Trump Administration Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently released a video statement explaining that the Pentagon is collaborating with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to identify and cut wasteful agency spending. The remarks came as Hegseth set the record straight on three media hoaxes currently circulating about his efforts within the Department of Defense (DOD).
Hegseth addressed three major initiatives at the Pentagon such as working with DOGE, refocusing the Biden-Harris administration’s former budget, and reevaluating headcount. The video statement also demonstrated a tactic currently being deployed by the Trump administration to communicate directly to Americans, subverting the hostile mainstream media.
Addressing the first inaccuracy in media reporting, Hegseth began, “The first is DOGE. They’re here, and we’re welcome, welcoming them. In fact, right over there, about 20 minutes ago, I just met with them, and we’re going to be incorporating into what we’re doing at DOD, everything they’re doing to find fraud, waste and abuse in the largest discretionary budget in the federal government.”
Hegseth called out specific pieces of the Biden agenda, such as DEI and climate change that will be done away with. “They care just like we do, define the redundancies and identify the last vestiges of Biden priorities, the DEI the woe, the climate change,” he said. “Bs, that’s not core to our mission, and we’re going to get rid of it all with Doge. We’re focusing as much as we can on headquarters and fat and redundancies and top line stuff that allows us to reinvest elsewhere.”
The official DOGE X account replied to the video statement applauding the transparency from Hegseth. “Great transparency from @SecDef Appreciate the DOGE discussion,” the cost-cutting department wrote. Another user commented, “Transparency in defense spending is crucial for maintaining public trust. Good to see DOGE initiatives getting attention at high levels. Now let’s push for blockchain integration to track every taxpayer dollar in real-time.”
Speaking about another issue, Hegseth said, “The second story in the news is our work reorienting the budget that we inherited. We inherited that budget one month ago from the Biden administration. We’re refocusing, that’s a key word, our existing budget away from the Biden priorities that, frankly, were all over the map, to President Trump’s priorities of building a lethal fighting force.” Slamming the media, he noted, “The media wants to call these exclusively cuts, but it’s the opposite, of course, as always is the case.”
Calling out the third hoax, he said, “The third and final bogus story that is out there is around our reevaluation of our probationary workforce.” He added, “Now this is part of something that was mandated by an executive order from the President. Remember, President Trump was elected. He has the prerogative to advance executive orders. Our job is to follow them, and we’re doing that.”
"*" indicates required fields
Watch Hegseth below:
“Now bottom line is simply not in the public interest to retain individuals whose contributions are not mission critical and to restore accountability within the federal workforce, taxpayers deserve to have us take a really thorough look at our workforce top to bottom, and it will be top to bottom to see where we can find and eliminate redundancies,” the secretary continued.
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.