Victory for Taxpayers and Animals: White Coat Waste Campaign Leads Congress to Cut Funding for Pentagon’s Cruel Dog and Cat Experiments in 2026 NDAA | The Gateway Expert | by Cassandra MacDonald

In a huge blow to wasteful government spending and animal cruelty, Congress just cut funding for the Department of Defense’s (DOD) painful experiments on dogs and cats as part of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The bill passed the House of Representatives today by a vote of 312 to 112 and now heads to the Senate, where President Donald Trump is expected to sign it. Trump’s White House yesterday announced it “strongly supports” the bill.

The atrocity-ending policy was included in the just-passed Defense Policy Act of 2026, thanks to the continued efforts of taxpayer watchdog White Coat Waste.

The NDAA text prohibits the DOD’s painful research on dogs and cats and states that “the Secretary of Defense may not conduct or support painful research on a domestic cat (Felis catus) or a domestic dog (Canis familis).” The measure does include a national security waiver option, subject to approval by the Secretary of Defense and notification by Congress.

WCW’s Freedom of Information Act investigations, government spending analyzes and lobbying efforts made this issue a priority for the Pentagon and Congress and laid the groundwork for this major victory.

In a statement celebrating the vote, WCW president and founder Anthony Bellott said:

“Thanks to White Coat Waste’s research and advocacy – and the outstanding leadership of Congress and the Trump Administration – we are about to make history by enacting the first-ever law to cut the Pentagon’s wasteful spending on painful dog and cat experiments.

WCW was the first and only group to expose the taxpayer-funded abuse of pets in laboratories in the US, China and other countries, including poisoning puppies with experimental drugs and implanting electrodes in the heads of cats. Our shocking studies prompted Trump’s Navy Secretary John Phelan to ban all dog and cat testing and Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this year to cancel millions of wasteful animal testing contracts.

We’re proud that our campaign laid the groundwork for this massive NDAA victory for taxpayers and animals by building a bipartisan, big-tent coalition – from MAGA allies like Elon Musk, Laura Loomer and Lara Trump, to progressive leaders like Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen, deficit hawk Senator Rand Paul and key Armed Services Committee champions including Senator Joni Ernst and Representatives Nancy Mace and Don Davis.

If President Trump signs the 2026 NDAA into law as expected, taxpayers will no longer be forced to pay for the Pentagon pet abuse that White Coat Waste has fought against for years. The solution is simple: put the money away. Stop the madness.”

In 2023, WCW sued the DOD for documents revealing deadly constipation and erectile dysfunction experiments on cats that DARPA and the Navy funded at the University of Pittsburgh. By 2024, their revelations about DOD cat and dog research led to a vote in the House of Representatives to no longer fund the pet testing in the previous NDAA. The amendment passed unanimously, although it was removed from the final bill at the last minute despite broad bipartisan support. Undeterred, WCW was staged in 2025.

Working with Roger Stone, GOP Reps. Nicole Malliotakis, Nancy Mace, Paul Gosar, Greg Steube, Anna Paulina Luna and others, WCW started the year by urging President Trump’s new administration to end government-wide testing of dogs and cats.

In May, Trump’s DOD canceled the Navy’s $10 million cat constipation contract after pressure from WCW, independent journalist Laura Loomer and Elon Musk. Navy Secretary John Phelan subsequently banned all dog and cat testing, directly crediting WCW. This made the Navy the first federal agency to completely ban such experiments.

Thank you to @RobertKennedyJr, @DOGE, @LauraLoomer, @WhiteCoatWasteAnd @SenRandPaulpartly because they brought the issue of animal cruelty to our attention, which led to @SecNav’s decision to ban medical research on cats and dogs.

Thanks too @mattgaetz because you turned me on… pic.twitter.com/hEOtAU19fW

— ARCHIVE: NavSecSpox (@SecNavSpox) May 31, 2025

That same month, WCW entered into a contract, funded by the DOD and the National Institutes of Health, for cruel drug testing of 300 “cute” beagles every week in China.

Then in July, Laura Loomer published a WCW investigation showing that more than $57 million had been spent on active DOD-funded dog and cat experiments in the US and abroad. Within days, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth canceled millions in contracts and recredited WCW.

Hegseth even highlighted the Navy’s cat constipation fisco as an example of wasteful defense spending during a Senate Finance Committee hearing.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, WCW worked with Rep. Nancy Mace of the House Armed Services Committee and Republican Sen. Joni Ernst on the Senate side to embed language in the 2026 NDAA cutting funding for painful dog and cat research across the Department of Defense.

This campaign united an unlikely coalition of federal lawmakers, including Republican Senator Rand Paul, Representative Abe Hamadeh, former Representative Matt Gaetz, Democratic Representatives Dina Titus and Don Davis, and many others who joined WCW in calling for an end to DOD’s cruel and unnecessary testing of puppies and kittens.

During the first Trump administration, WCW campaigns led President Trump to sign legislation that cut funding for dog, cat, and primate experiments at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Those VA animal tests have now been eliminated.

The 2026 NDAA language discouraging dog and cat testing extends WCW and President Trump’s track record of cleaning up cruel government animal testing.

This victory is not just for animals, but for hardworking Americans who are tired of their tax dollars funding unnecessary cruelty.