretary explained. 

“May God grant us the wisdom to see what is right and the courage to do it,” he said.

Hegseth touted the billions of dollars in savings that the Defense Department had undertaken.

“After four years of weakness and mismanagement, we found nearly $30 billion in savings across the departments, and this savings, if you add this savings to our overall budget, we’re increasing the [defense] budget in 2016 by $143 billion,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth agreed with Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the committee, that spending less than 3% of gross domestic product on defense would be dangerous.

“Sir, I believe we all serve at the pleasure of the president, and in every single position, we’re looking for the right man or woman to fill that role, to execute on behalf of the missions of this department, and we’re doing it expeditiously in every case,” Hegseth said. 

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., commended Hegseth for restoring the names of military bases that had been changed under the Biden administration.

“I think that was an inspired approach. It complies with the law. It teaches a new generation of soldiers about those who went before them, and I hope the matter is settled,” Cotton said.

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