President Donald Trump said he's planning on increasing the defense budget by "many billions of dollars."
"We're going to be increasing our budget by many billions of dollars because of North Korea and other reasons having to do with the anti-missile," Trump told reporters Thursday at his New Jersey golf club.
It wasn't immediately clear how the president intends to achieve that spending increase. Trump said, however, that the White House may be able to provide more detail over the next week.
The president's comments come as Pyongyang's missile program fuels anxiety, rallying support for greater defense spending among U.S. politicians.
The Senate has not yet passed its version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which maps military spending for the next fiscal year. The Senate Armed Services Committee's markup of the NDAA would authorize $8.5 billion for the Missile Defense Agency.
Last month, the House passed a version that includes $2.5 billion for missile defense. The House Armed Services Committee said that would help address "important readiness shortfalls neglected" in the president's proposed 2018 budget.
Trump's budget proposes a $54 billion increase in military spending. That bump would be largely financed through cuts to other government agencies and programs. Congress has not yet approved the proposed budget.
— CNBC's Jeff Daniels contributed to this report.
