The president unveiled his designs for a “Golden Dome” defense system Tuesday, promising that the massive missile defense sytem—modeled on Israel’s “Iron Dome”—would protect America from international threats.
But when asked by a reporter whether military leaders actually want this supposed upgrade, Donald Trump couldn’t explain himself.
“Have military commanders asked for this system specifically?” asked a reporter. “Because [North American Aerospace Defense Command] had said previously that the current system was adequate, so what does this get the United States that isn’t already—”
“Somebody said the current system is adequate? There really is no current system,” the commander in chief interrupted. “We have certain areas of missiles and missile defense, but there’s no system. We just have some very capable weapons.
“This is a—there’s never been something like this, this is something that’s going to be very protective. Rest assured there won’t be anything like this, nobody else could be capable of building it, either,” Trump said.
The reporter then asked again if the military had actually asked for the space-based missile defense system, to which Trump replied that he had suggested it and military leaders “loved the idea.”
“It’s the way it’s got to be, right?” Trump said, leaning over the Resolute Desk.
Trump requested that Congress appropriate $25 billion in its most recent tax bill to get his Golden Dome dream off the ground, claiming that a final price tag would waver around $175 billion on a projected three-year timeline. But those numbers fall far below what the Congressional Budget Office calculated. Last month, the congressional analysis group estimated that the space-based components of the plan alone would cost more than half a trillion dollars over the next 20 years.
“It’s amazing how easy this one is to fund,” Trump said Tuesday, sounding exceedingly confident that he would be able to secure money for the project from Congress, days after Republicans lapsed on his reconciliation bill for being too expensive. “People actually love it.”
The gold-obsessed real estate developer formally plotted out his Golden Dome idea in a January 27 executive order, throwing the responsibility on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to figure out the details. But since then, critics have wondered if the massively expensive program would cut into funding for America’s preexisting defense programs, including an Air Force project replacing 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles from the 1970s with updated versions.
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