Opinion

MORNING GLORY: GOP’s top job now is rebuilding America’s defenses fast

President Trump has asked for $1.5 trillion in Pentagon funding. That’s not enough

By Hugh Hewitt Fox News

Published June 18, 2026 5:00am EDT

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The single, most urgent priority of the House and Senate GOP ought to be passing Reconciliation 3.0 and thus funding not just President Donald Trump’s request of $1.5 trillion, but also the out-years when a likely Democratic majority in either the House or the Senate will not support the military we must have and especially address the munitions gap the battle with Iran has exposed. 

The United States simply does not have the stockpile of interceptors we need in the age of missiles and drones. Whatever the definition of a "crash program" is, that definition ought to be put aside in favor of something far more ambitious. 

We need enough interceptors for our own stockpiles, as well as enough for our allies in Israel, the Gulf States and Taiwan. Our Arab allies will pay cash on the barrel. From Israel, we should expect ongoing and expanding cooperation between the robust defense industry of the Jewish state and the Pentagon’s acquisition process. Taiwan already has a backlog of orders waiting to be filled. 

US DRAINS CRITICAL MISSILE STOCKPILES IN IRAN WAR AS YEARSLONG REBUILD LOOMS

"Our procurement system is not designed for serious war fighting," Dr. Eliot A. Cohen told Aaron MacLean on the latter’s recent edition of the "School of War podcast. "You can see in this conflict the consequences of having had effortless superiority for a long time," Cohen added.

Dean Cohen is the 9th Dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University and a........

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