Pete Hegseth is shaking things up at the Department of Defense.
The days of business as usual are coming to an end.
And Pete Hegseth made one prediction about the Pentagon that stunned a former Fox News colleague.
DOGE could uncover massive amounts of wasteful spending at the Pentagon
The Department of Defense has been notorious for wasting taxpayer money for decades.
President Ronald Reagan’s Packard Commission in the 1980s found that the Pentagon was paying $400 for a hammer, $600 for a toilet seat, and $7,000 for a coffeemaker.
The Pentagon failed its seventh audit in a row last year of the department’s nearly $1 trillion budget.
New Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was tapped by President Donald Trump to end the status quo at the Pentagon.
He welcomed the help of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut wasteful spending at the Pentagon during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures.
“Tell us about this upcoming look at the spending at the Defense Department. Should we expect hundreds of billions of dollars in wasteful spending there?” host Maria Bartiromo asked.
“Unfortunately, I think so,” Hegseth replied. “And we very much the President is right. He’s setting the pace. And he is also correct that American taxpayers deserve to know exactly how and where their money is spent.”
Pete Hegseth vows accountability for Pentagon’s spending
Hegseth committed to the Pentagon passing an audit by the time he leaves office.
“The Pentagon should be able to pass a budget right now,” Hegseth said. “Thankfully, the Marine Corps has passed a clean audit for two years in a row and I applaud them. But that needs to go across the entire department.”
The Secretary of Defense vowed to fix the accounting woes that plagued the Pentagon under his watch.
“We welcome Elon Musk and DOD’s coming into our department to help us identify additional ways in which we can streamline processes, fast track acquisitions, cut waste, cut tail to put it to tooth,” Hegseth explained. “We know in a world where America’s, you know, $37 trillion in debt resources will not be unlimited. So every dollar we can find that isn’t being spent wisely is one we can put toward warfighters.”
Hegseth is ready to take charge of the Pentagon’s budget and get things back on track with the help.
“So we welcome those at DOD. We will partner with them,” Hegseth stated. “And it’s long overdue. The Defense Department’s got a huge budget, but it needs to be responsible.”
Trump predicted DOGE would find massive amounts of waste in the Pentagon’s $850 billion annual budget.
“We’re going to find billions, hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud and abuse,” Trump told Fox News host Bret Baier.
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said on NBC’s Meet the Press that the Pentagon was a target-rich environment for waste.
“Everything there seems to cost too much, take too long and deliver too little to the soldiers,” Waltz said. “We do need business leaders to go in there and absolutely reform the Pentagon’s acquisition process.”
Elon Musk and DOGE have their work cut out for them trying to get the Pentagon’s budget under control.
Stay tuned to Unmuzzled News for any updates to this ongoing story.
