FBI Director Kash Patel made some unexpected news on Wednesday.
During his first appearance before House appropriators, the combative Patel told the Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee that he didn’t agree with the $500 million spending cut that the White House wants for the FBI in FY2026, which would force layoffs. In fact, Patel had sought a $500 million increase, only to be rebuffed by OMB.
“We are focusing our energies on how not to have them cut by coming in here and highlighting to you that we can’t do the mission” if the FBI’s budget is reduced, Patel told a surprised Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
“I’m working through the appropriations process to explain why we need more than what has been proposed,” Patel added.
Patel’s eyebrow-raising comments show how hard it’s going to be to draft or pass FY2026 spending bills. When senior administration officials like Patel – a true President Donald Trump loyalist – don’t agree with the huge spending cuts the White House is proposing for next year, then it’s hard to see how Congress will either.
The chair’s view: House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) – who was there for Patel’s comments – insists he’s going to try to draft spending bills that stick close to the “skinny budget” level called for by the White House. The full version of the FY2026 budget is expected next month.
Trump wants to slash $163 billion from non-defense spending while boosting defense spending by 13% and DHS funding by 65%. While Senate Republicans don’t like it – and some House Republicans don’t either – Cole said he will “stick close to what the president wants.”
“We’re still going through it. We’re still waiting for the full budget,” Cole said in an interview on Wednesday. “But we’re going to adhere closely to where the president wants to start because we think it’s a negotiation.”
Cole added that the Senate “will come in at higher numbers and we’ll meet at someplace in between.”
Dem rebuttal: DeLauro sees no chance to find a deal at the White House-requested levels.
“We’re looking at, at the bare minimum, a 23% cut in everything, in non-defense spending,” DeLauro said. “It makes no sense. These are programs in the past that had bipartisan support.”
DeLauro won’t predict a shutdown this fall, but she noted that with DOGE layoffs, the White House withholding tens of billions of dollars in spending already approved by Congress and what’s happening on reconciliation, the likelihood of finding common ground with Republicans on FY2026 funding is hard to envision at this point.
“Somebody has to explain all this to me,” DeLauro added. “Everything they are doing is in violation of the law. That’s where we have to start.”
