Congress has begun pushing back on the White House plan to cut the defense budget by 5 percent next year, and President Trump appeared to jump into the fray Monday by calling out U.S. spending on the military.
Trump tweeted this year’s $716 billion budget, which he touted and campaigned on, is “crazy” and part of a growing arms race with Russia and China.
“I am certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I, together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race. The U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this year. Crazy!” Trump tweeted.
The White House has ordered the Pentagon to slash its proposed defense budget from $733 billion to $700 billion for the coming year, which has drawn criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill in recent days.
“[W]e are in a crisis situation, and cutting the defense budget now is basically a decision not to defend the nation, and that’s not a path we can go down,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said on Fox News Monday.
Last week, the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate armed services committees warned that the president’s $33 billion cut to planned spending is “dangerous” and would undercut the progress made with the past two increases to the defense budget.
“The Pentagon would be forced to cut in areas where the most money can be saved quickly — troops, new equipment, training and maintenance — as it did under sequestration in 2013. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will be asked to find $33 billion, for example, by planning for lower troop levels, diminishing the U.S. capability to stay ahead of China and Russia, sacrificing readiness — or all three,” Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., wrote in a joint Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Trump’s tweet adds a new public wrinkle to the growing debate, which will play out next year when the White House submits its fiscal year 2020 budget request to Congress.
“This looks like a significant shift (perhaps a curveball) in the defense debate and a definite sign of downward pressure on the defense budget from the Trump administration itself,” Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, tweeted in response to the president.
Asked Monday about Trump’s characterization of the $716 billion defense budget as “crazy,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon. “I have not seen the tweet, I’ll have to get back to you.”
