Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Caine testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee to seek $67.1 billion in supplemental money for the war and other DoD expenses, such as munitions, drones and the Army and National Guard deployments to the southern U.S. border and Washington, D.C.

Given that the department has $75 billion in its coffers from the $156 billion it received last year in reconciliation funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill, senators voiced skepticism over the emergency request.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the committee’s top Democrat, said the committee would not “rubber stamp a request to bankroll this war,” given that the DoD received more than $1 trillion in funding last year and has requested $1.3 trillion this year.

“The president’s request is not even a primarily a request to cover the costs of the Iran war. This request is chock full of asks to fund unrelated DoD priorities, which should be considered through our annual appropriations process, not in an emergency supplemental,” the senator said.

Similarly, Sen. Kristin Gillibrand, D-N.Y., asked how to convey the DoD’s needs when constituents have seen gas prices, food and other household expenses rise.

“You’re asking for $1.5 trillion, unlimited money for bombs, but insufficient money for the American people for their healthcare, their food, their housing,” Gillibrand said.

Hegseth said the new funding is needed to support operations because the $75 billion in reconciliation funds are slated to be used to restore a military that was “ignored” under the Biden administration. The new request is an “urgent, necessary injection of resources to address” immediate needs, he said.

“The military requires a generational investment to deliver on peace through strength,” Hegseth said, later adding that he didn’t know what his predecessor, former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, “did for four years.”

“The amount of neglect, the amount of stale thinking and bureaucracy was staggering when we took over,” Hegseth said.

He added that the supplemental was “a new request based on new realities of a world we face.”

“[We’re] stepping up to meet the moment,” Hegseth said.

In May, Hegseth estimated that the cost of war at the time was $29 billion.

Roughly half of the supplemental request, $32.7 billion, is slated to fund the ongoing operation directly. The remainder is for national security priorities not related to the war.

The request includes $21 billion for munitions, $17.3 billion for operations, $12.1 billion for classified programs, $5.1 billion for cybersecurity, $2.4 billion for drones, $1.7 billion for readiness, $1.5 billion for fuel and $2 billion for “administration priorities” and National Guard support.

The request comes as the war, which began Feb. 28, has escalated in the past two weeks. The U.S. has conducted air strikes consecutively for the last 10 days, and four U.S. service members have been killed in the last four days, bringing the total number of U.S. casualties to 18.

At least 14 merchant mariners also have died as a result of attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, according to the International Maritime Organization, and transits have decreased dramatically as Iran has reasserted its control over the strategic waterway.

Caine told senators he sat before them asking for the funding “while the window of opportunity — while time — is still on our side.”

“Our adversaries are aligning in their interests, creating simultaneous challenges across multiple domains. They are sharing intelligence, combat capabilities and technology. Technology. That is accelerating the speed of war, isn’t it?” Caine said in opening remarks.

Of concern to Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., and several other senators, was the administration’s approach to the Russia-Ukraine war and funding promised to support Ukraine that has not been allocated. Kennedy wanted assurances that the DoD had chosen a clear side in the conflict, asking Caine who “we” wanted to win.

“Sir, I want Ukraine to win,” Caine said.

“Is Russia America’s friend?” Kennedy asked.

“I think that depends on your definition of friend. I think it’s a complicated relationship,” Caine replied. After a brief pause, he added, “But no, I don’t think they’re our friends.”

Kennedy also asked what the administration thinks will happen regarding the Strait of Hormuz and what Iran’s intentions are in developing a nuclear weapon — the initial reason President Donald Trump gave for attacking Iran.

“We need straight answers!” Kennedy told Hegseth.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska sought assurances that should the supplemental request be approved, the Trump administration would not perceive passage as a measure for restarting the 60-day clock on a War Powers Resolution, which the Senate passed 50-48 in June.

Citing precedent by President Bill Clinton in sending U.S. troops to Kosovo, Murkowski asked if the administration felt it had adequate authorization to continue the conflict in Iran.

“We certainly, as department, take the position of the White House that we have all the authorities necessary at this moment,” Hegseth said.

Two lawmakers, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W. Va., asked Hegseth to answer for the record, to concerns that service members injured in the current conflict did not receive proper medical care from the U.S. military or screenings for traumatic brain injury.

As of Tuesday, more than 440 troops have been injured in the conflict.

“Every effort was made to provide every level of medical care possible,” Hegseth said.

The supplemental funding request, posted on the White House website and transmitted to Congress, includes $67.15 billion for the military, in addition to some $1 trillion appropriated last year and another $1.5 trillion Trump wants for next year.

The White House said the latest funding request is to cover operational costs of the Iran war, including for military personnel and readiness, operational costs to rebuild weapons stocks, and classified programs.

The funding request for the military includes $21 billion to procure munitions, strengthen the U.S. industrial base and support critical capabilities.

Senate joins House in vote to halt Iran war

The U.S. Senate passed a war powers resolution on Tuesday directing Trump to halt military action against Iran, weeks after the measure passed the House, as a handful of Trump’s fellow Republicans in both chambers joined almost every Democrat in a rebuke to Trump.

During a lunch at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Trump got into a shouting match over the war with Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, one of the Republicans who voted in favor of the resolution.

The supplemental request immediately met resistance. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have complained since the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran on February 28 that Trump and his team have not kept them informed about the conflict or his plans.

Additionally, lawmakers have noted that the U.S. Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the right to send troops into war, and accuse Trump of disregarding that separation of powers.

Tough vote for Republicans as midterms loom

Republicans could face a difficult vote for the request, given the war’s deep unpopularity and only months remaining until midterm elections in November that will determine whether they retain control of Congress.

Democrats also accuse Trump of ignoring the needs of Americans who have been grappling with a steep rise in fuel and food prices since the fighting began. “We should be lowering costs for the American people, not writing another blank check for Trump,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer posted on X after Congress received the request.

Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the chamber’s appropriations committee, said she would review the request to ensure that servicemembers are taken care of, “but I will not rubber-stamp tens of billions more for this disastrous war of choice.”

Trump’s Republicans hold such slim margins in the House and Senate that appropriations bills typically need Democratic support to pass.

The supplemental budget request also includes some $1.4 billion to address the Ebola outbreak in Africa, including $800 million in international humanitarian assistance and $500 million for global health security to prevent, detect and respond to the outbreak.

“This funding is critical to protect Americans, and stop the spread to the United States,” the White House said.

The administration made steep cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and to African public health ​efforts prior to the outbreak.

The spending request is also seeking $11.1 billion to support U.S. farmers and $1 billion to boost the pensions of workers at former General Motors auto parts unit Delphi, which were cut during the Detroit automaker’s 2009 bankruptcy restructuring.

The White House is also asking for $500 million to support construction projects in and around Washington and $1 billion to assist reconstructing New York’s Penn Station.

The Senate Armed Services Committee included a provision in its version of fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would reduce funding for Hegseth’s travel to no more than 25% until the committee receives what lawmakers describe as overdue reports and supporting documents.

The committee approved its version of the NDAA last week in an 18-9 vote, sending the bill to the full Senate. House lawmakers advanced their version the week prior.

The provision cuts Hegseth’s travel funding by 75% until the committee receives the civilian harm investigations for three separate 2025 Yemen strikes and the February strike on the girls’ school in Minab, Iran.

On Feb. 28, the first day of the Iran war, a school in southern Iran was struck by a U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile, killing at least 165 people, most of them schoolgirls.

President Donald Trump claimed that Iran could have obtained the missile, despite questions about how Tehran would have gained access. The strike has been under investigation by the Pentagon since March.

Speaking on Wednesday in France, Trump was asked about the investigation and whether anyone in the Trump administration would be held accountable.

“It’s such a strange question to be asked at this state because you’re talking about a long time ago, but nobody did that on purpose,” he said in response.

“Mistakes are made. War is nasty. But I know it’s under investigation, and I could have a report for you tomorrow. I would ask Pete Hegseth that question because they have it under investigation,” he concluded.

Another provision in the Senate NDAA moved to prohibit the use of military funds for the operations against Iran without congressional authorization and restricted travel funding for Hegseth’s office until lawmakers submit a report on how the Iran war has impacted readiness. The amendment failed to pass in a 13-14 vote.

Unedited video of strikes conducted by U.S. Southern Command on terrorist organizations that were allegedly smuggling drugs in Latin American waters would also need to be submitted.

Since September 2025, the U.S. military has conducted strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that they alleged were carrying drugs.

As of June 16, the military has disclosed 64 strikes that have killed at least 191 people.

The committee is also seeking information about the Defense Department procedures for notifying Congress about sensitive military operations.

Lawmakers have previously criticized Hegseth over congressional oversight following reports that a special operations team attacked survivors of an alleged drug-smuggling vessel strike off Venezuela’s coast in September 2025.

Hegseth refused to publicly release footage of the attack, instead only showing members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee.

The provision would also require the unredacted investigation by U.S. Special Operations Command into Operation Absolution Resolve, the U.S. military operation executed on Jan. 20 to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Senate lawmakers also requested a certification that shows contractor support for clandestine and intelligence activities and a report on support to Ukraine required under last year’s NDAA.

A portion of the U.S. Air Force’s budget is set aside for the purchase of aviation fuel based on a predicted fuel price and an increase in flying hours for fiscal 2027, but that cost was estimated and submitted in their budget request before the war began, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said on Thursday at a Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing.

“My understanding is the president’s budget submitted to us did not include any costs that were costs related to the Iran war because it had largely been prepared and submitted through this budgetary chain of command before the Iran war started,” Kaine, a committee member, said in the hearing.

At the hearing on the department’s posture related to fiscal 2027’s defense authorization request, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said that the service did account for the increased cost of flying hours in the request and estimated that cost before the market determined the true cost.

“Some years it’s more, some years it’s less. So we will adjust our dollars if we end up having to pay more per dollar for a gallon of fuel if it ends up being more than we assessed,” Wilsbach said.

Aviation fuel costs are not an issue unique to the Air Force even though it is the largest consumer across the federal government. All branches of the U.S. military utilize aviation fuel to manage and operate their own drones, helicopters and aircraft fleets.

Kaine said that aviation fuel costs have increased roughly 50% since the war started on Feb. 28 and that while writing fiscal 2027’s NDAA, the committee needs to deal with the new reality of costs on the commercial side, given its effects on the American people.

At the pump, gas prices have surged around $1.50, making the national average about $4.50 since the war commenced. Commercially, U.S. airlines fuel cost increased by 56.4%, or $3.23 billion, since February, according to the Bureau of Transportation.

Wilsbach said the force assumed a 10% increase in flying hours costs from last year in this upcoming fiscal year budget.

The force’s budget requests funding for 1.1 million flying hours, which is considered the “maximum executable level for the total force,” and allots $9.9 billion for the flying hour program, which includes aviation fuel among other maintenance and operation items.

Wilsbach did not indicate what is the assumed cost per gallon of PB, which is a Propane-Butane liquid gas blend commonly used by the Air Force for field operations.

He said that the Air Force department had long-term contracts for fuel purchases and now has storage built up, so the specifics can’t be known until that storage runs dry. Kaine pressed on whether that 10% increase is deemed sufficient considering the rise in costs.

“It’s hard to say at this point, but what I’ll tell you is this is routine for us,” Wilsbach said.

“Every year, the cost of flying hours changes from the time we budget for it to the time we execute it, and we work it out with moving money around in various accounts to cover down on the cost,” he continued.

When posed by Kaine on if the potential cost is being considered in preparation of a possible supplemental bill, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said that it depends on how long these costs stay high to determine their corresponding impact.

Meink said that in a previous hearing, Jay Hurst, who is performing the duties of Pentagon comptroller, mentioned the country is facing about a $29 billion impact, which includes some operation and maintenance fuel cost.

By the end of 2026, it is estimated that the American public will have paid over $193 billion in excess fuel costs because of the Iran war. As of today, American consumers have already paid $40 billion more for fuel.

Kaine highlighted these estimates, saying that it demonstrates the challenge families are facing now.

“I suspect as we’re looking at the military budget, we’re going to see a similar need to adjust it pretty dramatically because of fuel costs,” Kaine concluded.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on the DoD years-long struggle to produce a clean financial audit despite claiming around half of the government’s discretionary spending.

Congress passed a measure as part of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that requires the DoD to produce a clean audit by Dec. 31, 2028. “Clean” means a clear enough accounting of the military’s assets, what was budgeted and spent, along with evidence and documentation, so that the Government Accountability Office can make an accurate assessment of the entire federal government’s finances.

The Marine Corps has been the only service to pass an audit since 2018, when it was first mandated to conduct a full audit. To date, the DoD has never passed a full, clean audit, according to the GAO.

Over the course of Wednesday’s hearing, both the members of the subcommittee on government operations and some of the witnesses had some concern about the department’s ability to pull it off.

“That’s a standard that every other large [government] agency is able to meet, and meet regularly,” Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., said in his opening remarks.

Knowing that the Pentagon has failed to deliver on that, Mfume said he could not vote for the proposed massive increase to DoD’s budget — from around $901 billion for fiscal 2026 to $1.5 trillion for fiscal 2027.

In 2024, the committee instituted a new system for the DoD’s auditing process, which follows a rubric or scorecard. Since that strategy was implemented, committee chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said, “Progress was made but not enough to ensure full financial transparency and accountability. Financial transparency and accountability are core principles of good government.”

The underlying problems, as both Sessions and Asif Khan, director of the GAO, pointed out, are the internal accounting, budget and expenditure mechanisms across the DoD.

This is not a new issue; in fact, it has been going on for 30 years, according to Khan’s pre-hearing witness testimony.

“In 1995, GAO designated DoD financial management as a high-risk area because of pervasive weaknesses in its financial management systems, business processes, internal controls, corrective action plans, acquisition management and financial monitoring and reporting,” the testimony reads. “In 2025, we expanded DoD’s financial management high-risk area to include fraud risk management.”

That potential for fraud rises with a budget increase like the one proposed, one witness said.

“Any time there is an influx of cash or funds into any organization, the likelihood of increased risk of fraud, waste, and abuse coincides with that,” Brett Mansfield, deputy inspector general for audit in DoD’s Office of the Inspector General.

“I’m not sure if it’s a one-for-one [but] there is definitely a positive relationship between an influx of funds and the increased risks,” he added.

Dubbed “Deal Team Six,” the crew is tasked with creating better deals with defense companies to ensure their production of U.S. military equipment is not at the expense of the taxpayer, but that of the contractor, according to a Thursday social media video posted by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth claims in the video that for decades, the department allowed contractors to “double-dip” when service members needed weapons, aircraft or ships, charging the taxpayer for factory builds and again for the final product.

“Despite paying companies to make weapons faster, scheduled delays were constant and cost overruns were the norm, all while their CEOs got rich,” Hegseth says in the video.

Deal Team Six, which is folded inside the Pentagon’s Economic Defense Unit, stood up in early April after it was introduced by Hegseth in a November 2025 memorandum that referred to the unit as a way to modernize contracting and provide incentives and possible penalties to industry partners.

Hegseth has sought to revamp the defense industrial base by scrapping the Defense Acquisition System and turning it into a Warfighting Acquisition System, designated the “arsenal of freedom.” The new system is meant to speed up project timelines and increase production.

In a November 2025 speech at the National War College at Fort McNair in D.C., Hegseth announced that the department would grant larger and longer contracts to companies for systems that have shown their merit.

In exchange for the companies to foot the bill for certain items — such as expansion efforts, new factories, assembly lines and factory plants — the department will provide “steady, long-term orders” for what the service members need, Hegseth’s recent video explains.

This is meant to guarantee that these defense companies can create equipment in higher volumes faster, while keeping to a flat price. Hegseth warned in the video that if companies don’t comply, the department will simply find others who will.

“We’re not tolerating delays in production or cost overruns anymore,” Hegseth says in the video.

“We’ve pushed out the bureaucrats who have made these deals in the past and replaced them with the most talented negotiators in the private sector,” he continued.

This unit was included in fiscal year 2026’s National Defense Authorization Act and appropriated more than $266 million for research, development, test and evaluation.

Included in President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2027 $1.5 trillion defense budget, the unit is allotted over $593 million in the same type of funding section as the 2026 fiscal year.

Although the team’s entire roster has not yet been revealed, George Kollitides, the former head of defense at Cerberus Capital Management, was named its director, according to Wall Street Journal reporting.

Expeditionary Warfare Director Brig. Gen. Lee Meyer told reporters Tuesday at Modern Day Marine exposition in Washington that the Navy lengthened the operability window of the USS Wasp following a study on Wasp-class amphibious assault ships.

“The CNO approved the service life extension of the USS Wasp,” Meyer said. “He extended it by five years until 2034. The other LHDs, we’ve got to study to see if we can extend them and the plan is going to be to do that.”

A study of amphibious dock landing ships is expected to be delivered by Naval Sea Systems Command within several days, Meyers added. The study will provide updates on the status of those landing ship docks and recommendations for service life extensions.

The report will also help inform the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ plans to sustain amphibious ships across their 40 year service life, with hopes of pushing it to 50, to bolster the service’s military readiness.

The Wasp’s new lease on life is an example of what the Navy and Marine Corps would like to do with other ships, but the services have yet to analyze what exactly that would look like, Meyer said.

The Navy’s amphibious fleet has faced numerous issues during its service life.

Three Wasp-class amphibious warships encountered engineering problems at sea in 2024, with the USS Wasp itself having a deployment delayed as a result of mechanical failures.

The fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act signed into law a requirement for the Navy to maintain at least 31 amphibious ships, including 10 amphibious assault ships.

The Navy holds an inventory of 32 amphibious warfare ships, but half of the fleet is in poor condition and poorly maintained, according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

A defense official told Military Times in August 2025 that the readiness rate of amphibious ships had dropped to 41% despite the Marine Corps previously stating that the amphibious readiness rate needed to remain at 80% or higher to complete missions.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said at the 2026 Sea-Air-Space exposition that the current number of amphibious ships is not sufficient enough to meet requirements set forth by combatant commanders.

He spoke of extending the service life of ships to help address concerns over lacking fleet size.

Four amphibious ships are deployed across the globe currently, including the USS Tripoli and USS Boxer, which are stationed in the Middle East in support of Operation Epic Fury.

President Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 defense budget asks Congress to carve out funds for a new America-class amphibious assault ship and one San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock.

The increase would mark the largest single-year F-35 buy from the Pentagon since fiscal 2022 and a sharp reversal from last year’s reduced procurement.

The headline number depends on Congress passing a separate funding bill. Only 32 of the 85 requested aircraft are funded through the base discretionary budget. The remaining 53 are tied to a $350 billion mandatory funding request that the administration plans to pursue through a second reconciliation bill, alongside the $1.15 trillion base topline.

That bill has not yet been introduced.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has acknowledged that a second reconciliation bill could be a tough sell, and some House Republicans have pushed back on the idea after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act cleared Congress last year.

If the bill fails, the F-35 buy could plummet to 32 aircraft, below even the fiscal 2026 baseline of 47.

As proposed, the 85-aircraft buy breaks down to 38 F-35As for the Air Force, 37 F-35Cs for the Navy and Marine Corps, and 10 F-35Bs for the Marine Corps, according to the Department of War’s FY2027 Procurement Programs (P-1) book. The total program cost runs to roughly $21.4 billion across all three variants, according to budget justification documents.

The request also targets long-running problems with the program. A $324 million line inside the mandatory funding request would accelerate procurement of 200 Block 4 modification kits, advancing the first fleet delivery from fiscal 2031 to fiscal 2030.

Block 4, the upgrade package that adds new sensors, weapons integration, and electronic warfare capability, has slipped roughly five years from the original schedule. Much of the delay traces to hardware problems with the Technology Refresh 3 processor, the brains behind the Block 4 software.

The budget also targets the readiness problems that have plagued the aircraft. The F-35 fleet averaged a roughly 50% mission-capable rate in fiscal 2024, meaning that fewer than half of the aircraft were ready for combat at any given time. That figure falls well short of the program’s 65% availability target.

Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst last week told reporters that the F-35 had been “underfunded in the past as part of the budget” and said the fiscal 2027 request is structured to drive that rate higher.

Service-by-service, the Air Force absorbs the largest share of the joint buy. The 38 F-35As requested by the Air Force are 14 more than the 24 funded in fiscal 2026. Combined with 24 F-15EXs sought in the same budget request, the Air Force’s total fighter buy reaches 62, still 10 shy of the 72-aircraft annual minimum National Guard generals told Congress this month is the floor for stopping the fleet from “actively shrinking.”

The Department of the Navy’s request doubles last year’s F-35 buy: 37 carrier-variant F-35Cs for Navy and Marine Corps squadrons, and 10 short takeoff and vertical landing F-35Bs for the Marine Corps. The increase comes after years of slower naval F-35 buys.

The maritime buy aligns with a 2025 Marine Corps aviation plan that cut the service’s planned F-35B fleet from 353 to 280 aircraft while raising its F-35C objective from 67 to 140. The shift moves the Marine F-35 force toward squadrons aboard Navy aircraft carriers rather than amphibious assault ships.

The proposed joint force F-35 budget request has not silenced critics of the procurement rate, with one taking direct aim at the Air Force.

Retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told Air & Space Forces Magazine the 38 F-35A figure represents “budget triage” rather than a serious recapitalization rate.

He argued the Air Force needs to buy even more F-35As to modernize its fleet.

Phelan, who left his position as the civilian leader of the U.S. Navy on Wednesday shortly after delivering remarks to the media at the Sea-Air-Space symposium in Washington, said the service was looking at the future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, the USS William J. Clinton and the USS George W. Bush, to ensure that the finances behind the them align with the Navy’s budget and overarching goals.

“We are looking at 82 [CVN-82] and 83 [CVN-83] to review the costs, the designs, the systems, to make sure that they make sense,” Phelan said.

“I think that it’s a prudent and practical thing for us to do, given the costs of them as a percentage of the budget and how we are thinking about the force design and our needs going forward,” Phelan continued.

The service is not only looking at how much it will take to build the future ships, but also how much it will cost to sustain and maintain them as well.

The flagship Ford-class carrier USS Gerald R. Ford cost roughly $13 billion to manufacture.

The Bush is slated for procurement in 2034, according to Congress, which did not list a potential price tag.

The Clinton is slated for delivery in 2040, with a currently unavailable procurement cost. The Navy’s fiscal 2026 budget submission requested $612 million in advanced procurement funding for the ship.

Getting the appropriate bang for the Navy’s buck means questioning the degree to which the Ford is, in fact, superior to older Nimitz-class carriers, according to the former Navy secretary.

“Is the sortie rate generation that much greater?” Phelan said. “And then what are the cost implications of this electric catapult? Did it really generate the savings? The Navy would like to say we’ve saved $5 billion in terms of savings in number of men and maintenance. I just need to check that back up.”

Nimitz-class carriers use a steam-powered catapult system to propel jets forward off the ship, while Ford-class carriers use an electromagnetic aircraft launch system meant to provide increased dependability, better acceleration and a higher sortie rate due to a lower demand for maintenance.

A February Navy release said that the USS Gerald R. Ford’s electromagnetic aircraft launch system contributed to an “increased sortie generation rate,” though the service was still analyzing the data.

President Donald Trump criticized Ford-class carriers’ catapult system in 2025, claiming he was unsure if the system could continue to function if water got onto the magnets. He voiced his preference for the steam catapults.

This type of review isn’t just specific to carriers, Phelan said, and is being applied to every Navy program.

The carriers in question are the fifth and sixth of the Ford-class.

The USS Gerald R. Ford is currently the only Ford-class carrier in service, with the USS John F. Kennedy, USS Enterprise and USS Doris Miller in the pipeline and under construction.

The review is to be completed by the end of May 2026, Phelan said.

The Navy announced on Jan. 3, 2025, that it would name the two future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers after the two former presidents.

The $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 defense budget is seeking $65.8 billion for Navy shipbuilding, specifically 18 battle force ships and 16 auxiliary ships meant to fulfill the Golden Fleet initiative Trump announced last December.

Phelan left his position as the Navy secretary “effective immediately” on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced in an X post.

While the Navy didn’t offer a rationale for his departure, a senior administration official with knowledge of the situation told Military Times that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decided it was time to go in another direction, as far as Navy leadership was concerned.

Phelan was informed of his firing shortly before Parnell made the news public, the official told Military Times.

According to budget documents released this week by the Trump administration, the VA would receive a record $488 billion, including $205.6 billion in discretionary funding for programs and operations and $282.6 billion for mandatory spending — the column that covers disability benefits, pensions, insurance and other requirements.

Highlights in the discretionary spending proposal include $500 million to build permanent facilities for homeless veterans at the new National Center for Warrior Independence in West Los Angeles, $1.3 billion to construct a VA medical center in Manchester, New Hampshire, nearly $2 billion to replace the VA medical center in Indianapolis and $30 million to buy land for a new medical center in San Antonio.

The budget supports the VA’s proposed redesign of its community care contracts and programs and planned changes to the management structure at the Veterans Health Administration. It also funds the restart of the VA’s electronic medical record system program that has been on hold since 2022. The VA plans to restart the initiative this month at four facilities, with an additional nine joining later this year.

The VA estimates that the fiscal 2027 budget would provide disability compensation to more than 7.4 million veterans and support 9.2 million veterans enrolled in VA health care.

According to the VA’s Budget in Brief documents, the proposal would support 443,327 full-time VA employees — roughly 9,000 fewer than in 2025 but up nearly 6,200 from fiscal 2026.

In a statement laid out in the documents, VA Secretary Doug Collins said the proposal will enable the department to deliver timely care and benefits for all beneficiaries.

“This budget request reflects VA’s efforts to find more effective and efficient ways to serve our mission and maximize our resources,” the document states. “The days of measuring VA’s progress by how much money we spend and how many people we employ, instead of how successfully we serve Veterans, are over.”

President Donald Trump’s $2.2 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2027 includes nearly $1.5 trillion in spending for the Defense Department — up 44% from fiscal 2026 levels — and increases for the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

It trims several domestic programs, including education, food and energy assistance, housing, the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others.

The proposed VA budget increases spending for VA medical care provided in VA facilities but also increases the budget for community care, the VA’s program for covering the health treatment received by veterans in non-VA facilities.

The budget, which also includes a request for advanced funding for fiscal 2028, ensures that veterans benefits and services are never affected by a government shutdown. In addition, it increases medical care funding, with $96.2 billion requested for care provided in the VA medical system and $42 billion for community care.

As with fiscal 2026, VA officials asked to shift the mandatory funds designated to cover the costs associated with injuries or illnesses related to toxic exposures to the discretionary budget. The request of $52 billion from the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund is likely to raise concerns among Democratic lawmakers, who have argued that the continued use of the funds could jeopardize monies set aside for a specific purpose.

The proposal also seeks to cut what White House officials referred to as “divisive and wasteful diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.” The budget documents did not specify which diversity programs the budget will defund, but officials said the reductions would ensure that “VA funding is used for critical VA missions: providing healthcare; benefits; and cemetery services for America’s veterans.”

The president’s proposed budget represents Trump’s vision for the federal government. It serves as a blueprint for Congress to consider as it starts its fiscal 2027 appropriations process.

In the last 25 years, the VA’s budget has ballooned significantly to address the needs of older veterans as well as the millions who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal represents a 10-fold increase for the VA since fiscal 2001, when the VA’s budget was $45 billion.