Trump’s $4 Trillion Golden Dome Missile Defense Delusion

Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s and founder of the Up in Arms Campaign, joined national security experts, scientists, and advocates on the National Mall in early April to unveil a satirical monument criticizing Donald Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile defense system, warning it would be ineffective, exorbitantly expensive, and dangerously destabilizing.

The installation features a statue of Trump holding a holeriddled Golden Dome like an umbrella, as water streams from model ICBMs overhead, symbolizing a defense system that collapses under real-world conditions. 

Speakers at the press conference emphasized that the proposed system relies on unproven technology, would require tens of thousands of spacebased interceptors, and could cost more than $4 trillion while failing to provide meaningful protection. 

“Sure – an invisible shield that protects you from any possible threat,” Cohen said. “Nice idea, but it’s full of holes. This is not defense. It’s deception, an illusion of safety.” “The Pentagon has spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the last several decades proving that this freaking thing doesn’t work, but it’s just such an attractive fantasy that it’s being pulled out of the trash bin of history to once again soak the taxpayer.” 

“The thing this dome demonstrates is that our country is under water,” Cohen said. “We are drowning in debt and wasting another $4 trillion on a holey dome. Ain’t going to help, especially when we need that money for Social Security, affordable housing and healthcare.” 

“So the message of the Golden Dome fountain is that if we don’t stop this boondoggle, we’re sunk,” Cohen said. 

Joe Cirincione, a national security analyst and author, underscored the long history of failed missile defense efforts. 

“We tried everything, and nothing has worked, not ground-based interceptors, not space-based lasers, not Brilliant Pebbles, not space-based interceptors, not ground-based lasers, not particle beam weapons,” Cirincione said. “And now, Donald Trump in his infinite wisdom, has repackaged this snake oil in a new bottle.” 

“I’ve had a lot of jobs in this town,” Cirincione said. “I’ve been working in national defense for about 45 years, but I really got my start up at the House of Representatives. I worked for almost ten years on the professional staff of the House Armed Services Committee and the Government Operations Committee, and for most of that time, starting in 1985, I was investigating and tracking national ballistic missile defense.” 

“I conducted numerous investigations, helped staff numerous House hearings on this. So I can tell you with absolute certainty that national missile defense is the longest running scam in the history of the Department of Defense.” 

“Nothing even comes close since March 23, 1983 when Ronald Reagan surprised the nation with his announcement that he was starting a strategic defense initiative that was going to render nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete, that was going to protect America from ballistic missiles the way your roof protects the family from rain,” Cirincione said. “We have spent almost $500 billion over these years. We tried everything and nothing has worked in all these decades.”

“And now Donald Trump, in his infinite wisdom has repackaged this snake oil in new bottles. This is Star Wars Two. He is resurrecting this Golden Dome scam to try to fleece more money from the American people. The budget that he has set for this is $175 billion over the next few years. Just last week, they raised that estimate to $185 billion. They promised to have this system up and working in Trump’s first term. This is complete nonsense.” 

“There is no way this system is going to work. An effective, reliable ballistic missile defense of the United States is impossible with current technology and with technology as far out in the future as we can see. Don’t take my word for it. The most prestigious group of physicists in the world, the American Physical Society, did a study of this system last year, and they concluded it was impossible to do what the President had said.” 

“Todd Harrison, the leading budgetary analyst from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, did a study last year that concluded it would cost almost $4 trillion dollars to implement this scheme, and both Todd Harrison and the American Physical Society found that it would take 1,000 interceptors in orbit for every missile they were trying to intercept – it’s a 1,000 to one ratio. If you wanted to cover one launch site in North Korea, you need 1,000 interceptors in orbit. Oh, you want to cover two ballistic missiles, you need 2,000 interceptors.” 

“It is an insane project. It doesn’t work. All we have to show for these decades of effort of 44 pathetic ground based interceptors stationed in the frozen tundra of Alaska and in California, interceptors that work only 50 percent of the time in carefully scripted, idealized tests where the interceptor crews know the direction of the interceptor, the target missile. They know its trajectory, they know its radar signatures, and some of the tests, they put transponders on the mock warhead to tell the interceptor – here I am, come hit me. And still it only hits 50 percent of the time.” 

“As the Secretary of Defense in that brilliant movie A House of Dynamite says – it’s a crap shoot. We shouldn’t be paying $4 trillion for a crapshoot. We have to end this golden scam now, before it bankrupts the nation.” 

“The Golden Dome is not golden for the people of the United States or the world,” said former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner. She says people in her hometown of Cleveland would “much rather have the money that is being wasted on a pipe dream and a fantasy invested in lifting them and their children out of poverty.” 

“There is a connection between this foolishness and folly and the reason we can’t have nice things in the United States of America. They tell us they can’t afford universal healthcare, but they can afford this.” 

Dr. Igor Moric, a Research Physicist at the Princeton Program on Science and Global Security, explained that the proposal runs up against fundamental scientific limits. 

“The United States has been building ballistic missile defense, a magical shield against nuclear weapons for over 80 years,” he said. “The reality is ballistic missile defense does not work, it cannot work, and it will not work. Space-based missile defense, as envisioned by the Golden Dome, cannot work because of known physical and technological realities limiting what it can do.” 

Dr. Ira Helfand, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Back from the Brink campaign, warned that even optimistic scenarios would still lead to catastrophic consequences. 

“This system does not protect the American people,” he says. “The attempt to build this system will fuel the arms race and torpedo efforts to actually get rid of these weapons.” He noted that even if the system could intercept 80% of incoming weapons, tens of millions of Americans could still be killed in a large-scale nuclear attack. 

Advocates argued that the trillions proposed for the Golden Dome would be better invested in addressing urgent domestic needs, including healthcare, housing, and education. 

The April event was organized as part of a broader campaign to challenge military spending priorities and raise awareness about the risks of escalating global arms competition.