Early this week, the Trump administration released details from the president’s bold federal budget proposal. The plan would increase military spending by a historic percentage while cutting the budgets of other agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

On Tuesday, retired Col. Lawrence “Larry” Wilkerson, who once served as Colin Powell’s chief of staff, joined Paul Jay, senior editor of The Real News Network, to talk about the proposed $54 billion increase in military spending.

America “needs a substantial cut in the military budget,” Wilkerson said on an episode of The Real News. “We simply don’t have the money to do all of this.” He called Trump’s military spending plan “disastrous” and “absurd.”

Wilkerson and Jay also discussed how President Trump is keeping a promise to voters with this budget proposal, and Wilkerson used his own experience to highlight how the military-industrial complex is influencing Trump’s policy.

Watch the full interview below: