Republican lawmakers have criticized Donald Trump’s plan to use Congressional funds to pay the military during the government shutdown, which has now become the second-longest in history.
Last week, the president gave both the Pentagon and the White House the go-ahead to use “any funds” left from the current financial year to pay active-duty service members.
Typically, the president would need approval from Congress before shifting around funds in a process known as “reprogramming.”
Now, Trump’s unilateral action is making his own lawmakers uneasy.
“While it’s a desired outcome, there’s a process that’s required — by Constitution and by law—for Congress to be not only consulted but engaged,” Senator Jerry Moran, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Politico.
Meanwhile, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said that Trump is not following the legal process by redirecting the money.
“There’s a way we take care of this. It’s called appropriations. It’s called reprogramming. And I don’t think that process is being respected,” she said.
According to Politico, the Trump administration told its lawmakers that it was planning to use $6.5 billion of a leftover $10 billion, meant for military research, to pay troops.
The president reportedly said that he needed to take control of the funding because US troops continuing to go unpaid would pose “unacceptable threat to military readiness.”
His move preempted a Senate meeting slated to take place this week, which would have considered legislation that would pay military troops and federal workers.
It would need 60 votes to pass, with the Republicans having 53 seats in the Senate while the Democrats have 45.
Last week, a Department of Homeland Security memo, seen by the Huffington Post, revealed that the White House also wanted to continue funding ICE during the shutdown.
The memo claimed that the action would be “in alignment with the Administration’s commitment to law enforcement officers.”
It ordered the DHS to “allocate available funding to ensure full and timely payments” throughout the shutdown.
The 2025 government shutdown is the second-longest in history, with the closure having dragged on for three weeks.
The most extended shutdown in US history began on December 22, 2018, and ended on January 25, 2019. Lasting for 35 days, it unfolded during Donald Trump’s first administration.
At the time, the president was seeking $5.7 billion in funding for a wall on the border that the U.S. shares with Mexico. Eventually, the government reopened with a deal that granted $1.375 billion in funding for the wall, which many saw as an example of Trump backing down.
The previous record-holder was Bill Clinton’s government closure, which lasted for 21 days from December 1995 until January 1996.
It followed an earlier government closure, which unfolded after President Clinton rejected a spending bill from the Republican-controlled Congress. That shutdown ended after Republicans agreed to a bill amended by Clinton.
