Hegseth Drops New Ad for Proposed $1.5 Trillion Pentagon Budget as Poll Shows 60% Opposed

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday released yet another ad pitching President Donald Trump's proposed $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget, as new polling showed major skepticism over the idea.

In his latest pitch for the record-breaking defense budget, the former Fox News host insists that "America is not in decline," even though the US has been unable to compel Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz despite having spent nearly $1 trillion on defense in 2025.

"We remain the strongest military power on Earth," Hegseth continued. "But that power requires renewal. And with global threats that are constantly evolving, it's time to make a $1.5 trillion investment."

A $1.5 trillion military budget would be over 50% more than the 2025 US defense budget and more than four times the money spent on defense by China, the world’s second-biggest defense spender.

Among other things, Hegseth said that the budget would invest $18 billion into Trump's proposed "Golden Dome" missile defense shield, which the Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday estimated would cost $1.2 trillion to create, deploy, and operate over the first 20 years of its existence.

Hegseth also said that the Pentagon would be increasing its investment in artificial intelligence by "800%," although it's not at the moment clear how well AI helps militaries effectively fight wars.

The defense secretary concluded his video by insisting that "we are expanding our strength, we are restoring our deterrence, and we are putting America first."

USA Today reported on Thursday that a new poll conducted by ReThink Media and the Costs of War Project at Brown University finds that nearly 60% of Americans think the proposed Trump Pentagon budget is too large, including 40% who say $1.5 trillion is "much too high" to spend on defense.

Breaking the figures down by party, 87% of Democrats said the defense budget was too high, along with 54% of independents, and even 30% of Republicans.

Jennifer Greenburg, a researcher with Brown's Costs of War Project, told USA Today that Americans were broadly skeptical that plunging more taxpayer money into the Pentagon is really necessary given that the US already doles out more for defense than the next four biggest spenders—China, Russia, Germany, and India—combined.

"In real time, I think what we're seeing," said Greenberg, "is the public experience how more spending does not actually keep them safe."

In a column published by The New York Times on Wednesday, longtime national security reporter Noah Shachtman argued that Hegseth's $1.5 trillion proposal was "less like a budget and more like a trip to an endless casino buffet" in which the Pentagon spends money in "gut-busting proportions."

Shachtman also noted that the proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget comes at a time when the Trump administration has wrecked traditional oversight mechanisms, thus making waste and fraud far more likely at a Pentagon that's never passed an audit.

"One of their early actions was to fire and replace the Pentagon’s inspector general, whose office looks into claims of fraud and abuse in military contracting," Shachtman explained. "The independent office that tests whether our weapons actually work has been gutted."

Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, argued in an analysis published on Tuesday that Hegseth's budget pitch at congressional hearings this week was particularly baffling because there is really no imperative behind it on par with the Cold War or the post-9/11 defense buildup.

"Despite presenting no strategic necessity for the largest year-over-year Pentagon spending increase since World War II," Freeman wrote, "Hegseth repeatedly claimed the $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget was a sound financial decision, arguing in the Senate hearing that 'at every level we have made it a fiscally responsible budget.' Yet, the fact is that the entirety of this proposed increase in Pentagon spending would be deficit financed, effectively going on Uncle Sam’s credit card."