WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he had “identified funds” that would allow the government to pay members of the military during the federal shutdown, even though Congress has not approved additional money for the troops.
Pentagon officials said they planned to tap about $8 billion in unspent research, testing and evaluation money from the prior fiscal year, which they would use “to issue mid-month paychecks to service members in the event the funding lapse continues” beyond Wednesday, the next date that they are set to be paid.
Trump’s budgetary maneuvering appeared unorthodox, even though it may spare more than 1 million active-duty service members from financial hardships as the shutdown approaches the end of its second week. It was not clear how long the Trump administration could rely on such accounting moves to pay troops in the event that Congress cannot strike a spending deal.
“I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown,” Trump said in a social media post announcing the plan.
Typically, the troops do not receive wages while the government is closed, a political hazard that often spurs negotiations between Democrats and Republicans. Lawmakers otherwise have had to adopt special legislation to pay the military during a federal stoppage.
But Trump has repeatedly pushed the limits of his power in the current shutdown. The president and his aides have lessened the pain of the closure for some and maximized it for others, including Democrats, whom Trump is trying to pressure into supporting a short-term spending deal.
Trump previously told reporters that he supported legislation to pay the troops during the shutdown, siding with House Republicans who have military bases in their districts. But Republican leaders said there was no need for such a measure and insisted that Senate Democrats should simply pass the stopgap resolution to fund the entire government into November.
“You’ve got a military pay bill right here,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Friday at the Capitol, brandishing a copy of the stopgap bill. “This pays the military.”
Senators are not set to return to Washington until Tuesday, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has told Republicans that he does not intend to open the House until Senate Democrats relent and approve the House-passed GOP stopgap bill.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2025 The New York Times Company