Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed the Pentagon to find $50 billion to redirect from “woke programs” to President Donald Trump’s top priorities within the department.
Robert Salesses, currently performing the duties of deputy secretary of defense, announced Hegseth’s order in a statement on Wednesday. Salesses said the reallocation was part of the Trump administration’s “peace through strength” strategy and would come from “woke programs.”
“Secretary Hegseth has directed a review to identify offsets from the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget that could be realigned from low-impact and low-priority Biden-legacy programs to align with President Trump’s America First priorities for our national defense,” Salesses said.
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“Through our budgets, the Department of Defense will once again resource warfighting and cease unnecessary spending that set our military back under the previous administration, including through so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs, as well as excessive bureaucracy. The time for preparation is over – we must act swiftly to deter current and impending threats and make the best use of taxpayers’ dollars in doing so,” he added.
The $50 billion target represents about 8% of the Pentagon’s Biden-era budget for fiscal year 2026.
The move is part of a larger effort within the Trump administration to audit and reorient the federal bureaucracy toward Trump’s agenda. The effort is led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project and aims to cut waste, fraud, and abuse while shrinking the size and scope of the federal government.
Hegseth previously said he would welcome DOGE and tech titan Elon Musk, who the administration has said is overseeing the project, to the Department of Defense to help discover and cut fraud and waste.
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“We welcome DOGE to the Pentagon, and I hope to welcome Elon to the Pentagon very soon, and his team working in collaboration with us. There are waste, redundancies, and headcounts in headquarters that need to be addressed. There’s just no doubt,” Hegseth said.
“Look at a lot of the climate programs that have been pursued at the Defense Department. The Defense Department is not in the business of climate change, solving the global thermostat. We’re in the business of deterring and winning wars, so things like that we want to look for and find efficiencies,” he continued. “There’s plenty of places where we want the keen eye of DOGE.”
He stressed that changes to the Pentagon’s budget would not impact military readiness, however.
“We’re not going to do things that are to the detriment of American operational or tactical capabilities. President Trump is committed to delivering the best possible military,” he said.
