Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his displeasure with CISA, and key members of his administration have spoken of a need to “right-size” it. His 2026 budget would very likely realign the agency in a number of ways, given its cut of 16.5% of total funding and the elimination of about one-third of its total workforce.
CISA has drawn Trump’s ire, but many federal agencies face deep cuts
Trump’s personal animus toward CISA essentially goes back to sour grapes over the outcome of the 2020 election, and a belief that the agency was a key participant in suppressing conservative political speech via back channel partnerships with assorted social media programs during the Biden years. But the 2026 budget proposal also comes amidst the deep cuts of the “DOGE” campaign and contains bad financial news for a number of other federal agencies that Trump has not been sparring with.
CISA exists under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and new head Kristi Noem has echoed Trump in saying that the agency became too focused on domestic “misinformation” policing and needs to be scaled down and realigned. It’s tough for the public to evaluate these claims due to opacity about the inner workings of the agency, though assorted sources such as the “Twitter files” and Mark Zuckerberg himself have indicated that the Biden administration did sometimes put heavy pressure on platforms via non-public back channels to suppress or remove certain stories and discussions that it viewed as misinformation or disinformation.
But the 2026 budget cuts are broad, and it is unclear if curtailing those activities are the only impact they will have. The total removal of $495 million from CISA’s coffers would drop its budget by about 16.5%, and much of that would come from removal of 1,083 of its 3,292 employees. Some of the divisions that face the heaviest cuts, most notably the National Risk Management Center and the Stakeholder Engagement Division, appear to have little to do with misinformation policing at least from their mission statements and known operations.
2026 budget seeks heavy cuts to critical infrastructure partnerships
The biggest individual component of CISA lined up for 2026 budget cuts is the National Risk Management Center (NRMC), tasked primarily with sizing up threats to national infrastructure. That agency loses 73% of its present budget under the proposal, or a cut of $97.4 million.
The Stakeholder Engagement Division (SED) is the next component on the list, losing 62% or $62.2 million of its present funding. SED is the point department in CISA for partnerships with the nation’s critical infrastructure companies.
Many of CISA’s other divisions face cuts of roughly 15% to 25%, but some are looking at complete elimination. One of these is the Election Security Program, which currently accounts for $39.6 million of the CISA budget. Though that might appear to be a logical target for Trump, the program’s practical purpose is for state and local agencies to share intelligence on possible cyber threats to voting systems. It has been particularly important to ill-funded local and tribal land governments, who have been able to use the support they receive from it to negotiate more reasonable cyber insurance rates. Other divisions up for total removal include the International Affairs office, the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility, and the Cyber Defense Education and Training program.
The 2026 budget cuts are far from set into stone, however. Congress must eventually approve it, and long prior experience shows there will be haggling and changes made up to the last minute (and possibly beyond it).
