White House asks for record-breaking $1.5 trillion for defense in new budget request
President Donald Trump pauses as he finishes speaking about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The White House, in its budget request for the 2027 fiscal year, is asking Congress to approve roughly $1.5 trillion for defense — a record-breaking military spending request as the U.S. remains in its fifth week of war with Iran.
That is a $445 billion, or a 42% increase from the 2026 total level, according to the White House. Non-defense spending would be then be reduced by $73 billion, or 10%, according to the budget released by the White House on Friday.
Major targets of the proposed spending cuts are environmental programs across many federal agencies, including canceling more than $15 billion in Department of Energy grants related to clean energy.
The White House budget also continues the Department of Education’s “path to elimination,” proposes cuts to agriculture spending by 19% and proposes slashing the Internal Revenue Service’s budget by $1.4 billion.
“The 2027 Budget builds on the President’s vision by continuing to constrain non-defense spending and reform the Federal Government,” Office of Budget and Management Director Russ Vought wrote in the request to Congress.
President Donald Trump’s budget request, which is largely a wishlist sent to Congress in order to signal the administration’s priorities, lists “reducing violent crime and protecting national security” along with “protecting the homeland and removing dangerous illegal aliens” as the other two spending priorities for the upcoming year.
The budget proposes more than $19 billion for federal law enforcement — a 15% increase from 2026. The budget maintains “critical funding” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement next year, equal to the 2026 level, including $2.2 billion to maintain 41,500 immigration detention beds.
The White House said that an investment in defense and Department of Homeland Security would be, in part, achieved through budget reconciliation.
The reconciliation process comes with a key advantage of not being subject to a filibuster. This means legislation can be passed with a simple majority vote in the Senate and that Republicans wouldn’t necessarily need Democratic support, signaling an attempt from the White House to avoid Democratic demands for non-defense increases.
“Reconciliation funding in 2027 will enable DHS to fully implement the President’s immigration enforcement initiatives, finish construction of the border wall on the Southwest border, procure advanced border security technology, and continue the largest recapitalization investment in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard,” according to the White House.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin tapped by U.S. President Donald Trump to replace U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, speaks to members of the media as he departs the U.S. Capitol in Washington, March 5, 2026. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — It’s set to be a critical week in Congress as lawmakers continue to scrutinize the Iran war — with opportunities to press the Trump administration as members of the president’s Cabinet and senior military commanders are set to make appearances.
The country’s top intelligence community officials make their way to Capitol Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday, when Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel as well as top officials from the Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency are scheduled to appear before the House and Senate Intelligence committees for the Worldwide Threats hearings.
While these are annual hearings, this year’s presentation comes amid heightened focus on the intelligence community because of the Iran war as lawmakers mull a potential emergency supplemental bill to fund the open-ended operation.
The money that has so far been spent to fund operations in Iran comes out of Pentagon funds already allocated by Congress. Congress has not yet approved any additional funding for the war with Iran.
Also on Wednesday, Sen. Markwayne Mullin will appear for his public confirmation hearing to serve as the Secretary of Homeland Security after being tapped by Trump earlier this month to take over from Kristi Noem.
He’ll be before the Senate Homeland Security Committee while the department he’s seeking to lead remains shut down due to a funding stalemate, with no clear end to that shutdown in sight.
Parts of DHS — from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Transportation Security Administration to the Coast Guard — are shut down amid a funding fight over Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Democrats have said they will fund the department only if changes are made to the agency in the wake of the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis earlier this year.
While Mullin is expected to be grilled by Democrats over ongoing challenges at DHS, he is ultimately expected to swiftly sail to confirmation. The Senate Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to vote on his nomination on Thursday. After that vote, his nomination will head to the Senate floor. He could be confirmed as soon as the following week.
Mullin may face questions about threats to the homeland after DHS warned of potential lone-wolf and cyberattacks amid the ongoing strikes in Iran, according to a law enforcement bulletin obtained by ABC News.
Majority Leader John Thune has signaled that this is the week that the Senate is going to attempt to move forward with votes on the SAVE America Act, which would change voter ID requirements ahead of November’s midterm elections. It comes after President Donald Trump threatened that he would not sign any other legislation coming to his desk until the SAVE America Act was passed.
The showdown is expected to produce heated debate on the floor — not only about the bill’s provisions, but also the Senate’s wonky and longstanding procedures.
Trump has mentioned the possibility of utilizing the so-called “talking filibuster” to pass the SAVE America Act. The “talking filibuster” would be a departure from the Senate’s usual operating procedure that some hope would allow senators to side-step the current rules requiring 60 votes to advance most legislation. It could see lawmakers making tireless speeches on endless numbers of amendments on the floor.
Thune has consistently reiterated that there are not the votes in the Senate to support a talking filibuster or modify the chamber’s filibuster rules. So while the floor debate may get heated, any vote that takes place on the bill is mostly symbolic, and all-but-certain to fail.
On Thursday, the investigation around convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein continues as Darren Indyke, longtime attorney and a co-executer of Epstein’s will, is expected to appear for a closed-door deposition with the House Oversight Committee.
Indyke’s testimony follows accountant Richard Kahn’s deposition last week, during which he told the committee that he did not know about Epstein’s crimes, according to his prepared remarks obtained by ABC News.
Chairman James Comer continues to work to schedule transcribed interviews with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Attorney General Pam Bondi, though an aide told ABC News on Friday that neither interview has been nailed down so far.
U.S. President Donald Trump greets Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of a bilateral meeting at Gimhae Air Base on October 30, 2025 in Busan, South Korea. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — When President Donald Trump arrives in Beijing next Thursday, he’ll be the first U.S. president to set foot in China in nearly a decade. The last visit was Trump’s own, in 2017.
He arrives in a very different position than he expected: the trip was originally scheduled for earlier this spring, then postponed because of the Iran war.
Trump had said the war would only last four to six weeks. Instead, there’s no end in sight with the the Strait of Hormuz remaining closed and U.S. gas prices surging — as the president faces record-low approval ratings.
That backdrop has flipped the leverage dynamic, according to experts who study the region.
The leverage flip
Beijing would have preferred this war never started — the energy disruption and the hit to global demand are real headaches for an export-dependent economy, experts say. But they say the conflict has handed Xi a relative advantage: Trump now has too many fires to put out at home and abroad to risk another escalation cycle with China.
“China is a relative bright spot in Trump’s foreign policy right now,” said Jon Czin, a former director for China at the National Security Council.
The longer the Iran war drags on, Czin argued, the more it minimizes the chance of another economic confrontation — Beijing has also already demonstrated it can retaliate — as it did with tariffs and rare earth export controls — and the administration backed down before.
Both sides are still trying to eke out an edge in the run-up. The Treasury Department recently sanctioned Chinese oil refiners and shipping firms tied to Iranian crude to cut off funding. In an unprecedented move, Beijing invoked a “blocking rule” for the first time, directing Chinese companies not to comply with sanctions on Chinese oil refiners.
Daniel Shapiro, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, points out the war has reduced the U.S. military posture in the Indo-Pacific with long-term consequences for deterring China and defending Taiwan.
“Trump’s position and leverage at the summit is considerably weaker if he goes to Beijing with the war still unsettled, or even with renewed escalation. And the Iranians know that. So they are whittling down the terms to end the war to something much more modest than what Trump originally envisioned,” Shapiro wrote in a post on X.
What Trump wants
The administration clearly wants Beijing to use its influence over Tehran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week urged Beijing to use the Iran’s foreign minister’s visit to China earlier this week to press Tehran on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
“I hope the Chinese tell him what he needs to be told,” Rubio said when asked about China’s top diplomat meeting with Iran’s foreign minister. “And that is that what you are doing in the strait is causing you to be globally isolated. You’re the bad guy in this.”
Beyond the war in Iran, Trump will be looking for wins on trade and investment: For instance, Chinese commitments to buy Boeing planes and U.S. agricultural goods as well as an extension of the trade truce reached during the last Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea last year, according to experts.
The administration also wants China to continue its pause on rare earth export controls, analysts say. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has also proposed a “Board of Trade” to manage economic ties between the countries and goods the two sides are trading.
What Beijing wants — and what it doesn’t
Here’s the gap between the administration’s public framing and what analysts who study China most closely are saying: Beijing doesn’t actually plan to deliver much on Iran or get deeply involved.
Beijing’s statement after the meeting with the Iranian Foreign Ministry was carefully worded to not blame Iran for the crisis while also calling for greater efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz.
“The Chinese are not interested in assuming any kind of direct role in the conflict,” according to Patricia Kim, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “They see this as a problem that the United States needs to solve, and they have no interest in intervening on Tehran’s behalf.”
Czin’s read is similar. While Beijing’s meeting with the Iranian foreign minister this week let it “posture as peacemakers,” he says the Chinese don’t want Iran to take up too much summit time. His analog: even on North Korea, right on China’s doorstep, Beijing rarely puts real pressure on Pyongyang.
China’s energy buffer is part of why the urgency is lower than the Trump administration assumes. Beijing has built strategic oil reserves, invested heavily in green energy, and can shift to domestically produced coal. The bigger risk for China isn’t the energy crunch itself.
“The bigger issue for China is the secondary and tertiary effects from this conflict,” Czin said — such as a war-driven global slowdown that hits the Southeast Asian and European consumers that Chinese exports depend on.
What Beijing actually wants from the summit is more stability: lock in the trade truce, push back on U.S. export controls on advanced technology and ease restrictions on Chinese investment in the U.S.
What’s unclear is how hard Xi will push Trump on Taiwan. Any small shift in U.S. declaratory language on Taiwan would be significant, though Czin is skeptical Trump would stick with new wording even if he agreed to it.
Bottom line
Expect fanfare, expect deliverables on the margins — purchase commitments or a possible Board of Trade announcement — and don’t expect breakthroughs on the hard issues, experts say.
The summit’s significance is less in what it produces than in what it preserves: a tenuous stability that both leaders, for different reasons, want to keep intact through the rest of the year.
The U.S. Capitol Building dome, on May 12, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Graeme Sloan/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Senators adopted a resolution by unanimous consent on Thursday to withhold their own pay during government shutdowns.
The legislation, which won’t take effect until after the November 2026 election, instructs the secretary of the Senate to place senators’ paychecks on hold during the duration of any future federal government shutdowns.
Those payments would be released to lawmakers only after the government reopens.
The Senate resolution does not need to be passed by the House or signed by President Donald Trump. While multiple similar House bills have been introduced, it’s unclear if legislation in the lower chamber will pass.
The measure in the Senate was introduced by Republican John Kennedy and advanced in a unanimous 99-0 vote on Wednesday.
“Take your brain with you, because this is about shared sacrifice. This is about putting our money where our mouth is,” Sen. Kennedy said on the Senate floor ahead of Wednesday’s vote.
Kennedy’s resolution comes after federal workers faced a historic 43-day government shutdown late last year caused by a deadlock between parties over Affordable Care Act subsidies.
During that time, approximately 670,000 federal workers were furloughed, 60,000 workers outside the federal government lost their jobs and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients lost out on benefits all while members of Congress continued to get paid — highlighting the disparity of financial pain endured by members of Congress and the people they serve.
Calls for withholding pay from members of Congress continued to grow this year during the record 75-day partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. Transportation Security Administration agents, Coast Guard members and other department employees went without pay as a stalemate played out on Capitol Hill over immigration enforcement funding and oversight reforms.
