By Chris Menahan – Information Liberation
President Trump announced he is requesting a record-breaking $1 trillion Pentagon budget during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.
“We also essentially approved a budget, which is in the [vicinity], you’ll like to hear this, of a trillion dollars,” Trump said. “$1 trillion, and nobody’s seen anything like it. We have to build our military, and we’re very cost conscious, but the military is something that we have to build, and we have to be strong, because you got a lot of bad forces out there now.”
“So we’re going to be approving a budget, and I’m proud to say, actually, the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military,” he added.
Two months ago, Trump floated cutting our military budget in half.
“One of the first meetings I want to have is with president Xi of China, president Putin of Russia,” Trump said. “And I want to say, let’s cut our military budget in half.”
The request for a $1 trillion budget came as Trump was meeting with Netanyahu and also as he has been threatening to go to war with Iran.
A week ago, Trump threatened to bomb Iran if they don’t negotiate a new nuclear deal similar to the one he scrapped during his first term to please Israel First GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson (Pete Hegseth was also funded by Sheldon Adelson when he was younger and ran a pro-Iraq War lobbying group called “Vets for Freedom”).
“If they don’t make a deal,” Trump said, “there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
Trump reiterated the threats on Monday, telling the media: “I think if the talks aren’t successful with Iran, I think Iran is going to be in great danger. And I hate to say, great danger, because they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump said the US and Iran will hold “direct” talks next Saturday but Iran countered by saying the talks will be “indirect.”
“On the order of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran has refused to sit down with American officials in direct nuclear negotiations since Mr. Trump pulled out of the last accord,” the NY Times reports. “After Mr. Trump spoke on Monday, however, three Iranian officials said Ayatollah Khamenei had shifted his position to potentially allow direct talks.”
“The officials said that if Saturday’s indirect talks are respectful and productive, then direct talks may happen. The officials asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.”