The Trump administration’s budget request submitted to Congress on Friday calls for a $49 million cut to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the bureau responsible for investigating and adjudicating complaints of campus antisemitism.

The budget proposal, which slashes a total of $163 billion in spending, also includes what Republican defense hawks are condemning as an effective cut in defense spending and cuts to Federal Emergency Management Agency grant programs, Department of Justice hate crime prevention grants and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The OCR budget cut comes after the administration already reduced the office’s staff by half and closed more than half of its regional offices throughout the nation, a state of affairs that has prompted concern from Jewish groups and Democratic lawmakers, who have long called for increased funding for the office to handle the significant influx and long backlog of antisemitism investigations.

The budget request sent to congressional appropriators says that the cut, which amounts to 35% of the department’s 2025 budget, seeks “to refocus away from DEI and Title IX transgender cases” and states that the office has cleared “a massive backlog in 2025.”

“This rightsizing is consistent with the reduction across the Department and an overall smaller Federal role in K-12 and postsecondary education,” the request continues. “At this funding level, OCR would continue to ensure that schools and other institutions that receive Federal financial assistance for education programs and activities comply with Federal civil rights laws and Presidential Executive Orders while removing their ability to push DEI programs and promote radical transgender ideology.”

Republicans have argued that OCR does not need more resources to combat antisemitism, but rather needs to be more focused on that issue, rather than others. 

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), who chairs the House Education & Workforce Committee, praised the budget proposal for the Department of Education, saying in a statement that it will “lower costs and rein in wasteful government spending.”

Though Republicans are not likely to raise concerns about that portion of the budget, other parts of the proposal are raising alarm bells for key Hill leaders.

The Defense Department budget request does not keep pace with inflation, a consistent issue for congressional Republicans throughout the Biden administration, and does not meet the $1 trillion benchmark President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had proposed. The administration framed the additional funding provided in the upcoming budget reconciliation bill as an additional patch for the defense budget.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, accused the Office of Management and Budget of ignoring Trump and undermining the military.

“For the defense budget, OMB has requested a fifth year straight of Biden administration funding, leaving military spending flat, which is a cut in real terms,” Wicker said in a statement. “The Big, Beautiful Reconciliation Bill was always meant to change fundamentally the direction of the Pentagon … not to paper over OMB’s intent to shred to the bone our military capabilities and our support to service members. OMB is not requesting a trillion-dollar budget.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, offered a similar response, likewise blaming OMB staff, rather than Trump or Hegseth.

“We are no longer deterring our adversaries. We are being outpaced in the development and deployment of critical military capabilities. And our defense industrial base has atrophied to the point where I fear we could no longer sustain a prolonged conflict. This all stems from chronic underinvestment in our national security, which is being driven by OMB bureaucrats,” Rogers said. “I am very concerned the requested base budget for defense does not reflect a realistic path to building the military capability we need to achieve President Trump’s Peace Through Strength agenda.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, suggested that Congress will go a different direction on defense spending.

“The President’s Budget Request is simply one step in the annual budget process. This request has come to Congress late, and key details still remain outstanding. Based on my initial review, however, I have serious objections to the proposed freeze in our defense funding given the security challenges we face,” Collins said. “Ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who chairs the defense subcommittee on appropriations, also indicated he does not intend to heed the administration’s proposal.

“It is peculiar how much time the President’s advisors spend talking about restoring peace through strength, given how apparently unwilling they’ve been to invest accordingly in the national defense or in other critical instruments of national power,” McConnell, a frequent critic of Trump’s national security policy, said. “OMB accounting gimmicks may well convince Administration officials and spokesmen that they’re doing enough to counter the growing, coordinated challenges we face from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and radical terrorists. But they won’t fool Congress.”

While he didn’t offer the same full-frontal assault on the budget request that other colleagues  did, Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, offered a terse response to the administration’s international affairs budget request, and did not endorse it.

“I look forward to working with the President to ensure the International Affairs Budget is aligned with the most present U.S. national security interests and delivers for the American people,” Risch said in a one-sentence statement.

Democratic leaders largely condemned the budget proposal as unworkable and dead on arrival.

The administration’s request also proposes a $646 million cut to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s non-disaster grant programs, without providing a specific request level for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. It is also cutting the Targeting Violence and Terrorism Prevention grant program, which the administration said was “weaponized to target Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.”

The administration also called for cutting $1 billion in Department of Justice grant programs that they said “manipulate the legal system on ideological grounds” and “programs that focus on so-called hate crimes in clear violation of the First Amendment.”

The administration additionally asked for a $545 million cut of the FBI, which it said will come primarily from “cutting FBI D.C. overhead,” “undoing the weaponization of the FBI” and cutting “duplicative intelligence activities” to focus on counterintelligence and counterterrorism.