For months, Donald Trump has blasted Congress for excessive defense spending, calling for buying fewer of the newest fighter jets and scaling back weapons purchases pushed by “special interests."
But on Wednesday, he was singing from the traditional GOP national security hymnal, calling for billions of additional dollars for a bigger Army and Marine Corps, missile defense systems and more ships and fighter jets. He also advocated an end to mandatory budget caps — the same ones he used to criticize as too loose.
It is the latest sign that a candidate who has alienated many bedrock Republican voters is trying to steer toward a more mainstream message that can resonate with party stalwarts and independent voters concerned about an erosion of American security and credibility on the world stage.
While many of Trump’s proposals would be difficult, if not impossible, to execute, the blueprint — drawn heavily from the conservative Heritage Foundation that provided much of the intellectual underpinning of Ronald Reagan’s arms buildup in the 1980s — signals he is hewing much closer to Republican orthodoxy on military issues as he enters the final stretch of the White House race.
“I am one of the original Never Trumpers — and unreconstructed in that regard — but taking the speech on its face you could put my name on it almost,” said Thomas Donnelly, co-director of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “This is the most like a traditional conservative Republican I can remember Donald Trump sounding, especially on national security and defense."
Trump’s push for more military spending, outlined in a Philadelphia speech ahead of a “commander in chief” forum Wednesday evening, is striking in part because of his previous statements on defense and foreign policy — from flippant and ill-informed comments about the nuclear arsenal to questioning the continued relevance of the NATO alliance — that have left Republican defense hawks shaking their heads.
His national security pronouncements have led a number of high-profile Republican defense and foreign policy experts and former officials to instead back his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
In his speech, however, Trump, reading from a teleprompter, struck a decidedly different tone. And he reversed course on a several fronts.
For example, he said he would ask his generals for a plan within 30 days to defeat and destroy the Islamic State. Previously he said he knew more than the generals about ISIL.
He also pledged to end the across-the-board budget cuts known as sequester that are opposed by members of both parties.
"As soon as I take office, I will ask Congress to fully eliminate the defense sequester and will submit a new budget to rebuild our military," Trump said. "This will increase certainty in the defense community as to funding, and will allow military leaders to plan for our future defense needs."
But in 2013, Trump applauded the cuts — and even said they didn't go far enough to cut wasteful government spending.
Paul Ryan slammed the Obama administration after POLITICO revealed an internal memo that said the Pentagon was going to play "hardball" with his budget.
Trump is also now calling for boosting the size of the active-duty Army to 540,000, up from the current 475,000. He proposes a Marine Corps of 36 battalions and 1,200 fighter aircraft, proposals both originating from The Heritage Foundation. He also proposed a 350-ship Navy, versus the current fleet that hovers under 280, an objective raised by the bipartisan National Defense Panel in 2014 — and was a common goal of Trump’s rivals in the Republican primary.
The Republican nominee’s proposals to boost the military budget also mirror much of what House and Senate Republicans are pressing for in the defense authorization and appropriations bills.
"To the extent he or anybody else agrees with me, I like that," quipped House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), who has not endorsed Trump. "What a lot of Americans have heard is a lot of name-calling and so forth, but Americans are very concerned about national security. They are anxious for serious, substantive answers to that challenges we face."
Trump's supporters characterized the speech as reflecting the candidate's evolving views.
“I think Donald Trump has gotten more and more concerned about the state of the United States and the status of the United States in the world,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a chief adviser to Trump, told POLITICO. “And that he’s reached a decision that we need a stronger military. When he makes those decisions, he laid out some explicit and significant improvements and strengthening of the Defense Department.”
The speech also received a warm reception from other Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
"It’s a great step that both candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have called for an end of sequester on defense,” said Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), a senior House Armed Services member.
Turner, who is a vocal advocate of NATO, acknowledged that some of Trump’s past comments on NATO were “naive.” But he added that Trump was “coming around on recognizing that the United States moves through the most strategic areas in which we operate, through NATO.”
Asked about Trump’s speech, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said: “On our side of the aisle, almost everyone feels defense is underfunded and we will be dealing with that challenge.”
Others have yet to come around.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who is not supporting Trump, said that he still wanted to hear the GOP nominee articulate more on foreign policy issues like Russia and China, but added that the military spending piece was a start.
“The devil is in the details,” Kinzinger noted.
Indeed, much of what Trump is proposing would cost tens of billions of dollars, at least. And the goal of ending the sequester for the Pentagon has been elusive for Republicans in Congress for the past five years, with the Budget Control Act spending caps still in place through the next president’s first term.
Todd Harrison, a defense budget guru at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said there weren’t enough details to provide an accurate price tag on Trump’s proposals, but he pointed to the National Defense Panel’s estimate of about $800 billion to $900 billion more than Obama’s most recent budget proposal over a 10-year-period.
Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense analyst at AEI, estimated the tab to be $50 billion to $60 billion per year above the current budget caps.
“It is highly unlikely the next president would be able to push through a defense spending increase of this magnitude given all of the other pressures on the federal budget,” Harrison said. “It would require some combination of more borrowing, offsetting spending cuts elsewhere, or tax increases — none of which have been politically viable for the past five years."
Former House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), who retired from Congress in 2015, said he thinks Trump’s new proposals for strengthening the military could help win over some in his own party who remain wary of his approach to national security.
“I hope so. I think it’s a start," he said in an interview. “A couple things stand out to me immediately: getting rid of sequestration and asking the generals for [a] plan to defeat and destroy ISIS immediately. And I like his idea of starting to build the strength back. The size of our force is almost scary — how much we have cut back in such a short time.”
But what struck most about the speech was how unlike Donald Trump it sounded.
“This was a conventional speech," said Rudy deLeon, a former deputy secretary of Defense who is now at the left-leaning Center for American progress. "They are conventional [proposals] because traditionalists came up with them.”
Added Donnelly of AEI: "To hear Donald Trump cite the National Defense Panel is a positive development."
