War Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the Pentagon’s request for $200 billion in funding as it continues its action against Iran.
“As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move. Obviously it takes, it takes money to kill bad guys, so we’re going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we’re properly funded for what’s been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition is, everything’s refilled, and not just refilled, but above and beyond,” Hegseth told reporters. “I mean, President Trump, as he said, rebuilt the military in his first term, didn’t think he’d use it as dynamically in his second, but he had. So thank goodness he did that.”
“And an investment like this is meant to say, hey, we’ll replace anything that was spent, and now that we’re reviving our defense industrial base and rebuilding the arsenal of freedom and cutting deals like our great deputy secretaries here is doing, long lead times on exquisite munitions, we’re going to be refilled faster than anyone imagined, and I think, you know, we’re also still dealing with the environment that Joe Biden created, which was, which was depleting those stockpiles and not sending them to our own military, but to Ukraine,” Hegseth continued.
When President Trump was asked about the high price, he said, “We’re asking for a lot of reasons, beyond even what we’re talking about in Iran. This is a very volatile world.” He noted the “power of some of this weaponry is unthinkable, you don’t even want to know about it. You could end this thing in two seconds if you wanted to, but we are being very judicious.”
