Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stressed the need to conduct a proper audit of the Pentagon and its spending, as doing so is necessary to ensure the Pentagon’s spending is going entirely to the nation’s security.
The Pentagon and U.S. Department of Defense have yet to pass a clean audit in four years, with Hegseth predicting that people can “unfortunately” expect wasteful spending to be found by the department. The defense secretary argued that taxpayers deserve to know how the defense department is spending their taxpayer money, and that this audit will conduct “simple accounting” to find out how its money is being spent.
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Hegseth added that he welcomes the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency in helping the defense department identify waste, as any spending being wasted can be cut and instead go toward protecting U.S. taxpayers.
“So we welcome DOGE at DOD, we will partner with them, and it’s long overdue,” Hegseth said on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. “The defense department’s got a huge budget, but it needs to be responsible.”
The U.S. Marine Corps just passed a full financial audit earlier this month, which Hegseth applauded. However, he also stated that this audit needs to be done across the entire defense department.
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Hegseth is taking a weeklong trip to Germany, Belgium, and Poland this week, during which he will meet with troops in Europe to show them how the U.S. is “focused” on their warfighting abilities. He also cited the need to combat China and its ship-building capabilities, noting that the U.S. can “catch up” with the rival country on this.
The Army has recently revealed that it had its highest enrollment in 15 years in December, enlisting an average of 346 soldiers every day for a monthly total of 10,726 recruitments. Hegseth cited two factors at play with this enrollment bump: the “Trump effect” boosting the nation’s morale and enlistees recognizing they will be “defending our homeland” in their service.