President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal, released on Friday, suggests a $491 million cut from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) budget. This constitutes a nearly 17 percent reduction to the agency’s $3 billion budget, CyberScoop’s Tim Starks wrote on May 2.
The proposal’s summary stated that “the budget eliminates programs focused on so-called misinformation and propaganda, as well as external engagement offices such as international affairs. These programs and offices were used as a hub in the Censorship Industrial Complex to violate the First Amendment, target Americans for protected speech, and target the President. CISA was more focused on censorship than on protecting the nation’s critical systems, and put them at risk due to poor management and inefficiency, as well as a focus on self-promotion.”
“The Supreme Court ruled last year that plaintiffs alleging federal censorship based on efforts like CISA’s to communicate with social media platforms on election misinformation had a “startlingly broad” definition of the term “censorship,” and rejected the bid from Republican state officials to limit such efforts,” Starks further reported.
CISA has a workforce of about 3,600 staffers following sizable growth since its creation during Trump's first administration in 2018, Healthcare Info Security’s Chris Riotta noted. “The agency has since become a key target in the administration's ongoing spending cuts and workforce purge, with Trump attacking former CISA Director Chris Krebs and the White House threatening major cuts to come over the next four years.”
As Healthcare Innovation's Mark Hagland reported, the White House’s proposed budget also includes massive cuts to national health agencies.
The budget still must undergo a formal appropriations process and pass a congressional vote.
