Trump seeks $1.5tn for defense department in budget request to Congress – US politics live
Trump seeks $1.5tn for defense department in budget request to Congress
Donald Trump has asked for $1.5tn in defense department funding in his latest budget request to Congress for the 2027 fiscal year.
This would include a pay increase for most troops, funds for the president’s missile defense system, the Golden Dome, and resupplying “critical munitions”. This comes as the US-Israel war on Iran enters its sixth week.
The White House said today’s budget request builds on the historic $1tn overall defense topline for 2026. The 2027 budget request includes a ten percent decrease in non-defense spending, a reduction of $73bn.
Key events
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, confirmed that Donald Trump has been briefed on the news that a US fighter jet was shot down over Iran.
As we noted earlier, US forces are searching for crew after a F-15 fighter jet was shot down. According to reports, one crew member has been rescued. As of now, we don’t know how many crew members were on board.
My colleagues are covering the latest here:
Trump seeks $5.6bn cut to Nasa budget in 2027
Also in Trump’s budget proposal is a $5.6bn cut to Nasa’s budget for 2027, including a $3.4bn cut to the space agency’s science unit that would cancel roughly 40 programs, a 23% cut as Nasa’s new chief plans an array of new missions under the flagship US moon program.
It comes two days after Nasa launched its most ambitious mission in decades, sending four astronauts on a mission around the moon under its Artemis program.
The budget requests additional funds for Artemis to land astronauts on the moon by 2028, and the establishment of a lunar base camp.
But in the cuts are the termination of over 40 “low-priority missions” in the science program, including “the grossly over-budget Mars Sample Return mission” and the Servir program, which “imposed climate extremism on developing countries”.
It also proposes cuts to legacy human exploration systems, space technology, and the International Space Station.
Trump has also requested cuts for the Office of STEM Engagement, which is described as “subsidizing woke STEM programming”, including the termination of initiatives on diversity in engineering for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and K-12 STEM engagement activities.
White House requests $152m to reopen Alcatraz in budget request to Congress
Tucked away within Trump’s budget proposal to Congress is a request for $152m to return Alcatraz prison island to an active facility, following up on the president’s calls last year to reopen the infamous prison turned tourist destination.
The budget seeks funds for the Federal Bureau of Prisons to cover the first-year costs of rebuilding Alcatraz into “a state-of-the-art secure prison facility”. Congress would need to approve the request in a spending bill for justice department.
The request reads:
For years, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has housed violent criminals in crumbling detention facilities. Building on a $5 billion investment secured in the President’s WFTC, the Budget further invests in BOP to ensure competitive pay, safe working conditions, and an end to longstanding correctional ofcer shortages. Within this level, the Budget also afrms the President’s commitment to rebuild Alcatraz as a state-of-the-art secure prison facility, providing $152 million to cover the first year of project costs.
Last May, Trump announced on social media that he was directing the Bureau of Prisons, the US Department of Justice, and other agencies to “reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”
Reuters notes that Alcatraz, which opened in 1934, had been billed as America’s most secure prison given the island location, frigid waters and strong currents.
It closed as a prison in 1969 and has been under the National Park Service’s auspices. The Bureau of Prisons’ website recounts that it was closed because it was too expensive to continue operating, noting it was nearly three times more costly to operate than any other federal prison.
Taz Ali
A search is under way for the crew of a US fighter jet that was shot down by Iran, a person familiar with the matter has confirmed.
As we reported earlier, Iran claimed that it had shot down a US fighter jet, with state media reporting it was an F-35 warplane.
The fate of the crew remains unclear.
It follows reports by Iranian state media that the US military is searching for an American pilot of a downed aircraft in Iran, following earlier reports that Tehran had shot down a US F-35 fighter jet.
Trump eyes $63bn in additional DHS funds, proposes privatizing TSA security screeners
The president has also requested an additional $63bn for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This would include $10bn for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and more than $18bn for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). This funding would also supplement the $190bn that the department received through Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that he signed into law last year.
A reminder that the record-breaking partial shutdown, affecting several DHS subagencies, is ongoing. It’s unclear when the funding lapse will end, after House lawmakers took no action on Thursday on Senate-passed legislation to reopen most of the DHS, but withhold funds from ICE and border patrol.
Democrats have refused to pass an appropriations bill without stronger guardrails on federal immigration enforcement, after two US citizens were fatally shot by agents during the administration’s crackdown in Minneapolis.
When Congress returns from its scheduled two-week recess, Republicans are expected to work with Democrats to pass the compromise measure, then begin writing another measure funding ICE and CBP unilaterally using the budget reconciliation process, which can circumvent the filibuster.
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers had been affected by the ongoing shutdown, until Trump signed an executive order directing immediate payments to employees last week.
As part of the White House’s budget request, the president has proposed privatizing TSA airport screening, saving the department an estimated $52m for the upcoming fiscal year. Trump also suggested cutting $1.3bn in non-disaster grant programs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).
I’m going through Donald Trump’s budget request to Congress now, and pulling out some of the key investments – and many of the most consequential cuts and eliminations.
Notably, for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the White House is pushing for lawmakers to appropriate funding to establish the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA). This, you may remember, is health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s planned consolidation of many subagencies whose workforces he slashed last year. In the budget, the White House says that these programs “duplicate other federal spending, promote radicalized DEI ideologies, or use taxpayer funds to support radical nonprofts that are not aligned with administration policies”. Last year, Congress didn’t provide funding for AHA, but in 2027 the administration is hoping to secure funding as part of the $111bn it requests fo the wider HHS.
However, Trump is hoping to cut $5bn in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has seen wholesale cuts to research, grants and funding since the president returned to office.
In the budget request, the administration writes that the NIH “broke the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health”.
A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest out of the Middle East at our dedicated live blog.
This includes Donald Trump’s recent comments on Truth Social that “with a little more time” he could open strait of Hormuz. The president added that reopening the vital passageway would allow the US to “TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A ‘GUSHER’ FOR THE WORLD.”
Trump seeks $1.5tn for defense department in budget request to Congress
Donald Trump has asked for $1.5tn in defense department funding in his latest budget request to Congress for the 2027 fiscal year.
This would include a pay increase for most troops, funds for the president’s missile defense system, the Golden Dome, and resupplying “critical munitions”. This comes as the US-Israel war on Iran enters its sixth week.
The White House said today’s budget request builds on the historic $1tn overall defense topline for 2026. The 2027 budget request includes a ten percent decrease in non-defense spending, a reduction of $73bn.
Lauren Aratani
Despite encouraging March job numbers, revised figures show that the economy lost 133,000 job in February – worse than initially reported.
Meanwhile, job figures for January were revised up, from 126,000 to 160,000. With revisions, total employment in January and February is 7,000 lower than previously reported.
US job market adds 178,000 jobs in March, beating expectations
Lauren Aratani
The US labor market picked up in March as employers showed signs of resilience amid the US-Israel war in Iran.
After an extraordinary contraction in February, employers added 178,000 jobs last month, ahead of economists’ expectations of about 70,000.
The unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Donald Trump is in Washington today. As of now, he’ll spend the day in closed-door meetings,
According to the White House schedule, he has no press availability scheduled, but we’ll let you know if that changes.
Pam Bondi was Trump’s chief enforcer when it came to going after his perceived political foes.
As my colleague Sam Levine writes, she “oversaw purges of career employees who had been assigned to work on the criminal cases against Trump as well as scores of career lawyers with irreplaceable expertise. She also oversaw politically motivated prosecutions against Trump’s political enemies, including the former FBI director James Comey and New York attorney general, Letitia James.”
Now he’s taking over the Department of Justice, will Todd Blanche keep pursuing cases against Comey, James and others? He sidestepped the question in a Fox News interview on Thursday night.
Blanche told Jesse Watters Trump was frustrated with the state of investigations but insisted: “We don’t talk about investigations, but I can tell you that the Department of Justice is working hard every day. It was working yesterday, and we’re going to keep working tomorrow.”
Donald Trump last night posted another threat against Iran’s transport and energy infrastructure, saying the US military “hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants! New Regime leadership knows what has to be done, and has to be done, FAST!”
Iran later said that a second US F-35 fighter jet had been shot down over Iran, with the state news agency saying it’s unlikely the pilot survived, Reuters reports.
Last month, the US military said in a statement that a US F-35 aircraft conducted an emergency landing after flying a combat mission over Iran. The military said the pilot of that jet was in stable condition.
A spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya central HQ said on Friday the second F-35 jet was shot down over central Iran by Revolutionary Guard air defenses, with low chances of pilot survival, Reuters reported.
There was no immediate comment from the US, and the Guardian has not been able to confirm the report.
You can follow the latest news and updates in the US-Israeli war in Iran in our dedicated live blog:
Sam Levine
Pam Bondi’s swift dismissal on Thursday underscores a reality that has met Trump loyalists from Jeff Sessions to Kristi Noem – no amount of loyalty is enough to save oneself from being dumped by Donald Trump.
Since the president assumed office last year, there have been few people more important to his effort to remake government than Bondi, his longtime friend.
It was not enough.
You can read the full analysis here:
David Smith
Donald Trump has been accused of running a “misogynistic administration” after making Pam Bondi the second woman to be fired from a cabinet already dominated by men.
The US president dismissed the attorney general on Thursday amid mounting frustration with her performance, especially over the release of files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The move came less than a month after Trump ousted Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, following criticism of her management of the department and immigration enforcement.
Bondi and Noem are the only two cabinet members to lose their jobs so far in Trump’s second term despite male officials such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr stumbling from controversy to controversy.
Todd Blanche takes over justice department after Pam Bondi sacking
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
After Pam Bondi was sacked by Donald Trump on Thursday, her former deputy Todd Blanche is taking over the justice department until a permanent replacement is confirmed.
Blanche was the president’s personal attorney before being appointed deputy attorney general in Trump’s second administration. He represented him in the hush-money case brought by former porn star Stormy Daniels. He also served as Trump’s lead defense lawyer in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.
Trump praised Blanche as “a very talented and respected Legal Mind” when he announced him as acting attorney general in a social media post on Thursday.
Blanche released a statement following Bondi’s ouster, saying that he’s thankful for the “trust and opportunity” to serve as acting attorney general.
“Pam Bondi led this Department with strength and conviction and I’m grateful for her leadership and friendship,” Blanche added. “We will continue backing the blue, enforcing the law, and doing everything in our power to keep America safe.”
