Donald Trump: "We have to start winning wars again"

Impact

President Donald Trump on Monday called for a return to the days when the United States won wars, declaring before a room full of current governors from across the country that, "We have to start winning wars again."

"When I was young in high school and college, everybody used to say, 'We never lost a war.' We never lost a war, you remember, some of you are right there with me and you remember, we never lost a war," Trump told the governors gathered in the State Dining Room. "America never lost. And now, we never win a war. We never win. And we don't fight to win. ... So we've either got to win, or don't fight it at all."

Trump's war comments come as he prepares to release a budget that will call for a $54 billion increase in defense spending, according to Reuters.

That increase in defense spending would come at the expense of foreign aid and other government agencies, which would see an identical amount of cuts as an offset. 

To be sure, budgets are nonbinding documents that don't actually appropriate funds. 

They serve merely as a blueprint for members of Congress to dole out money for different agencies, projects and entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicaid. 

Still, Trump's ask for a $54 billion increase in defense spending would amount to a roughly 10% boost in funding for the Pentagon, according to the Associated Press.