Trump orders Defense Dept. to issue military paychecks during shutdown

President Donald Trump on Saturday said the government would issue paychecks to military service members during the government shutdown, ordering Defense Department officials to repurpose money to make payroll.

In a social media post, Trump said he would use his “authority, as Commander in Chief, to direct our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th” — when paychecks are due for the military.

Trump’s post did not make clear whether military members would continue to receive paychecks beyond Wednesday should the shutdown stretch further.

The money to pay service members during the shutdown will come from repurposed Pentagon research and development funding that Congress authorized for two years, according to a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget. A Pentagon official said in a statement that $8 billion in “unobligated” funds from the prior fiscal year would be used to issue the paychecks if the shutdown continues past Oct. 15. “We will provide more information as it becomes available,” the official’s statement continued.

Trump and lawmakers in Congress remain deadlocked heading into a third week of shuttered federal agencies. Republicans control both chambers of Congress, but lack the votes in the Senate to defeat a filibuster of legislation to fund ongoing operations.

Democrats want Trump and the GOP to cut a deal to preserve subsidies designed to lower costs for millions of Americans enrolled in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act as part of an agreement to reopen the government. Democrats argue that the subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year, need to be extended immediately because health care marketplaces are already making decisions on insurance rates for 2026 and will soon tell enrollees how much more they will need to spend for coverage.

As the shutdown shows no sign of ending, many government workers, including active duty service members, are set to miss their first payday. During a shutdown, the federal government is largely prohibited from incurring new expenses, which is largely interpreted to mean cutting off compensation for workers whose agencies do not have funding sources outside of congressional spending laws.

Trump’s budget office also claimed recently that federal workers who were furloughed during the shutdown were not entitled to back pay.

Trump’s latest directive does not appear to apply to the Coast Guard, a military service that falls under the Department of Homeland Security. That sets the stage for a repeat of the government shutdown during the first Trump administration, when Coast Guard members worked without paychecks while Defense Department personnel received theirs.

The Coast Guard going without pay during that 34-day shutdown emerged as one of its most contentious issues, with some affected families taking out loans, frequenting food pantries, and growing increasingly desperate to make ends meet, they said at the time. An uproar also ensued after a Coast Guard tip sheet circulated suggesting that affected family members could hold garage sales or babysit to help pay their bills.

The White House did not respond Saturday to whether Trump will pursue a separate effort with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem to make sure Coast Guard personnel are paid.

The Defense Department received almost $160 billion in the GOP’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the mammoth tax and immigration package Trump signed into law in July. Agencies that got money in that law have leveraged some of it to continue operations during the shutdown, which has kept roughly 750,000 federal workers furloughed.

Earlier this week, lawmakers of both parties called on congressional leaders to consider legislation to set aside funds for military pay during government shutdowns.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has kept his chamber in recess for more than three weeks. He and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Friday that they were uninterested in such a proposal.

“This pays the military,” Thune said in a news conference, holding up a copy of the bill that Democrats have rejected seven times. “All they have to do is pick it up at the desk and give us five votes and the military gets paid.”

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• Dan Lamothe contributed.