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The White House is seeking a record-shattering Pentagon budget of $1.5 trillion for the next fiscal year, the largest year-over-year increase in a presidential military spending request since World War II. The United States already has the world’s largest military budget at roughly $1 trillion, more than the combined budgets of the next nine highest-spending countries. The Trump administration’s budget request includes funding for F-35 stealth fighter jets, new warships and President Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, among other priorities.

“All it means is buying more weapons for more,” says Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “It’s beyond the wildest dreams of the military-industrial complex.” The budget proposal also includes deep cuts to social programs.

We also speak with Josh Paul, a former State Department official involved in arms sales who resigned in 2023 over Israel-Palestine policy. He notes that the $1.5 trillion figure does not even include the costs of the Iran war. “It’s just a vast amount of money in a way that is reckless by an administration that is corrupt,” says Paul.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

US War Machine Is Built on Decades of Lies. The Assault on Iran Is No Exception.

The White House has unveiled a record-shattering Pentagon budget request of one-and-a-half trillion dollars for the next fiscal year. It’s by far the largest year-over-year increase in a presidential military spending request since World War II. It includes funding for F-35 stealth fighter jets, new warships, including Virginia-class submarines, and Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, which the White House says will cost $185 billion to boost U.S. ship building, raise salaries for troops and AI development in the military.

This is President Trump at a White House event last week ahead of the budget proposal announcement.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis; you can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis; you can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.

AMY GOODMAN: Critics have slammed Trump’s budget proposal for continuing to funnel taxpayer money to increase U.S. military spending for Israel’s wars on Gaza, Iran and Lebanon. Last month, Senator Bernie Sanders filed three joint resolutions of disapproval in an attempt to block the sale of U.S. bombs, worth over $660 million, to Israel. This is Senator Sanders speaking with MS NOW host Chris Hayes.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: The bottom line is that to give another 20,000 bombs to a country which committed genocide in Gaza happens to be, among many other things — forget the moral issue — happens to be in violation of American law. You don’t sell arms, according to American law, to countries that violate international law and human rights. Clearly, Israel has done that. Israel talked. Netanyahu, who for 40 years has wanted a war with Iran, finally got a president to go along with him.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: The bottom line is that to give another 20,000 bombs to a country which committed genocide in Gaza happens to be, among many other things — forget the moral issue — happens to be in violation of American law. You don’t sell arms, according to American law, to countries that violate international law and human rights. Clearly, Israel has done that. Israel talked. Netanyahu, who for 40 years has wanted a war with Iran, finally got a president to go along with him.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by two people. We start with Josh Paul, veteran State Department official who resigned in 2023 under the Biden administration to protest the push to increase arms sales to Israel for its war on Gaza. He’s now a director at A New Policy, the lobbying group he co-founded with fellow resignee Tariq Habash to press for a change in U.S. policy on Palestine and Israel.

Josh, thanks for joining us again. The Trump administration first declared an emergency soon after the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran to bypass Congress on more than 20,000 bombs to Israel. You resigned over the push to increase arms sales during Israel’s war on........

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