Defense Budget Hearing Day 2

Mr. Rogers (00:00):

… will not be tolerated. The chair reserves the right to remove disruptive persons from the hearing. US Capitol Police are on hand to assist with that task and I thank them for their service. I want to welcome our witnesses and thank them for their service to our great nation. We are here today to hear from the Department of Defense about its FY26 budget request. Unfortunately, we still have not received the FY26 budget. This historic delay by the Office of Management and Budget in releasing this information is absolutely unacceptable. It's impacting our ability to move forward with the NDAA, the next big step in enacting the president's peace through strength agenda.

(00:45)
That's a problem because threats to our nation have never been more urgent or complex. Adversaries like China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, continue to expand their military power. They're no longer acting alone. These countries are strategically building alliances and supporting each other with drones, munitions, satellite technology and energy supplies, and we're seeing that acutely in Ukraine. Make no mistake, a Russian victory in Ukraine would be a victory for China, North Korea and Iran. We cannot let that happen. Russia must be stopped. Russia is not our friend. While our adversaries collaborate on the development and deployment of innovative and new capabilities, we are facing challenges. Our defense industrial base has atrophied significantly, making it harder for us to sustain prolonged conflicts. That's why now, more than ever, it is critical that we make a significant investment in our national security. This investment is at the heart of achieving President Trump's peace through strength agenda. We look forward to steps toward enacting that agenda with our reconciliation legislation. Together with the president and our Senate colleagues, we've developed a historic investment of $150 billion plus up that will go a long way toward modernizing our military, rebuilding our industrial base, and restoring American deterrence. While this is a great first step, it will have limited impact without sustained investment in the following years. To truly achieve the president's peace through strength agenda, we need to grow the defense spending to at least 4% of GDP. But we need to be smart about how we invest these dollars. That begins with identifying and cutting inefficient and unnecessary DOD spending. The secretary has taken the lead on that and we appreciate his work, but spending wisely also means fixing a broken acquisition system that is needlessly driving up cost and delaying delivery of critical capabilities to our warfighters. The current system is simply not meeting our needs or the warfighter's. It is not taking advantage of America's innovative private sector and it's not the most efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

(03:15)
The bipartisan SPEED Act that the ranking member and I introduced this week will fundamentally reform defense acquisition. It streamlines the process and significantly reduces the time it takes to field new military capabilities. I know the secretary is determined to fix the broken system and I look forward to partnering with him to enact real, meaningful, game-changing reform. I also look forward to understanding from the secretary what the administration's plans are for a global force posture. Maintaining a forward presence of US troops in strategic areas across the globe is essential to ensuring peace through strength.

(03:57)
The current level of American forces stationed in Eastern Europe are a crucial bulwark against further Russian aggression and another devastating war in Europe. Our forces in South Korea protect our ally, but also serve as the critical strike force if North Korea attempts a launch on our homeland. US service members in CENTCOM and AFRICOM are fighting daily to defeat the terrorist threat against America and Israel, while maintaining maximum pressure on Iran. And our forces in Japan, the Philippines and throughout the Pacific are keeping China's hegemonic desires in check and preserving trade routes critical to our economy. Together this collaborative posture forms the backbone of American deterrence.

(04:47)
Secretary Hegseth is right when he says, "America first does not mean America alone." I appreciate the time you recently spent in the Pacific and Europe reinforcing our alliances and partnerships, but also pressing our allies to increase their defense spending. It is long past due for our NATO allies and those around the globe to shoulder a greater share of the collective defense, but we must understand it will take some time for them to grow their capacity. In the interim, we should not make large-scale posture changes that undermine our deterrence. I look forward to working with the administration on building the ready, capable, and lethal fighting force we need to deter our adversaries. And with that, I yield to my friend, the ranking member, for his opening statement.

Mr. Smith (05:36):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that, and I'll start with three substantial notes of agreement. One, we do face an incredibly complex threat environment. We face Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, various other terrorist organizations working together against American interests in a way we have never seen before. And with an economy like China's that we've never seen before, it's going to be very difficult to meet those challenges. Second, innovation is incredibly important and crucial to that. The changes in warfare are happening at a more rapid pace than I think we've ever seen before. We have to innovate more quickly, and I appreciate your leadership on getting after acquisition reform because what's absolutely true is the Pentagon is not ready for this right, now and certainly that predates this Secretary of Defense and this administration. It's a problem that we need to get after, to do the acquisition reform so that we can get the materials that we need quickly, innovate more quickly. We've got a lot of good ideas in this committee. Look forward to working with the administration on trying to get that done.

(06:34)
Second, the budget is a major problem. It is simply unacceptable that we are this late in the year and we do not have a budget. That's the basics of how you plan to do all of that. And this is but the culmination of a series of problems. We had a CR for FY25, largely at the insistence of President Trump, and then by the time we did pass a budget, it was just a CR. And now we're on a path again towards a CR in FY26. There is no budget transparency and no plan that we can see, and what we have seen happening at the Pentagon in the interim is also very disturbing and without explanation, there has been talk about 8% cuts across the board. Nobody on this committee knows what that means. Some of it is happening. It has not been made transparent to us. Is it going to make us better? Is it part of a larger strategy? Nobody really knows. We also heard the plan to cut 20% of the flag officers. Again, no strategy, no plan.

(07:31)
This is why the budget is so important. The budget can inform all of this. Maybe that's a good idea, but we have no idea because there is no transparency and no follow through. Also, quite disturbingly, within the Department of Defense and also across the federal government, the one and only criteria that is consistent is loyalty to Trump as opposed to loyalty to the law or loyalty to the Constitution. This started with one of the more shameful events in DOD history, and that's when we pulled security details from former members of the Pentagon who faced security threats. Why were those security details pulled? They weren't pulled because anything told us that they were safe.

(08:10)
Chairman Milley is one great example. He was on the threat list because he carried out an order from President Trump, and rightfully so, to kill Soleimani in the Middle East. He's now on Iran's hit list and we pulled his security detail leaving him and his family vulnerable. Why? Because he had the audacity to say something critical of President Trump. That's just embarrassing. If you told me 10 years ago on this committee that something like that would've happened, I wouldn't have believed you. And now we have a dictate from the White House saying that all federal employees will be tested for whether or not they're supportive of President Trump. New York Times had a great headline on that saying, "Why does an air traffic controller have to be a Trump supporter?" Well, I would ask, why does an acquisition professional have to be a Trump supporter? If you're focused on loyalty, you're not focused on competency, you're not focused on ability and it is the wrong way to go.

(09:03)
Even within the budget, we see the influence of the president over the influence of common sense. We've all heard about the Golden Dome. When I first heard about the Golden Dome. It was interesting because it reminded me of a joke I first told about 12 years ago when we were dealing with a large number of Pentagon programs that were more ambitious than practical, future combat systems, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. Basically, they [inaudible 00:09:26] well, this is what we want. And we had this joke that, well, all I want is sharks with fricking laser beams attached to them. That became the armed services' thing. I actually have a little plastic shark that my staff made for me with a laser beam attached to it.

(09:38)
Making the perfect the enemy of the good is a problem, and nobody on this committee knows what Golden Dome is. And the other thing that's really important about this, contained within that is one of the most important national security threats that we face, missile defense and counter drone. We have a lot of programs that people are working on in that direction. What happens to those programs when we take $25 billion towards a project that no one can explain and no one can understand? And again, we don't have a budget, so we're taking it on faith. That is deeply troubling.

(10:09)
Equally troubling is the Air Force One airplane that we got from Qatar. There's all kinds of ethics problems with that, which I'll leave aside for the moment, but that airplane is going to have to be fitted to be Air Force One. It's going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Again, no transparency. We're not told what that's going to cost and where it's going to go, but because President Trump wanted it, he gets it. Hundreds of million dollars goes out the window. We don't have the capacity to say, "Sorry, sir, that's not a good idea."

(10:38)
The last one on this list is one that frankly I had a hard time believing when I first heard it. Apparently the president has decided that the F-35 would be a better plane if it had two engines. And to a certain degree, it's hard to argue with. I guess two engines is better than one, except that you can't just add a second engine to the F-35. This is a program that's taken us over 25 years and we are, knock on wood, finally to the point where we're going to have the plane. Now, I would've thought this would've been dismissed, but I hear defense contractors, Pentagon, they're looking at this idea. It is okay to tell the boss that he's wrong. We all have dumb ideas. It's good to have people around us who have the capability and the competency to say, "No, we're not going to do that." We're walking down the wrong direction.

(11:22)
In terms of the global strategy, I substantially agree with the chairman, except that I fear that America first does mean America alone. We've seen that in a number of different issues, certainly placing tariffs on absolutely every country in the world irrespective of our relationships… Well, sorry, except for Russia. Didn't place tariffs on Russia. That alienates people. Cutting off foreign aid programs, which I realize is not the purview of the Department of Defense, but I'll remind you of something that Secretary Gates said before this committee, "If you're cut off the State Department, you better give me more ammunition." The two things are related.

(11:58)
We stopped programs that were feeding hungry children in Africa, literally took food out of the mouths of hungry children. Why? Apparently because there were a couple of USAID programs that supported LGBTQ programs. Now why we didn't just cut those instead of cutting the ones that were feeding hungry children in Africa, I don't know, but that really sends the wrong message to the rest of the world. And the last one, and once we get to the Q&A's, I would be curious to hear what the secretary has to say about this, threatening to use military force to invade Greenland and Panama. I don't believe the president has actually threatened military forcing against Canada just yet. He's just threatened to annex it. So Denmark, Canada, Panama, three peaceful nations that we are allies with or were anyway.

(12:45)
The message that sends to the rest of the world is one that the US is purely in it for itself and does not care about the rest of the world. And this has implications. We're trying to stop China. We are in a global competition with China. We have built up excellent partnerships across Asia over the course of the last six or seven years, in Australia, and Japan, and India, and the Philippines. Largely that was because China exercised economic coercion. They went ballistic on Australia for daring to suggest that China could be more transparent about COVID, and Australia recalculated. Now we are the ones using economic coercion on our partners and allies, and pushing them away. And this filters back over to Ukraine, where I am in violent agreement with the chairman about how important Ukraine is to our national security interests. And I also agree with the secretary, we need to get peace in Ukraine.

(13:39)
The longer that war continues, the more dangerous it is for everybody. [inaudible 00:16:23] in Ukraine, the longer that war continues, the more dangerous it is for everybody. [inaudible 00:17:12] in Ukraine. The longer that war continues, the more dangerous it is for everybody.

(17:16)
… Jews apparently, why we're putting that group in there. Because the thing is, the insulting, belittling language aside, you're right. There aren't enough trannies in Brooklyn or lesbians in San Francisco to fill the military. There also aren't enough… What's the word here? Young patriotic Christian men who remind us of John Wayne to fill the military either. We are a diverse nation. We need to be inclusive, and we need to not actively insult people who don't happen to fit our preconceived notion of what a member of the military should look like. So we're at a situation now where the military is denigrating Medgar Evers who died standing up for the values that I think are central to our country.

(19:08)
One of the things I love about the military is service above self. It's such an important message that everyone who serves [inaudible 00:19:15] says that. No one I can think of personifies that more than Medgar Evers. Instead, we're going to go back to renaming the bases after the Confederates. Now, I know, apparently you spent a lot of time finding other names that applied to people who actually did serve this country honorably, but President Trump, just was it yesterday, two days ago now, down at Fort Bragg when he blatantly politicized the United States military, as they like to say, said the quiet part out loud, that those bases are being renamed for the Confederates. So we honor white supremacist, slave-owning insurrectionists who lost, by the way they're losers, instead of Medgar Evers.

(19:56)
Can we please just stop and get back to the business of treating everybody equally and with respect? A fear of a left-wing cultural revolution is not solved by launching a right-wing cultural revolution. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Mr. Rogers (20:14):

I thank the ranking member, and now I'd like to introduce our witnesses all before us for the first time. General Caine, have you be been before the committee before?

General Caine (20:22):

No, sir.

Mr. Rogers (20:23):

I didn't think so. Well, welcome. Glad to have you. First we have the Honorable Pete Hegseth, secretary of defense. We have General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And accompanying our witnesses is Ms. Bryn MacDonnell, acting DOD comptroller who is here to assist in answering our questions. Welcome. First, we'll start with you Mr. Secretary. You're recognized.

Secretary Hegseth (20:49):

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify in full support of President Trump's proposed Fiscal Year 2026 Budget for the Department of Defense. I'm honored to testify today alongside General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Bryn MacDonald, who's performing the duties of DOD's comptroller and chief financial officer. We are very proud to represent and serve our warriors and their families, and today, as they do every day, they're keeping America safe. They're defending our homeland. They're standing up to Communist China. They're working hand in glove with our allies and partners. They are achieving peace through strength. I'd like to start today by thanking this committee and Congress for your bipartisan leadership to give our troops a big pay raise in 2025. This included an additional 10.5% raise for our junior enlisted service members, E-1 to E-4. Thank you also for supporting other initiatives that improve the quality of life for our warriors and their families. With a focus on our troops and their loved ones, we have directed additional actions that will further improve their quality of life. These include making historic investments in this budget to improve living conditions in barracks and base housing, reforming the PCS process to reduce the cost and stress of moves for military families, and improving the quality of the care provided by our defense healthcare system.

(22:20)
The best part of our job is meeting and interacting with troops and their families. We hear their concerns. I know how it feels to face these challenges. I've been there recently. Each of these initiatives responds to feedback we have received from the force. We will keep listening and keep looking for ways to improve their quality of life.

(22:43)
Under President Trump's leadership, this budget puts America first and gives our warriors what they need. The $961 billion budget request, more than 1 trillion in total for national security, ends four years of chronic underinvestment in our military. Now, as is customary with first-year administration budget releases, additional time was necessary to implement this president's initiatives. In the last four months, we've moved quickly to reverse course after four years of weakness and mismanagement. In that 8% exercise, we found nearly 30 billion in savings across the department, which we reinvested. We killed wasteful programs, targeted bureaucratic excess, and redirected funding from Biden-era priorities to President Trump's priorities. Working with the Department of Homeland Security, we have increased border security. We reduced China's malign influence in our hemisphere. We defended freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. However, we still have a lot of work ahead of us to achieve peace through strength, a lot of deferred maintenance to catch up on.

(23:54)
To carry out the president's mission, we have set three priorities for the department, restore the warrior ethos, rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence. First, we are restoring the warrior ethos. President Trump charged me to focus relentlessly on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy standards and readiness, and that is exactly what we've done since day one. We are refocusing on what is truly important, which is warfighting and our warriors, sweeping away distractions and bureaucracy. We are setting standards that are high, equal and unwavering. DEI is dead. We replaced it with a colorblind, gender-neutral, merit-based approach. Our force is responding incredibly to these changes. Because of President Trump and his America First priorities, recruitment and retention under this administration are higher than they've been in decades. Historic numbers of young Americans are putting on the uniform and raising their right hand because they believe in the leadership they see. This budget provides a historic level of funding for military readiness, putting our warfighters and their needs first.

(25:14)
Second, we are rebuilding our military. 25 years ago, our military was unchallenged, yet we squandered that advantage as China carried out an unprecedented military buildup. President Trump, as he did in his first term, is correcting those mistakes and we're doing this by, as was mentioned multiple times, reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisitions process and working with Congress to do so, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies and new weapons so our warfighters can meet the challenges of an evolving nature of warfare. This budget invests 25 billion in Golden Dome for America, a down payment on President Trump's priority to defend our homeland. It also commits more than $62 billion to modernize and sustain our nuclear forces as we face rising nuclear dangers. The budget allocates 3.5 billion for the F-47, the world's first sixth-generation air superiority fighter. The budget will also revitalize our shipbuilding industrial base with 6 billion in funding in F26, bringing it to 47 billion in total we request for shipbuilding after neglect from the previous administration.

(26:28)
The budget also significantly increases funds to buy next-generation technologies that we need now and into the future, autonomous systems, long-range drones, long-range fires and hypersonics. We will put these capabilities in the hands of our military. These steps will help us remain the strongest and most lethal fighting force in the world for generations to come. And third, we are re-establishing deterrence. When an opponent sees our well-equipped and tough-as-nails warriors, they will decide that today is not the day to test US resolve. Credible deterrence starts at home. It starts with securing our borders. We will achieve 100% operational control of our southern border and to that end, illegal crossings under the Trump administration have decreased 99.9%.

(27:20)
The Indo-Pacific is our priority theater and China is our pacing threat. That's why I've traveled to the Indo-Pacific twice already to visit our forces and meet with allies and partners. As we shift our focus to the Indo-Pacific, President Trump looks to our allies and partners to be force multipliers alongside the United States, and we are making progress on those fronts. We applaud allies who are stepping up, but others need to do more and they need to do it quickly. And at the NATO heads of state meeting later this month, we expect our NATO allies to commit to 5% of GDP on defense and defense-related investments, something that was almost inconceivable before President Trump led the charge in his first administration and continues in this one. As the president has rightly pointed out, it is only fair that our allies and partners do their part. We can't want their security more than they do.

(28:16)
The Department of Defense is executing a common-sense agenda to achieve peace through strength. The threats we face are serious. Our investments to counter them must also be. That's what this budget does. It matches capabilities to threats. While we long for peace, we prepare for war and we must overcome decades of neglect and decline. We must fortify our position as the world's most lethal fighting force, and that means acting fast as our opponents are. This committee is our critical partner in everything we do, and we appreciate your leadership and oversight. We look forward to accomplishing these goals, to achieving peace through strength, to supporting our warriors, to protecting our citizens and our taxpayers, together with you. May God grant us the wisdom to see what is right and the courage to do it. Thank you.

Mr. Rogers (29:08):

I thank the Secretary. General Caine, you're recognized for five minutes to summarize your opening statement.

General Caine (29:15):

Chair Rogers, thank you. Sir Ranking Member Smith, other members of the committee, I'm honored to join the secretary here today and Ms. Bryn MacDonald to appear before you to testify on the president's FY26 budget. Today's hearing reflects our shared commitment to maximize efficiency, accountability, and lethality and survivability through the investments that you make in us, ensuring every expenditure increases the survivability of the joint force, and providing our warfighters the advanced capabilities, cutting-edge technologies required to dominate our adversaries at scale.

(29:56)
I've got deep gratitude for everyone in this room and your commitment to helping us deliver the capability and capacity of our joint force and the 2.8 million service members, civilians, and their families, to help us deliver the peace through strength that the secretary talked about is very important and I'm very thankful. It's my responsibility as chairman to understand the global situation, integrate the joint force to confront and manage risk worldwide, and ultimately advise our leaders. This demands a comprehensive understanding across every domain, land, sea, air, cyber, space, undersea, and all military services in every region of the globe, and frankly, all time horizons. It also requires making hard, informed decisions, which we advise on in order to prioritize the finite taxpayer dollars that we have, to ensure the greatest impact and capability for our joint warfighters across the globe.

(31:06)
The president's budget enables the joint force to defend our great nation from adversaries seeking to do us harms. We are relentless in our pursuit of innovation and technology that allows us to deter and if need be, win the wars of the future at every opportunity, while ensuring that we learn from the battlefields of the past and position ourselves for the battlefields of the future. This budget empowers the joint force to get after the secretary's three pillars as he just talked about, restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military and reestablishing our deterrence, and ensures our joint force is properly armed, globally integrated and ready while doing our number one job of protecting our homeland.

(31:52)
The president's budget invests in our warfighters. As I said, to win on the battlefields of the future, we've got to be properly armed with the right capabilities, lethal, modern, reliable, and survivable at scale. Victory requires people and platforms that overmatch the enemy, systems that work together in the harshest conditions, and technologies that give our warfighters an advantage at the tactical edge. The budget gives us necessary tools to reinvigorate our national and defense industrial base. Our nation is full of incredible entrepreneurial talent and we need every bit of it to support the increasing demands of the warfighters. This budget also helps the joint force become more globally integrated. I think of us as relationship entrepreneurs in the joint force, not only working together in the military, but working with our allies and partners, the interagency, industry and of course, Congress, before crisis begins and before conflict comes upon us. Finally, the president's budget reflects our mandate to stay ready, always be on the account, anticipating the next fight and getting out in front of it so that we're best prepared for our warfighters and their families. The most important component of our joint force is our people. This budget makes meaningful investments in our service members and their families, improving the quality of life of our service members, medical care and things important to them like the moving process. As I mentioned, our people are the most important part of this, and it's an honor every day for me to serve alongside some of the most extraordinary warriors, civilian teammates, and families our nation has ever known.

(33:46)
I assure this committee that the force remains ready, capable to defend this nation, but we've got some work to do. With your continued support and prudent investment, we will maintain our competitive edge, strengthen our advantage, and ensure that our men and women in uniform are equipped with the right capability. I also remain thoughtful of those currently deployed right now and their families, who stand the watch around the world, quietly serving to do our nation's work so that we can be here in this room right now. And I also hold a special remembrance for our fallen and their families, who continue to show us every day what real courage and tenacity looks like. I thank the Congress and this committee for your support and collaboration in our shared commitment to deliver peace through strength. I look forward to your questions and again, I'm honored to be here.

Mr. Rogers (34:49):

I thank the witnesses and I now recognize myself for the first questions. Secretary Hegseth, you've talked with me about this. We both

Mr. Rogers (35:00):

No, the president has a peace through strength agenda and he's serious about it. And as I have talked to you about this, we are at the lowest level of defense spending as a nation in 80 years, and that has got to change. And I think that you and the president have sent a strong signal about wanting to get after that and change it with this year's proposed spending that includes the reconciliation package, which will put us over a trillion dollars.

(35:26)
It's a great first step, but as you and I both know, it's a one year, we are going to have to see continued funding, in my opinion, and growth in that top line in the out years. Do you share that opinion?

Secretary Hegseth (35:44):

Well, Mr. Chairman, the baseline of our planning process for FY '26 was working with our partners in OSD and the COCOMs and elsewhere identifying the threats that exist, the priorities of the administration and what we need to spend to make sure we have those capabilities. And that was a reorientation from the previous approach to the previous administration. So that included exercises where we looked at reductions, where we could reinvest those into different priorities.

(36:11)
So when we look at the two bills in one budget that add up to $961 billion and over a trillion, truly a historic investment, 13% increase, that was our statement to the president of what we think we need in order to spend and invest in ways that are postured for now and into the future. And what I would commit to you into this committee is that in FY '27 and '28 and '29 in this administration, we will perform the same exercise, knowing that threats…

(36:41)
We believe that the policies of this administration will lead to peace and more opportunities, but as our adversaries continue to increase their capabilities and we learn about what's happening on the battlefield, that will lead to commensurate increases in ours. So we anticipate through that review that there probably will be increases, but I wouldn't put a number to it in the future.

Mr. Rogers (37:01):

Thank you. I just shared the president's commitment that every NATO member nation should reach 5% of its GDP, and that includes us. And I think we can do it by the end of this president's term and I'm determined to help him get there. Secretary Hegseth, at the president's direction, you're developing a plan on reforms of DOD acquisition. Just so happens we are too. You may have heard of the Speed Act. It's a bipartisan, bicameral effort. As you develop your plan, what problems have you identified with acquisition reform that need attention?

Secretary Hegseth (37:38):

Well, our new Under Secretary for the A&S was just confirmed, Mike Duffy. He's doing a fantastic job. He's diving right into this to include the Speed Act which we're reviewing in real time that identifies a lot of the same problems. We have streamlining processes, consolidating, we need competition and actual new entrance into acquisitions in a stale process. It's too bureaucratic, there are too many gatekeepers. Too many programs are gold-plated, which add to cost overruns and they're late to need.

(38:08)
So throughout the entire process we've reached out to industry and to innovators and to outside-the-box thinkers and said, "What would you do? How have you looked at this problem to include this committee? How would you attack this so that we can get what we need in the hands of war fighters faster?"

(38:22)
It's unacceptable in this real-time world we live in where you've got off-the-shelf capabilities and open architecture opportunities and you can do virtual design of products that you don't have to build a hard copy that we're not doing it faster. So everything necessary we want and we're going as fast as we can.

Mr. Rogers (38:42):

Great, thank you. General Caine, as you know, there's been a lot of dialogue around here about selling off some of our spectrum. Can you talk to us about the importance of preserving the spectrum around the lines that the DOD uses?

General Caine (38:57):

You bet, sir. Spectrum is a critical part of our war fighting enablers and as the administration and the Congress carefully consider the slices that we must preserve, there are certain areas within that that my military advice to the secretary and others is to hang onto that. I'm grateful that the deputy has been really leading this effort with the Congress and to measure risk.

(39:24)
I understand that economic security is also national security, so the truth is always somewhere in the middle, but there are some segments in the lower end that frankly I would strongly recommend we preserve and protect for defense matters.

Mr. Rogers (39:38):

I raised that because I want you to know, we're going to be taking our cues from you and if you're against it, I'm going to be against it. With that, I yield back and recognize the ranking member.

Mr. Smith (39:49):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just on the budget point, I made this point before the committee, before the House just passed a budget that adds nearly $3 trillion to an already out of control debt. So if we do really want to spend money on defense or anywhere else, we ought to be willing to pay for it. And this certainly go back through generations of bipartisan problems with this.

(40:09)
You can't have a debt that size and keep coming back talking about how much money you're going to spend, whether it's defense or whatever your priorities are. And Mr. Secretary, you said the 99% down on border crossings and the border is secure. At the same time, we're going to take a billion dollars out of the MILCON budget out of building barracks to send it for the border and there's another 4,000 troops that we're planning on sending down to the border. Given that the border is secure, might you rethink that spending?

Secretary Hegseth (40:44):

Well, sir, we are securing it. It is secure, but it's a manpower-intensive effort at the beginning.

Mr. Smith (40:50):

Those are two different words there. It's either secure or insecure. And it sounded to me like you said it was secure.

Secretary Hegseth (40:55):

It is secure.

Mr. Smith (40:56):

Okay.

Secretary Hegseth (40:56):

And what we're continuing to do is expand that and fortify it through infrastructure, which is a big part of the budget on the Department of Homeland Security side as well. So that billion dollars you're talking about was from the CR in FY '25. We fully fund that back and more in FY '26 with a recognition that we were dealing with the world as it existed when we came. In and the previous administration said they needed new legislation to secure the border. It turns out you just needed a new president.

Mr. Smith (41:22):

I would point out that you have not submitted-

Secretary Hegseth (41:25):

And a president with a Defense Department and DHS that was willing to go to the border and actually secure it, which is what we-

Mr. Smith (41:28):

You have not submitted a budget yet, so whether or not you're putting that money back in remains to be seen. You have definitely taken it out, and I think the obsession there… And I don't disagree, the border needed to be secure, but from a pure budget standpoint, let's just not keep the political focus on that, let's make sure that we're funding some of the other priorities that we have.

(41:50)
So when it comes back to acquisition reform, in the Chairman's point, it's our committee, certainly Congress is part of the problem. We set up a lot of requirements. Defense contractors are part of the problem. I'm curious, how would you get after reforming the culture at the Pentagon so that you can move faster, number one? And number two, how would you get after the defense contractors that push the requirements process, and specifically, what would you do about the requirements process to try to speed things up?

Secretary Hegseth (42:19):

Well, first of all, I think gold plating is a real problem, sir across the department.

Mr. Smith (42:27):

Interesting to use the word gold to this particular context, but yes, I agree with you actually.

Secretary Hegseth (42:31):

We maybe could use a little bit more silver plating on occasion. A recognition that the 99% solution is oftentimes the enemy of the 85% solution that delivers two years sooner. And that's contractors and other companies wanting to do right, but trying to do too much and over promise and then they're under delivering and we're fighting for-

Mr. Smith (42:50):

Not always wanting to do right. In some cases, just wanting to make money, but yes.

Secretary Hegseth (42:54):

Not always. The change is also in acquisitions about people. You need reformers in these positions. I'm here to be a disruptor of those processes. Our deputy secretary has extensive business experience. The types of people we're bringing in as under secretaries have been disruptors and innovators in the private sector who recognize that bureaucracy can be dysfunctional and needs to be disrupted.

(43:16)
So it's taking outside the box, unique approaches. Virtual design is a big example. How many times are we going to build something physically that takes a year to build when you could use AI and computing power, design it virtually, identify the flaws and move more quickly? Or create open architecture so you can move systems between-

Mr. Smith (43:34):

Our committee stands ready to work with you on that.

Secretary Hegseth (43:36):

There's 500 different-

Mr. Smith (43:36):

One final question.

Secretary Hegseth (43:39):

… we can do and we're doing them.

Mr. Smith (43:39):

Yeah. And I'm sincerely concerned about this. Is it the policy of the Department of Defense that we need to be prepared to take Greenland and Panama by force if necessary? Is this a policy that you have within the Department of Defense in accordance with the president's wishes?

Secretary Hegseth (43:56):

I heard what you said about those two countries and saying, "We need to worry about China." Well, we are worried about China.

Mr. Smith (44:05):

That wasn't my concern.

Secretary Hegseth (44:06):

China's malign influence in Panama.

Mr. Smith (44:08):

I was concerned with us saying-

Secretary Hegseth (44:09):

The recognition that China has control of the force or malign influence over the Panama.

Mr. Smith (44:10):

… that using military force to take another country's territory.

Secretary Hegseth (44:13):

We should pay attention to that.

Mr. Smith (44:14):

Right.

Secretary Hegseth (44:15):

So Panama is very key terrain that we've focused on and we've been willing to focus on, as is Greenland

Mr. Smith (44:19):

So we should take it by military force? They're important. I'm not going argue with that. I'm arguing with the use of our military to take it by force.

Secretary Hegseth (44:27):

Our job at the DOD is to have plans.

Mr. Smith (44:30):

Do you have a plan for that?

Secretary Hegseth (44:32):

Our job at the Defense Department is to have plans for any particular contingency.

Mr. Smith (44:36):

Including the contingency of basically invading Denmark?

Secretary Hegseth (44:39):

Any contingency you need, we've got it. We've got a building full of planners and we're prepared to give recommendations whenever needed.

Mr. Smith (44:45):

So just be clear, you have plans to take Panama and Greenland by force if necessary?

Secretary Hegseth (44:50):

I think the American people would want the Pentagon to have plans for any particular contingency.

Mr. Smith (44:55):

Not for that.

Secretary Hegseth (44:56):

And thankfully, we are in the planning business.

Mr. Smith (44:58):

Speaking on behalf of the American people, I don't think the American people voted for President Trump 'cause they were hoping we would invade Greenland. I'm going to go out on a limb on that one. I yield back.

Mr. Rogers (45:08):

Gentleman South Carolina, Mr. Wilson is recognized.

Mr. Wilson (45:11):

Thank you very much, Chairman Mike Rogers for your visionary leadership. And indeed each witness, thank you for your service to America. And in particular, Mr. Secretary, your service is so appreciated and I'm especially grateful as the son of a Flying Tiger who helped liberate China, as the father of four sons who have served in Iraq, Egypt, Italy, and Afghanistan, as a 31-year army veteran myself.

(45:35)
Your leadership for peace through strength is crucial. And I believe we're in a Cold War we did not choose of dictators with rule of gun invading democracies with rule of law. It began with war criminal Putin invading Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, and then Iranian puppets invading Israel on October 7th, 2023, with the Chinese Communist Party threatening Taiwan.

(45:58)
President Trump tried to deter war criminal Putin in his first term with javelin missiles to Ukraine, American troops in Poland, and stopping Nord Stream 2. But Putin ignored Trump, and defying Biden, has continued his efforts. Upon election of Trump, there were hopes for peace, but Putin insulted Trump with the murderous attacks at Christmas and New Year's.

(46:24)
Every time President Trump tries to reduce the conflict, war criminal Putin increases mass murder of drones and missile attacks on the people and civilians of Ukraine, including hospitals this week. War criminal Putin is clearly fixated to resurrect the failed Soviet Union with troops still in Transnistria or Moldova, rigging elections in Belarus, invading the Republic of Georgia and rigging elections against the legitimate president Salome Zourabichvili of Georgia.

(46:55)
Additionally, there have been new threats this week against the Baltic Republics, our NATO allies. Every outreach by Trump has been mocked by Putin. With that in mind, an incredible achievement of President Trump is to awaken our NATO allies, now including Sweden and Finland, that with Germany pledging now 5% remarkably.

(47:18)
And 17 of our allies now provide a larger GDP support for the people of Ukraine than the United States because of President Trump's encouragement. What is the latest status on encouraging our NATO allies of providing for peace through strength?

Secretary Hegseth (47:38):

Thank you for the question, sir. The one thing I would take issue with is the characterization that Vladimir Putin ignored President Trump. I think Vladimir Putin paid a lot of attention to President Trump in his first term, and that's why the invasion did not happen under President Trump's watch. Instead, under the weakness and sickness of Joe Biden-

Mr. Wilson (47:55):

Ignored and proceeded to-

Secretary Hegseth (48:00):

He paid attention under President Trump. And then when Joe Biden was in the office-

Mr. Wilson (48:04):

But it really set the stage, sadly, that if he had really appreciated what President Trump was trying to do, he wouldn't have invaded again, whether Biden's president or not.

Secretary Hegseth (48:16):

But to your question about Europe.

Mr. Wilson (48:18):

Yes.

Secretary Hegseth (48:19):

President Trump has invigorated a truly historic investment amongst NATO allies to shoulder the burden of the defense of the continent of Europe. Vladimir Putin saw what he believed to be weakness, and I believe President Trump has stood up to that by reminding our allies that they need to spend on their own defense and ensure that they're able to shoulder the burden to defend the continent. That's been a good development.

Mr. Wilson (48:46):

And indeed. I was grateful last February coming back from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe and meeting with the President and I told him how exciting it was to see our allies understand that indeed he supports Ukraine, he supports NATO and peace through strength. And General Caine, particularly appreciate your VMI credentials of professionalism. And with that in mind, we understand that even today, the International Atomic Energy Agency has declared Iran in breach of nonproliferation agreements. And what are we doing to deter the aggression coming from Iran?

General Caine (49:29):

Well, sir, first, I noticed in your bio that you went to that other school in Lexington, which is always hard for me to get my head around, sir.

Mr. Wilson (49:41):

Hey, I grew up in the holy city of Charleston. When I saw VMI's, I thought they were civil cadets.

General Caine (49:45):

Yes, sir. I'm now a joint guy, so I'll keep all those comments to myself, sir. Sir, throughout, the IAEA report is certainly troubling. The international community seems to be thinking about what they're going to do about it and as are we, watching this situation develop and carefully monitoring the report.

Mr. Rogers (50:12):

Gentleman's time's expired. [inaudible 00:50:15] Connecticut, Mr. Courtney.

Mr. Courtney (50:16):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, this morning, the eyes of our closest allies, UK and Australia, are on your department as a result of Under Secretary of Policy, Elbridge Colby announcement last night that he's launching a 30-day review of the Trilateral AUKUS mission. I would just note that it's not just their eyes, it's our eyes in this committee.

(50:43)
In 2023 by a vote of 310 to a small minority, we passed the AUKUS authorities and followed up on that in terms of AUKUS investments in the billions of dollars into our submarine industrial base. Australia has reciprocated, as you know, with its own investments in our submarine industrial base.

(51:05)
And since then, since 2023, what we've seen that the three countries working together that we now have well over 100 Australian sailors and naval officers that have gone through joint training. I've seen them in my district at graduation ceremonies, they're joint crewing. Virginia-class submarines. We also have joint US-Australian submarine repair work that's happening in Guam and Hawaii.

(51:31)
And our submarine industrial base last year delivered to Virginia-class attack submarines. They're the New Jersey and Iowa. This year, it'll be Massachusetts and Idaho. And the year following, it's going to be Arkansas and the Utah are going to be delivered during that three-year period. General Caine, how many nuclear-powered attack submarines is in the Chinese Navy? Do you know that answer?

General Caine (52:00):

It's nuclear-powered attack boats. It's-

Mr. Courtney (52:04):

How many attack nuclear-powered?

General Caine (52:07):

Many. I'll get you the number.

Mr. Courtney (52:09):

Well, the answer is six.

General Caine (52:10):

Yes, sir.

Mr. Courtney (52:11):

Okay? So what we've seen in the industrial base is that last year, this year and next year, we're going to be delivering that identical number. They're building a seventh. You can check the Wall Street Journal and you can see where that boat ended up at the bottom of the Yangtze River because of their inability to actually do the hard work of building nuclear-powered submarines, which is probably one of the most complex undertakings in really industry of any sort.

(52:40)
Again, the Australians are investing in Perth and so that we are going to have rotations of Virginia-class submarines that are already started to happen. Admiral Paparo testified in vocal support of AUKUS when he came before this committee just a few weeks ago. And again, I would just say there is nothing wrong with reviewing any program. We're all accountable, anything of this magnitude certainly deserves review.

(53:08)
But a 30-day review on a project that really took years to develop, in which this committee was instrumental in terms of enabling and in my opinion, China's reaction to AUKUS is the ultimate endorsement of AUKUS because they hate it. And the one commitment I would ask, Mr. Secretary, is just your commitment that this committee in Congress is going to be integrally involved in whatever the review process is because we have skin in the game, we have history, and we have allies who really are again, issuing statements this morning.

(53:47)
The Prime Minister of England, Stephen Lovegrove, the special representatives for AUKUS, Richard Marles, putting out statements, trying to reassure their countries that the US is still going to follow through on this commitment. And we want that reassurance as well from you. Can you, again, give us that commitment that Congress will be involved in this review process? And I have one more follow-up question.

Secretary Hegseth (54:13):

As it has been, Congress will be involved, but I've had an ongoing review myself. I've spent a great deal of time-

Mr. Courtney (54:18):

Thank you.

Secretary Hegseth (54:19):

… with Marles and Healy at the Australia and UK-

Mr. Courtney (54:21):

And I've been following your work there.

Secretary Hegseth (54:22):

… reviewing it myself. Secretary Colby's reviewing it. We know that. It's all important to make sure it fits [inaudible 00:54:29]

Mr. Courtney (54:28):

State Department, by the way, has skin in the game too and they should be involved in it as well. I just want to reiterate Mr. Rogers' point and Mr. Smith's point, if we really care about strengthening the industrial base, we need to have procurement stability, which means we need to have a budget, a real budget, not a $20 billion shipbuilding budget, which Senator Wicker just eviscerated a couple of days ago.

(54:53)
That's $17 billion less than the last Biden shipbuilding budget. That's what got sent over to us. And again, that's the way. And I represent a district that is the general contractor for both programs. You want to strengthen hiring supply chain and facility growth. You need to have procurement stability. That's not what we're seeing from the Office of Management and Budget. I yield back.

Mr. Rogers (55:17):

Chair now recognize gentlemen from Ohio, Mr. Turner.

Mr. Turner (55:21):

Mr. Secretary, thank you for your written statement and also thank you for your recognition of the importance of our nuclear deterrent, and specifically, our investment in our modernization of our nuclear deterrent. We are behind, as you know, in the modernization of our nuclear stockpile. Your recognition of our investment in our triad and our command and control is incredibly important.

(55:44)
Thank you also for your recognition of our future investment in missile defense and the importance that the Golden Dome will play. The Secretary General of NATO has recently made statements of his concern of Russia's future attempt to place an anti-satellite nuclear weapon into space.

(56:08)
Specifically, he has said, "We are aware of reports that Russia is examining the possibility of placing nuclear weapons in space. This is very worrying. Space is also very important for our deterrence and defense, just as important as land, sea, air and cyberspace. In recent years, space has become increasingly clouded, dangerous and unpredictable. We know that competition in space is fierce."

(56:34)
I recently had the opportunity to speak to him. He was at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in my community as we were commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Peace Accords. His concern was that this is not getting worldwide enough of attention. We had General Saltzman recently in front of the committee. He has characterized that if Russia were to place an anti-satellite nuclear weapon into space, that that would be day zero.

(56:57)
That if that was put in space, that next day, that it would be irresponsible for us to count on space, that we would have to spend trillions of dollars and seek technology that we don't have to find solutions as an alternative to space, both commercially, for military, and really to redo what is really society today. As you know, it would affect both our nuclear deterrence, our efforts for missile defense, even our investments in Golden Dome. In this venue, obviously we can't discuss all of the details of what we're doing, but I would ask if you would please confirm, that this is a threat that is a priority to the Department of Defense as it has been characterized by the Secretary General of NATO and acknowledge that as it is a priority, it is a priority for us to prevent the deployment of nuclear weapons in space and that it is a priority for us to work with our allies to uphold our commitment to the Outer Space Nuclear Treaty that prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons in space. Sir.

Secretary Hegseth (58:05):

Well, thank you for the question, sir. As you alluded to, there are a number of aspects to this question or answer that can't be discussed here, but I would underline our complete commitment to the space domain, to the hardening of the space domain, to prevention of escalations in the space domain, but most importantly, to the dominance of the space domain. It is the future of how we see, it's the future of how we sense. It could be the future of how our adversaries fight and how we deal with that.

(58:35)
So I think President Trump yet again was ahead of the curve when he created the Space Force in his first administration. People said we didn't need it. We are relying on it every single day now to ensure, alongside Space Force and private enterprise, that we're delivering the capabilities we need that are resilient, that are redundant, that are capable of all aspects of all-domain warfare if necessary. And preventing adversaries from gaining an advantage is a huge part of how we look at space.

Mr. Turner (59:05):

This threat is not classified. Russia's threat of deploying an anti-satellite nuclear weapon in space is not classified. Obviously this is a priority of the Department of Defense and I just want your confirmation that this is a priority that you're tracking and you too see that as a threat to the United States and certainly to the United States and our space infrastructure and certainly our whole national security infrastructure.

Secretary Hegseth (59:36):

We track all potential escalations. Yes, sir.

Mr. Turner (59:40):

And lawyer here, I just want to help you out because people try to twist your words. You are not confirming in your testimony today that at the Pentagon there are plans for invading or taking by force Greenland, correct? That is not your testimony today?

Secretary Hegseth (01:00:00):

All my testimony is is that the Pentagon has plans for any number of contingencies.

Mr. Turner (01:00:05):

It is not your testimony today that there are plans at the Pentagon for taking by force or invading Greenland, correct? Because I sure as hell hope that it is not your testimony.

Secretary Hegseth (01:00:15):

We look forward to working with Greenland to ensure that it is secured from any potential threats.

Mr. Turner (01:00:21):

Excellent. I yield back.

Mr. Rogers (01:00:24):

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Garamendi.

Mr. Garamendi (01:00:28):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for your opening statement, your concerns about Ukraine and the budget issues. Mr. Secretary, in your opening statement, you spoke to the issue of cutting waste and abuse at the Pentagon. I assume you intend to do that. Is that correct? Yes? No?

Secretary Hegseth (01:00:47):

We have done that, sir.

Mr. Garamendi (01:00:48):

All right. And therefore it must be your responsibility. I want to bring to your attention a statement that the president made in early February. He said, "There is no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many, you could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons and they're building new nuclear weapons. We're all spending a lot of money that we could spend on other things that are actually hopefully much more productive."

(01:01:19)
So I'd like to focus for a few moments on one of the most expensive programs at the Department of Defense, the Sentinel ICBM, which is to replace the Minuteman III. The cost of this program has exploded from 78 billion to over 141 billion, not including a new nuclear bomb for the Sentinel and the command and control systems, which were to add somewhere $20 to $40 billion. All the while, we have a Minuteman III that can continue to provide the ground leg of the triad for at least 10 to 15 more years. Should we cut the Sentinel program?

Secretary Hegseth (01:01:59):

While President Trump is correct to point out the proliferation is very dangerous, but he has also, in his budget, ensured we fully fund the nuclear triad, every aspect of it in a historic way. The Sentinel as one leg of it. And that modernization is critically important. As you know, it faces a Nunn-McCurdy breach for being behind and as a result, it has to be reviewed. But it's incredibly important. And so our budget does look at it [inaudible 01:02:28] to-

Mr. Garamendi (01:02:28):

Excuse me sir. So you have made a decision to continue even though the review is incomplete?

Secretary Hegseth (01:02:32):

The review is ongoing. The investments we've made allow us to continue should the review come out the way we hope it does.

Mr. Garamendi (01:02:40):

The answer was you continue the Sentinel program even though the Nunn-McCurdy review is incomplete. I'd like now to move over to Ukraine. The chairman of this committee spoke very strongly about the Ukraine situation and the necessity of the United States being strong in support of Ukraine. It's very, very clear that a review of what Mr. Putin has said over the last two decades that he is determined to reestablish the Soviet Empire and Ukraine is the current step to achieve that.

(01:03:17)
Ukraine's security is our security, my view. And what is dangerous for Ukraine will be dangerous for NATO and therefore, dangerous to the United States. Two days ago, in response to Senator McConnell, who asked, "Which side of the Ukraine conflict do you want to win?" And you said, "The President is committed to peace in that conflict. Ultimately, peace serves our national interest and we think it serves the interest of both parties even though that outcome will not be preferable to many in this room."

(01:03:54)
At that time, the Senate. And I would also say this room too. " Preferable to many in this room and many in our countries." Mr. Secretary, when you said that peace serves our national interest, does that peace come from a complete surrender of Ukraine and total victory for Russia?

Secretary Hegseth (01:04:22):

That's never been a characterization of my statement, sir. We think peace is in the best interest, but I would point out, Ukraine is not the US and Ukraine is not in NATO. And to draw that comparison is to draw one that is not correct. But we hope for peace. We believe peace is in the best interest of the United States of America and our policies are pointed towards that.

Mr. Garamendi (01:04:42):

Well, let me go back to what I asked you. Could the achievement of that peace through the complete surrender of Ukraine and the withdrawal of US support for Ukraine, is that a worthy peace? And is that peace in the long-term and actually, the short-term interest of the United States?

Secretary Hegseth (01:05:09):

If you look at the billions of dollars that have been invested in Ukraine, you could hardly characterize that as a surrender from the United States. So the existing military frontline of troops is as difficult that as it is moving slowly. Where peace ends, at the end of that, nobody really knows. But the president has worked harder than anybody else to try to get a peaceful outcome.

Mr. Rogers (01:05:31):

The gentleman's time has expired. Chair now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Wittman.

Mr. Wittman (01:05:35):

Well, thank you Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank our witnesses for joining us today. Secretary Hegseth, Chairman Caine, Mrs. MacDonnell, thank you. Thank you for the incredible job that you all are doing. Secretary Hegseth, I want to begin with you and talk about all the efforts that went into the defense portion of the one big, beautiful bill and making sure that we're getting all the pieces of this correct.

(01:05:53)
Lots of back and forth and we know that there's a long-term need to make sure that we get this right and we want to make sure too, as we look at priorities from all the different bodies, that we are assuring that those are continued on as the process takes place. We know there's going to be additional investments in things like shipbuilding and ground vehicles and we've also made substantial investments in modernization, including things like golden Dome, things that are critical to this nation's future.

(01:06:22)
I just wanted to get from you, can you assure the committee that of the $150 billion that's here, that it is going to be laid out and spent in exact alignment with what the committee has laid out really on a line by line basis?

Secretary Hegseth (01:06:42):

Well sir, I can refer to Bryn on that for the details, but you will have a complete reckoning and many of it, the committee already does have, of what we intend to spend and where. But from our viewpoint, it's two bills, one budget and ultimately we've worked with the committee and we'll continue to, to ensure that every priority is funded either through the base bill or through reconciliation. But I defer to Bryn.

Bryn (01:07:04):

Yeah, no, just concur with the secretary. We've worked very well with Chairman Rogers' staff and with Senator Wicker's staff on it as well. And we'll continue to do so now that the data of the budget is released.

Mr. Wittman (01:07:13):

That's great. Listen, I think it's key, especially since there are a lot of different moving parts here, to make sure that we're all in alignment with that. Yesterday Admiral Kilby confirmed that the US Navy still needs a six generation fighter, that F/A-XX is still critically important. And earlier this year in our Tactical Air and Land Subcommittee, we received a lot of testimony about the continued requirement need for F/A-XX, the Navy's unique need to have that fighter that is able to function in a highly contested environment, having the ability to deal with even more ability for our adversaries to sense that aircraft. We know that in the FY '25 CR, there was $453.8 million put towards that, I'll get the number right, and in reconciliation of $500 million.

(01:08:06)
So you can see Congress is consistently pushing ahead and saying, "This is where we need to go." And we'd be a little surprised if the support for this fell off, especially since we're looking at the requirements and not seeing any change there. So General Caine, I wanted to get from you, do you still see the requirements for F/A-XX being the same today as it's been developed through the recent months by the Navy to project and say, this is what the Navy needs in order to have that ability to provide a tactical air presence in places like the South China Sea and elsewhere where that environment's going to be highly contested?

General Caine (01:08:45):

Congressman, thanks for the question. And as we look at the threat picture out in the Pacific, the requirements themselves, I think, are still valid. I think it comes down to a question that many of the folks on the committee have talked about, and that's the ability to produce at a particular time. And I'll defer to my civilian leaders on the timing and synchronization of that program, but we do need capability that is mobile, whether it's F/A-XX or others that enable us to win on the battlefield to the future. I'll defer to the secretary and Bryn for policy related stuff on this synchronization.

Mr. Wittman (01:09:24):

Well, Secretary, I'll ask in addition to that, I think to build on Chairman Caine's comments, has the Pentagon's plans changed? Because since April, and especially in our subcommittee, we've looked very, very specifically about this need, looking at NGAD, which presidents made a decision on, but then looking at the Navy's need, can you tell us, are things continued on track for F/A-XX? Are there any changes there?

Secretary Hegseth (01:09:49):

Well, sir, as you know, certainly we have adjusted the way we see the world from the Biden administration through interim national defense strategy and planning guidance. That's what went into the decision that we made on F-47 or NGAD, and this

Secretary Hegseth (01:10:00):

… 47 or NGAD and this budget has a significant investment in that. FY26 funds, the complete design of F/A-XX, we're certainly reviewing it, working with the joint staff, working with the COCOMs at its application around the globe. It's in the mix, but we recognize we also need a capability as quickly as possible for the threats that we face.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):

Very good. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):

The gentlemen yields back. The chair now recognizes a gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Moulton.

Mr. Moulton (01:10:30):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Secretary Hegseth, I'd like to clarify a few important details for the record. When you texted the launch time for F-18s going into combat over enemy territory, facing anti-aircraft missiles on an unclassified Signal chat, did that launch time come from central command, yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (01:10:52):

I know what you're referring to and there were no targets or locations-

Mr. Moulton (01:10:55):

It's a very simple question. Did it come from central command?

Secretary Hegseth (01:10:59):

Well, in this committee, no way in which I communicate or what I communicate on a successful strike is something that I would share.

Mr. Moulton (01:11:06):

You can't even identify the combatant command under which this operation occurred?

Secretary Hegseth (01:11:10):

Well, everybody knows the-

Mr. Moulton (01:11:11):

Everyone knows the Central Command, so when Central Command sent you this information, did they send it on a classified system or an unclassified system?

Secretary Hegseth (01:11:19):

Well, as you know, having served yourself, any way that the Secretary of Defense communicates or provides information in and of itself is classified and not to be discussed.

Mr. Moulton (01:11:29):

What was the classification marking of the launch time when it was sent to you? Because DOD regulations require information on classified systems to be marked.

Secretary Hegseth (01:11:39):

What was the classification mark time?

Mr. Moulton (01:11:41):

Yeah, what was the classification marking? Because-

Secretary Hegseth (01:11:44):

Again, classifications of any information in an ongoing operation that was successful or not, things that would be disclosed in a public forum.

Mr. Moulton (01:11:51):

You can very well disclose whether or not it was classified. It's not classified to disclose whether or not it was classified. And in fact, DOD regulations state that any classified information has to be labeled with its classification. Was it classified secret or top secret?

Secretary Hegseth (01:12:08):

What's not classified is that it was an incredibly successful mission against the Houthis.

Mr. Moulton (01:12:13):

Okay, so it was classified. Are you asserting, are you trying to say that the information was unclassified?

Secretary Hegseth (01:12:20):

I'm not trying to say anything.

Mr. Moulton (01:12:22):

Okay, that's what I thought. You're not saying that. You took classified information from Central Command that had a classification marking on it because that's what's required by DOD regulations and you put it on an unclassified system. We're going to get a report in a few days from the DOD Inspector General and if the DOD Inspector General finds what is pretty obvious both to you smiling there in the witness seat and to all of us up here that the information was in fact classified, do you plan to take any accountability for that?

Secretary Hegseth (01:12:51):

As I pointed out at the time-

Mr. Moulton (01:12:52):

You said that accountability is back. Does that not apply to you?

Secretary Hegseth (01:12:56):

As I said at the time, Congressman, there were no names, targets, locations, units, routes, sources, methods, no classified information.

Mr. Moulton (01:13:05):

If it comes back that it is classified, will you take accountability or not? We've already established, you've already admitted that it was classified because everything you get from CENTCOM is classified. You just explained that to me. That's how you justified not answering the question.

Secretary Hegseth (01:13:20):

That's not what I said. I didn't confirm any classification or clarify-

Mr. Moulton (01:13:24):

If it is confirmed, will you take accountability?

Secretary Hegseth (01:13:25):

What I know is everything I share, everything I talk about as the Secretary of Defense-

Mr. Moulton (01:13:28):

Mr. Secretary, does accountability apply to you or not?

Secretary Hegseth (01:13:31):

… is classified whether I talk or not.

Mr. Moulton (01:13:33):

Does it apply to you or not?

Secretary Hegseth (01:13:35):

Does what apply to me?

Mr. Moulton (01:13:35):

Accountability. You said accountability is back at the Secretary-

Secretary Hegseth (01:13:39):

And you know what? The Houthis were held accountable for shooting at our forces-

Mr. Moulton (01:13:42):

I'm just asking if it applies to you.

Secretary Hegseth (01:13:43):

… very successfully.

Mr. Moulton (01:13:44):

I'm not asking about the Houthis.

Secretary Hegseth (01:13:45):

Previous administration let our ships get shot at and nothing was done about it and thankfully because of the skill and courage of our troops on the battlefield-

Mr. Moulton (01:13:51):

I'm just asking about-

Secretary Hegseth (01:13:52):

… we actually put them in a place-

Mr. Moulton (01:13:53):

I reclaim my time. I reclaim my time.

Secretary Hegseth (01:13:55):

… where they called for a ceasefire.

Mr. Moulton (01:13:56):

I reclaim my time. I'm just asking if accountability applies to you. It's a very simple question. We use leadership by example.

Secretary Hegseth (01:14:02):

Of course. I serve at the pleasure of the President like everybody else does.

Mr. Moulton (01:14:07):

It only applies to the President, not to you?

Secretary Hegseth (01:14:11):

I serve at the-

Mr. Moulton (01:14:12):

You talked about the success of the Houthi operation. About how much money did it cost? How much money did you spend on missiles shooting at the Houthis?

Secretary Hegseth (01:14:20):

Well, you'd have to compare that with what it cost-

Mr. Moulton (01:14:22):

I'm just asking how much did it cost?

Secretary Hegseth (01:14:24):

… to divert our shipping lanes around-

Mr. Moulton (01:14:25):

I'm told it's several hundred million dollars, maybe close to a billion dollars. How many US flagged commercial ships have transited the Red Sea since your so-called successful operation?

Secretary Hegseth (01:14:34):

Well, thankfully, unlike the previous administration-

Mr. Moulton (01:14:36):

The answer is zero.

Secretary Hegseth (01:14:37):

… military vessels transit-

Mr. Moulton (01:14:39):

No, no, no. I didn't ask about military vessels. I asked about commercial vessels.

Secretary Hegseth (01:14:42):

Well, which would be the precursor for civilian and commercial transit.

Mr. Moulton (01:14:43):

How many commercial vessels? It's been several weeks. How many commercial vessels US flagged have transited the Red Sea?

Secretary Hegseth (01:14:48):

Would you, Mr. Congressman put civilian ships through the dam before military ships?

Mr. Moulton (01:14:50):

The questions are not to me Mr. Secretary, they're to you.

Secretary Hegseth (01:14:52):

We have responsibly put military ships first-

Mr. Moulton (01:14:54):

The answer is zero. I reclaim my time. How many generals and admirals have you fired?

Secretary Hegseth (01:14:59):

I don't know the exact number but-

Mr. Moulton (01:15:01):

You don't know the number? It's eight. Can you explain why any of them were fired? Just explain why was-

Secretary Hegseth (01:15:12):

We all serve at the pleasure of the President and I think-

Mr. Moulton (01:15:14):

No, I'm just asking you why.

Secretary Hegseth (01:15:14):

General Caine is a great example of a-

Mr. Moulton (01:15:16):

I'm just asking you why and you probably learned at Princeton what why means? Why did you fire him?

Secretary Hegseth (01:15:21):

They serve at the pleasure of the President and we wanted better representation in each and every one of those place.

Mr. Moulton (01:15:25):

Why did you fire them? You can't explain why you fired any of them?

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):

The gentleman's time's expired chair and I recognize the gentleman from Georgia Mr. Scott.

Mr. Scott (01:15:34):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Ma'am and Mr. secretary, most of my questions are going to be for General Caine. I will tell you, Mr. Secretary, I would appreciate an opportunity to speak with you offline about a couple of things. I'm from Georgia, spoke with you briefly. I supported Hal and Julia Moore's name remaining on the base, as you know. I support Eisenhower's name remaining on the base. I don't want to go too far into that. I don't want any questions, but I'll tell you this, the selection of Gary Gordon, one of the most valorous heroic acts of any American soldier, certainly in modern times he was one of the two soldiers that went in with a Black Hawk Down Delta snipers that both died there together. I do have a suggestion on that. When the Army has named anything after Gary Gordon, Randall Shughart's name has been tied to the name.

(01:16:34)
The army has historically named things Shughart/Gordon because those two guys went in together, they fought together, they literally died together and the historical accounts cannot figure out which one actually died first. And so if the name in Augusta is going to change back to Gordon, I just respectfully suggest that you consider Shughart/Gordon as the army has historically named other things. You can't tell Gordon's story without Shughart's story. I say that respectfully. General Caine, the communist Chinese party assesses US strength, that our strength lies in our alliances and partnerships. If they believe those ties are fraying, how can we use the Ukraine war to demonstrate US strength, capability and resolve to regain leverage over the Chinese and their assessments of the United States?

General Caine (01:17:32):

Well sir, thanks for your question and first thanks for recognizing two great warriors who showed us what courage and tenacity looked like when you infill into the place that they did on those two MH-60s, knowing full well what they were going to face on that objective and then making the full commitment to give their lives on behalf of an injured teammate. That's what America looks like, so thank you for highlighting that, sir. Bless you, Congressman, by the way.

Mr. Scott (01:18:06):

He's a SEAL, that doesn't work for him.

General Caine (01:18:08):

Yes, sir. Yes sir. I know a lot of SEALs. Sir, I think Mill to Mill, military to military, our relationships with allies and partners around the world remain incredibly important. I'm grateful to serve alongside so many great, not just joint force partners but international partners as well, and I think that the courage and tenacity that our forces out in EUCOM have shown through this journey and the teammates that they've built on both sides of those borders is an example of what we should be doing.

Mr. Scott (01:18:43):

If I can follow up with that, the assessment's Ukraine would survive nine days, 10 days, some 15 days at the outside, but the rapid innovation cycle that they have candidly taught us in some cases how to do, how do we implement that into the US defense industrial base and get our weapons developed as fast and candidly at the cost? Because we cannot afford to pay what we're paying per weapon for what we're going to have to do. And at the same time, how do we develop the defense systems against drones so that we don't lose multi-million-dollar tanks to five-thousand-dollar drones?

General Caine (01:19:33):

Yes sir. Thanks for highlighting the innovative entrepreneurial and diabolical spirit of attack that exists out in that part of the world. And I've been out there and seen what they're doing in terms of drone manufacturing, iterating on the line, linking up with partners, taking the fight to the enemy out there. It's impressive and we've learned from those examples. That same spirit of innovation has come back to the United States and when I think about rebooting our defense industrial base and our national industrial base, I think of it through four Cs and it starts with that culture that you're alluding to about innovation and entrepreneurialism inside combat. The second part is creating some competition and I think that's a key part is you help us do that here in the Congress. Third thing is we got to write better contracts on our side.

Mr. Scott (01:20:30):

100%.

General Caine (01:20:31):

And we have to be better buyers and share the risk as I've talked about with the chairman before and-

Speaker 1 (01:20:37):

The gentleman's time's expired. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Carbajal.

Mr. Carbajal (01:20:41):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. It shouldn't come as no surprise that I have serious concerns with both the deployment of the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles. I served in the Marine Corps. We are trained to be war fighters not for crowd control. Everyone here should be alarmed that the President has sent armed forces into a city against the wishes of a governor and mayor. I'm concerned this administration is purposely escalating the situation with this step and politicizing our armed forces in the process. Let's call it for what it is, it's political theater. Hegseth are the Marines in Los Angeles ordered to protect property by any means necessary?

Secretary Hegseth (01:21:30):

Sir, I would say the ICE officers and police officers being attacked is not political theater, the National Guard and Marines-

Mr. Carbajal (01:21:36):

Just yes or no. Just yes or no.

Secretary Hegseth (01:21:39):

The National Guard and Marines have the full authority to protect federal ICE agents and federal buildings.

Mr. Carbajal (01:21:46):

Yes or no? Can you just say yes or no? This isn't Fox anymore, just yes or no.

Secretary Hegseth (01:21:53):

They're there to protect federal agents and federal-

Mr. Carbajal (01:21:54):

Another BS answer. Under the SRUF, the use of force, are Marines allowed to fire warning shots?

Secretary Hegseth (01:22:05):

No.

Mr. Carbajal (01:22:07):

Now that's more like it. Isn't that easy? I'm going to beat this drum because you refuse to take responsibility. Will you take responsibility for having made a mistake? Not to mention, many people would say break the law in participating in the Signal group chat that included a journalist, your wife, your brother where classified information was shared?

Secretary Hegseth (01:22:34):

Sir, every way I communicate is authorized. Every way I-

Mr. Carbajal (01:22:42):

Okay, if you want to say that. I have called for your resignation. I didn't think you were qualified before your confirmation and you have done nothing to inspire confidence in your ability to lead competently. You broke the law in sharing classified information and in doing so, endangered the lies of our service members that you are responsible for. Your inability to hold yourself accountable makes you incapable to lead, to lead. This alone makes you unfit to be the Secretary of Defense. Secretary, do you think the United States should continue supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia, a nation that is hostile towards the United States?

Secretary Hegseth (01:23:26):

Well, as you know, sir, President Trump is committed to peace.

Mr. Carbajal (01:23:28):

No, I just want yes or no answers. Today that-

Secretary Hegseth (01:23:31):

The United States has spent billions of dollars-

Mr. Carbajal (01:23:33):

Yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (01:23:33):

… supporting Ukraine-

Mr. Carbajal (01:23:34):

Yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (01:23:35):

… over years.

Mr. Carbajal (01:23:35):

Just yes or no. Can I get a yes or no out of you?

Secretary Hegseth (01:23:38):

We continue to send-

Mr. Carbajal (01:23:40):

Come on.

Secretary Hegseth (01:23:41):

… residential drawdowns-

Mr. Carbajal (01:23:42):

It's that easy. Kindergartners can give me a yes or no. Yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (01:23:48):

Yes, we support peace in Ukraine.

Mr. Carbajal (01:23:51):

Come on. Is this really leadership? You're an embarrassment to the United States. If Russia invades NATO allies, are you going to recommend to the President that we fulfill our article five obligations?

Secretary Hegseth (01:24:10):

Well, Russia has not invaded NATO allies.

Mr. Carbajal (01:24:12):

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Secretary Hegseth (01:24:13):

President Trump has-

Mr. Carbajal (01:24:14):

No, no, no, no. I reclaimed my time. Yes or no? It's that simple.

Secretary Hegseth (01:24:21):

There's Article 5 in NATO, which we recognize.

Mr. Carbajal (01:24:25):

Is the answer yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (01:24:27):

That's what Article five is, yes.

Mr. Carbajal (01:24:30):

Good. I'm glad you brought yourself to saying yes. Do you think political allegiance to Trump is a requirement for serving our nation either in uniform or a civilian in the department?

Secretary Hegseth (01:24:45):

I'm incredibly proud as there are millions of American-

Mr. Carbajal (01:24:49):

No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. Not today Hegseth. Yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (01:24:53):

Congressman. You know what a silly question that is.

Mr. Carbajal (01:24:56):

But silly enough to warrant-

Secretary Hegseth (01:24:57):

Fidelity to the Constitution.

Mr. Carbajal (01:24:57):

… a very straightforward answer. Yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (01:25:01):

We all support and defend the Constitution of the United States and I'm proud-

Mr. Carbajal (01:25:04):

You know what? I'm not going to waste my time anymore. You're not worthy of my attention or my questions. You're an embarrassment to this country. You're unfit to lead and there's been bipartisan members of Congress that have called for your resignation. You should just get the hell out and let somebody competently lead this department.

Speaker 3 (01:25:24):

Mr. Chairman, do we not have any decorum in here?

Mr. Carbajal (01:25:28):

Thank you very much. I yield my time.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):

This is horrible.

Speaker 1 (01:25:32):

The gentleman yields back and I would urge everybody to remember and maintain decorum suitable for this chamber for their further comments. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. Desjarlais.

Dr. Desjarlais (01:25:45):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. And I would like to thank you, Secretary Hegseth and General Caine for bringing pride, strength, and respect back to our military. Many critics have described the President's deployment of the National Guard into Los Angeles as unprecedented, but as you know, we've seen similar actions throughout history from Eisenhower sending the 101st to Little Rock to Johnson and Kennedy federalizing the guard over the objections of Southern governors during the civil rights era, to George H. W. Bush deploying federal troops during the 1992 LA riots. Isn't it fair to say that there's a well-established precedent for President's acting with state leaders and are either unwilling or unable to enforce federal law or protect federal facilities?

Secretary Hegseth (01:26:33):

Sir, nothing that we're doing on the ground is unprecedented. I would argue what is unprecedented is a governor and a mayor unwilling to protect law enforcement.

Dr. Desjarlais (01:26:41):

Well, thank you for being willing to step up. We're going to shift gears here to the Nuclear-Armed Sea-launched Cruise Missile Program. I just wanted to touch base on that other subject because I think that's ridiculous that the criticisms that we're hearing in the media. With Putin talking freely about using low-yield or tactical nuclear weapons, I think it's important we discuss the SLCM-N program for a minute. As you know, restoring SLCM-N capability to the Navy was recommended in President Trump's 2018 nuclear post review. The Biden administration proposed to cancel this program, but based on consistent testimony from our senior military leaders that this system was necessary to address deterrence gaps, Congress continued to fund it and in the FY24 defense authorization bill required the department to create a dedicated program of record for its development. What is your view of the SLCM-N program and the broader issue of modernizing our nuclear forces to ensure we have nuclear deterrent that meets the evolving threats we're seeing?

Secretary Hegseth (01:27:53):

Well, sir, your characterization is correct. I want to thank Congress for keeping SLCM-N effectively alive under the previous administration because we think it's a critical capability and you'll see in the FY26 budget we fund it at over a thousand percent increase, so we completely recognize the need for that capability alongside the entirety of the nuclear enterprise is critically important to maintain deterrence. If you're going to have peace through strength, if you're going to reestablish deterrence, you need to have a credible deterrent, especially at the foundational and baseline level, which is the nuclear level.

Dr. Desjarlais (01:28:27):

And General Caine, STRATCOM commanders and your vice chief, Admiral Grady have testified about the importance from a military perspective of being able to provide the President with an additional response option and how SLCM can strengthen deterrence by providing a non-strategic response option that is not air-delivered. Do you share that view?

General Caine (01:28:47):

I do.

Dr. Desjarlais (01:28:49):

Thank you. And General Caine, your testimony warns that the PLA's exercise around Taiwan are not just pressure campaigns but rehearsal for force unification. Throughout my visits to our regional partners in the Indo-PACOM region over the last few years, you can feel that there has been a rising tide of recognition that China is a threat on their doorstep and ours as the United States and the world has awoken to the increasingly adversarial actions of China. Can you expand upon how the DOD is right-sizing our forward structure to prepare for a conflict in the Pacific should our adversaries continue to escalate tensions in the region and what are we doing now, not years from now to ensure we can stop that move if it comes?

General Caine (01:29:31):

Yes sir. Well, first I share your views and those of Admiral Paparo related to what certainly appears like increasing rehearsals by the PLA in and around the Pacific. The administration and the Secretary in particular through our interim national defense guidance and strategy, which I won't get into in this forum, but is clear around the need for the department to focus on the Pacific and to scale our combat capability with systems capabilities and effects that would prevent Xi from advancing his narrative and create frankly, multiple simultaneous dilemmas in their decision-making. And so we continue to work diligently on that through the services as you talked about, and it's something that I'm keenly focused on with my global integrator role.

Dr. Desjarlais (01:30:32):

Okay, thank you. And I think Secretary Hegseth, you covered that pretty thoroughly in your opening statement, so I'm out of time and I yield back.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):

The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Khanna.

Mr. Khanna (01:30:45):

Thank you, Mr Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I'm hoping we can start where we may have common ground, no war in Iran. In 2016, President Trump was one of the few people on the Republican stage to have the guts to say that George W. Bush's war in Iraq was an utter disaster. He promised the American people no endless wars. Tucker Carlson has said that thousands of Americans will die if there's a war in Iran. And he is cautioning that currently neocons are trying to get President Trump into a war in Iran. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has said the American people don't want to bomb Iran. Will you today assure the American people and the MAGA movement that you will not bomb Iran unless we are hit?

Secretary Hegseth (01:31:38):

Congressman, it's good to hear you quoting conservatives.

Mr. Khanna (01:31:43):

When they're right, I quote them.

Secretary Hegseth (01:31:46):

I will tell you this, the President has been earnestly and completely committed to a peace process, has given Iran every opportunity, those talks ongoing, but he also fully recognizes the threat that Iran with a nuclear weapon would exist.

Mr. Khanna (01:32:00):

Will you commit to us not bombing them? That's what the conservative MAGA movement is calling for it online. You'll see. They want a commitment that we not bomb Iran unless we're directly hit.

Secretary Hegseth (01:32:12):

Well, here in this forum it wouldn't be prudent for me to commit or not commit. My job is to be postured and prepared in the region it just as the chair.

Mr. Khanna (01:32:19):

How about this?

Secretary Hegseth (01:32:20):

… for any potential capability.

Mr. Khanna (01:32:21):

Would you agree with this analysis that Netanyahu is itching for a fight? If Netanyahu uses American missiles to hit Iran, he's going to drag us into a war there because Iran's going to say they're using American missiles. Our military knows that you cannot just throw hits, eliminate Iran's nuclear capability. They'll simply go underground and they will then end monitoring. And unlike Iraq, they're in heavily civilian sites. Will you stand up today and make it clear to Netanyahu that that escalation, what he's threatening just yesterday, is not in the American interest that he should not be dragging America into war with Iran?

Secretary Hegseth (01:33:04):

Well, Congressman that question included a lot of speculation. What I know is that Bibi Netanyahu is going to put his country first and we're going to put our country first and we're positioned properly in the region to ensure that we're prepared for any potential contingency.

Mr. Khanna (01:33:17):

Are you concerned about his escalation into Iran? And will you assure the American people you're going to do everything possible to keep us out of a war in Iran?

Secretary Hegseth (01:33:24):

We remain, as the President has said, committed to creating the conditions for peace, creating the conditions for talks where Iran does not have the-

Mr. Khanna (01:33:33):

I've given you my.

Secretary Hegseth (01:33:33):

… ability to develop a nuclear weapon.

Mr. Khanna (01:33:35):

I'm running out of time. Two minutes, so let me ask you another matter. Senator Baldwin asked you about the illegal authority for the Marines in my state, I disagree with you. I thought not only do I not want Marines in Iran, I don't want them in California, but I don't want to get a got you. They said what provision your administration since then has filed in the federal district court. You're arguing that the Marines should be allowed to defend federal property. I disagree with you. That's your argument. Here's where I hope we can agree. Whatever the federal district court decides, will you abide by it?

Secretary Hegseth (01:34:13):

Well, this is pending situation.

Mr. Khanna (01:34:16):

Sure. Will you agree though that it's not my legal view, it's not your legal view that makes the decision in America, it's the federal judiciary? If the Federal Court in California and the San Francisco, this district judge orders a preliminary injunction, will you agree to abide by the Federal Courts?

Secretary Hegseth (01:34:35):

What I will tell you is my job right now is to ensure the troops that we have in Los Angeles are capable of supporting law enforcement in-

Mr. Khanna (01:34:41):

Sir, I agree with that, but will you-

Secretary Hegseth (01:34:43):

And we know you have the constitutional and statutory authority-

Mr. Khanna (01:34:46):

That's fine, but can you just assure us that you'll abide by the decisions of the courts?

Secretary Hegseth (01:34:53):

We've always looked at the decisions of the court.

Mr. Khanna (01:34:54):

Well, the Vice President has said that he doesn't believe that the courts should be respected in military matters.

Secretary Hegseth (01:35:00):

This is not my lane, but we also recognize that the way in which the judiciary has expanded its powers-

Mr. Khanna (01:35:07):

But can you just-

Secretary Hegseth (01:35:07):

… during the Trump administration is quite clear.

Mr. Khanna (01:35:09):

Okay, let me ask you this. Two simple questions. You've got 30 seconds. I'm not trying to trick you. I think it would assure the American people because we shouldn't… It shouldn't be Ro Khanna's view of the Constitution and it shouldn't be Secretary Hegseth's. It should be the Supreme Court and the Federal Court's. Can you assure the American people on two things, you will respect any Supreme Court decision on this matter about whether the Marines are constitutional and you will respect the district courts when they rule before the Supreme Court rules?

Secretary Hegseth (01:35:33):

What I can say is we should not have local judges determining foreign policy or national security policy for the country.

Mr. Khanna (01:35:39):

You're not willing to say you would respect those decisions?

Secretary Hegseth (01:35:41):

What I'm saying is local district judges shouldn't make foreign policy for the United States.

Speaker 1 (01:35:45):

The gentleman's time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Kelly (01:35:51):

Thank you Secretary Hegseth and General Caine for being here today. Under President Trump's leadership, America's restored deterrence and secured our southern border. Thanks to this renewed strength we're seeing positive momentum in both recruiting and retention. Our adversaries are thinking twice, not just because of our advanced capabilities, but because of the courage and dedication of the men and women in uniform who defend this nation every day. Still, we face serious growing challenges. China remains a pacing threat.

(01:36:20)
Deterring that threat requires more than just strategy. It requires a strong, responsive defense industrial base. That starts with a timely and adequate investments and investment begins with a budget. We have to have a budget. Despite defense spending is a price of deterrence and we've got to stay focused and strong. With that being said, Mr. Secretary, I've championed the Ships for America Act with Mr. Garamendi from California and Senator Young and Senator Kelly in the Senate. I know the administration is behind this. Right now, are you committed to getting this Ships Act and getting our maritime industry base to where we need it to do to be a strong maritime nation, which means a great nation?

Secretary Hegseth (01:37:07):

Sir, I would refer to Brent for the actual details of what is included from that bill in our budget, but I can say top line, we are historically committed, $47 billion in shipbuilding in this budget alone. It was mis-characterized because of baseline versus reconciliation. But when you look at the total investment, historic. Same with defense industrial base. We recognize the failures and failings of the past. We're also not just pouring money into the same processes. We're hiring innovators and we've got secretaries who are driving change personally reviewing each shipyard across the country to recognize what's failing and what isn't, how we address workforce issues, how we address modernization and-

Mr. Kelly (01:37:50):

I'm going to take that as a yes where I can get something else because we work with the administration, the Senate and the House bipartisan, bicameral throughout the administration to get that done. Acquisition reform. General Caine, thank you for your leadership. As the committee works to streamline acquisitions through the Speed Act and give program executive offers, PEOs, more agility I want to make sure that we're doing the right things at DOD writ large, especially when we're talking about Navy and Air Force and some of the programs that we do. Requirements cannot be shifted on a yearly basis. They at least need to stand steady through an administration, so we need requirements that are steady. We can't tell them how to build things. What we need to tell them is the capabilities we need and let industry build that. We can't always let perfect be the enemy of good.

(01:38:40)
We need to keep and maintain during the acquisition process, intellectual property rights so that we can repair those things ourselves so that we can 3D print. There are so many things that we can do better that we put artificial barriers because we have a risk averse DOD now, especially in acquisitions. And finally, we need to make sure if we say we're building four destroyers next year, we don't need to next year say, well, we're going to change that to three. We have to send a steady demand signal. We have to do block buys and we have to hold these PEOs responsible for finishing the program or at least getting it to a point where it's in production. We cannot rotate every two or three years. Are you committed to make sure that we do everything we can to help our industrial base give the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, the products they need to win?

General Caine (01:39:35):

Well, sir, there was a lot of goodness in this statement. And by the way, thank you for your service yourself here in the uniform for so many years. You covered a lot of ground between requirements to PEOs. One of the things that I think we both the military and the Congress are going to have to think through is how do we buy aligned with the technology development curve? Back to your point about requirements and what I need to try to think through with you is how do we ensure that the force of the future has the relevant and current combat capability to dominate on a battlefield? And technology is evolving so incredibly fast that we need both a requirement system, an acquisition system, leaders that understand that. And I think that's going to require some partnership between the department and the Congress to think through that and clarity around what are we solving for.

Mr. Kelly (01:40:35):

And finally real quick, Secretary Hegseth, please have the Navy get us a shipbuilding plan that is not an option. We have not had one for the last seven years. Please get us a thirty-year shipbuilding plan of which the first four years are locked in.

Speaker 1 (01:40:50):

The gentleman's time has expired. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Keating.

Mr. Keating (01:40:54):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I'm going to take my time to react to the testimony already given. The three pillars that each of the witnesses and the secretary highlighted. Pillar number one, restore the warrior ethos. I've had the privilege in this committee to see firsthand a special window of our troops, their courage, their tenacity, their commitment. You don't have to restore the warrior ethos, sir. It's already there. We've never lost it. Pillar two, I just want to highlight something that is a concern. Pillar two is the border security issue. And among that, I'm really worried about the agreement with El Salvador that exists. I think it's very cloudy. We don't know exactly what they're getting in return for their commitment to house the hellhole prisons. In the hellhole prisons they have people that are shipped there, transported there illegally, but there's problems with that. It violates the constitution, number one. It violates the first step act that President Trump paraded around and took so much credit for in his first term. He and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. It violates the Leahy law, which prohibits federal money to be used for prisons of that type.

(01:42:15)
It violates the foreign assistance and transparency and accountability act that our Secretary of State was a proud sponsor of that demands taxpayer accountability for monies because all we know is the White House has said they've given El Salvador, given their strongman, Bukele $6 million. But then they're holding another 15 million in international narcotics and control and law enforcement to the side for prospective use here. And of concern too is we're now transferring helicopters, military assets to Bukele. We're giving him helicopters and I'm concerned about that. Supposedly it's there for humanitarian reasons. It's being taken away from drug control task force dealing with the fentanyl issue. And now it's there for humanitarian reasons in Bukele's control. And I'm just worried about going down the road here. I think there should be strict oversight of what they're getting from the US. If that's not there and there's dark money and dark assets being passed, we could have the makings of another Iran-Contra.

(01:43:27)
Thirdly, the third pillar, deterrence. And I look to what every expert militarily from a security standpoint said is the greatest deterrent that we have with China and Russia and our greatest weakness if we lose it. And that's the war in Ukraine. If we fail to support Ukraine and Ukraine loses, that's a green light for China. That's just not my opinion, that's virtually every security expert. We have something China and Russia don't have. We have a coalition of 50 countries, 50 dealing together. They don't have anything near that. Yet, you've attacked that alliance. You said they're pathetic. You call them freeloaders. They have paid and we want more money and they're giving more money for their own defense. But they've given $199 billion towards Ukraine, more than the US, by the way. And they're not freeloaders when they came to our assistance at 9/ 11, they suffered thousands of casualties, several hundred deaths. Their young men and women sacrificed to defend Article 5, the only time it was exercised for the United States.

(01:44:43)
They're not freeloaders dealing with that. And yet today you attacked one of them saying, that now you've confirmed that the US has plans in place to invade the territory of a founding member of NATO, Denmark.

Mr. Keating (01:45:00):

… that's not being strength, that's not being strong. It's also chaotic. This is the chaos cabinet when it comes to Ukraine. Secretary of the Treasury, Putin is a war criminal. Trump's chief negotiator, Putin is trustworthy. He's not a bad guy. Secretary of State, Putin was a war criminal, I guess, but now he's not. He doesn't know. Trump says Ukraine was the aggressor. The Secretary of State says Russia was the aggressor. You sir, Secretary of Defense said Russia was the aggressor. The chair of joint chiefs said yesterday that Putin would even stop at Ukraine. The Trump ambassador resigned because of this policy and I think Vice President Vance said it best. He said he doesn't care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other. That is not strength, that is not using our coalition, that is not deterrence. You're wrong on all your pillars. I yield back.

Mr. Rogers (01:45:56):

The gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska, chairman Bacon.

Mr. Bacon (01:46:01):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome all three of you here. I appreciate you being here and I want to congratulate the chairman. I served three decades in the Air Force. I didn't serve with you, but many of my friends have and they think very highly of you, so our congrats. Mr. Secretary, during your comments early on, I would say I agree with you, homeland security, defense of the homeland is important. China is our pacing threat. I agree with that, but we never hear Russia. You didn't mention it in your comments up front. It's not just you, it's the entire administration. Two-thirds of Americans see clearly that Russia is a threat, that they're their aggressor in Ukraine. It's in our national security interest that Ukraine prevails here because Russia will not stop with Ukraine. Just this week Putin said that he would only stop the invasion of Ukraine if we pull out of the Baltic countries.

(01:46:52)
This just gives you some insight to what Putin's thinking. What we see right now in the administration is some moral blindness here. We want moral clarity. We want strength when it comes to Russia. Secondly, I also share concerns about the firing of the generals. Yes, it's currently very much in your constitutional right to fire and higher generals and the President has that right, but there's also decency involved here. I've known many of these people. I served with most of these folks when I was a colonel and as a one-star. I knew one as a captain. They served their whole adult life and I think they deserved an explanation why they were fired and I think the American people deserve that as well. And the impact on Cyber Command, having General Haugh fired. We groomed him for over a decade to fill those shoes and I don't know that anybody can fill those shoes right now. It's going to take a year or two for people to get there.

(01:47:44)
I really believe that the most happy people on the firing of General Haugh was Russia and China. Now for my questions. I'm on the cyber subcommittee, I chair of that committee. We learn and we know and know you all know that Russia and China are attacking us every day. I also have learned that within the executive branch there are very limiting rules of engagement on what cyber command can do in response. I would ask both the Secretary and the chairman if you would review those rules of engagement and see if they're right. I think we should be carrying a bigger stick here when we're being attacked every day. So, would you at least look at those rules of engagement and consider revamping them?

Secretary Hegseth (01:48:24):

Sir, we do review those on a regular basis and I would say there's been some incorrect reporting on what has or has not been done. But internally we're ensuring that anything we do on cyber offense or cyber defense is coordinated with the administration's priorities and the way in which the department views threats and how we manage them in real time.

Mr. Bacon (01:48:45):

As I've mentioned, I'm the chairman of the committee, and I've talked to multiple layers, they are restricted based off of the rules of engagement. Maybe they're appropriate. I just hope we re-look at them because if China can attack our energy grid, our Wall Street grid, our hospitals, I think we should be reviewing, okay, is our responses adequate? So, I just wanted to submit that for you to think about and consider. I agree, China is the pacing threat and we want to prevent a war. Day one of a war with China and Taiwan is a day too late.

(01:49:18)
I happen to know that we owe billions of dollars of weapons to Taiwan. We've committed to them, they purchased them and this is really a previous administration's fault. We're talking billions of dollars of weapons. They need sea mines now, they need harpoon missiles, air missile defense, things like that. I asked the previous secretary under the previous administration, what are you doing about it? He says, "Well, I'm studying it." He's the secretary. I just asked for you all's review and figure out whose behind do we got to kick to start getting these weapons to Taiwan faster so we have deterrents. And I just would appreciate your comment to that.

Secretary Hegseth (01:49:55):

I'll defer to the chairman as well, but this is not something we're simply reviewing. It's something we are implementing in real time. I think there was a lot of talk about a shift to the Indo-Pacific and previous administrations, but the department had not place, not just there was strategy changes at some level, but driving change into the institution to make decisions, prioritize and trade-offs in your budget in force posture, in training and exercises, in where you forward position troops and munitions. Those are the things we're actioning in real time, and I think very differently than in the past with a realistic view of what threats could emerge in the Indo-Pacific. I defer to the chairman.

General Caine (01:50:33):

Sir, I'll just add in general terms about the size and capacity of our defense assistance worldwide. That all attacks back to our national and defense industrial base. And what I'm encouraged by is the leaders that we have in the department, in the joint force and in the Congress right now, it feels like if not now, then when and if not us, then who? And these are the right leaders across the USG to get after this and to support through this.

Mr. Bacon (01:51:04):

Let's deter this fight now.

Mr. Rogers (01:51:05):

Gentleman's time has now expired. Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Houlahan.

Ms. Houlahan (01:51:09):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I've been looking forward very much to our time together. My name is Chrissy Houlahan. In addition to representing a part of Pennsylvania, the sixth district, I also am a veteran. I come from a family of veterans and service members. And it's very deeply personal to me this conversation that we're having as I know it is to you as well. Over the last several days I've had the opportunity to watch a bit of the hearings that you have testified at this week and I can see and know that you have quite a bit to say, but since I only have five minutes, I'm going to try and focus my time on a concept that you talk about very frequently and that is lethality. By definition, lethality simply means being capable of causing death.

(01:51:51)
Secretary Hegseth, I have a couple of clarifying questions that I'd like very much to get through. So, in the interest of time and efficiency, I would ask just simply for a yes or no from you for the answers to these questions in advance and I thank you. Given that definition of lethality, would it be fair to say that both men and women are generally speaking capable of causing death?

Secretary Hegseth (01:52:14):

It depends on the-

Ms. Houlahan (01:52:17):

Yes or no, sir.

Secretary Hegseth (01:52:17):

It depends on the context.

Ms. Houlahan (01:52:17):

Yes or no. Yes or no. Are men and women capable of causing death?

Secretary Hegseth (01:52:24):

It depends on the context.

Ms. Houlahan (01:52:25):

Yes, or no?

Secretary Hegseth (01:52:27):

It depends on the context.

Ms. Houlahan (01:52:29):

It's unbelievable to me that you can't come up with an answer to whether or not a man or a woman can cause death. That's an obvious yes. Would it be fair to say that the U.S. military trains our soldiers in multiple ways to be capable of causing death whether they are men or women?

Secretary Hegseth (01:52:44):

That's a big part of our job.

Ms. Houlahan (01:52:46):

Yes. Would it be fair to say that both men and women are capable of pulling a trigger of a rifle to cause death? Yes, or no?

Secretary Hegseth (01:52:54):

Sure.

Ms. Houlahan (01:52:55):

And would it be fair to say that both men and women are capable of operating an unmanned combat drone or maybe pushing a button to launch a missile to cause death again? Yes, or no?

Secretary Hegseth (01:53:07):

I know what you're getting at, ma'am-

Ms. Houlahan (01:53:08):

Yes.

Secretary Hegseth (01:53:09):

Men and women carry equipment differently.

Ms. Houlahan (01:53:14):

Lastly sir-

Secretary Hegseth (01:53:14):

A 155 round differently, a rucksack differently, [inaudible 01:53:16].

Ms. Houlahan (01:53:15):

Reclaiming my time. I asked about missiles and drones. Reclaiming my time, sir.

Mr. Rogers (01:53:21):

It is the gentlelady's time. Please pause. It is the gentlelady's time.

Ms. Houlahan (01:53:24):

Would it be fair finally to say that both men and women are capable of piloting a jet or a helicopter to combat people and to cause death as a consequence?

Secretary Hegseth (01:53:35):

A lot of wonderful people pilot-

Ms. Houlahan (01:53:35):

Yes or no. While I agree with you that physical fitness, as you were mentioning, is a very strong and important component of lethality. The war fighter that you have written about in your books and talked about on various podcasts is but a very, very small piece of the overall lethality picture. In fact, we estimate only about 10% of our military personnel are directly involved in the kind of combat that you're referring to. Rather, 90%, that's the math, of our troops are doing other jobs that support and enable those 10%. To put it simply, lethality cannot be measured solely by the damage that a six-foot three, 225 pound Christian male with a rifle can do to the enemy anymore. Sure, I agree, he's part of that solution, but it is an incomplete and at best, very dangerous and very homogenous description of that.

(01:54:26)
Lethality is equal parts, technical skills, tactical experience, cognitive problem solving, and physical fitness. It's not about one person but it's about many. It's not about blue or red, it's not about liberal or conservative, Christian, Jewish or agnostic, it's not about north and south. Here are some statements that you have said previously about women in service. This is 2024 sir, not when you were a 19-year-old. You have said that women are life givers, that dads push us to take risks and that moms put the training wheels on our bikes, that we need moms but not in the military. Secondly, you have said, I am straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn't made us more effective and it hasn't made us more lethal.

(01:55:09)
With what's left of my time sir, I will say to you that women have served our country for 200 plus years in our militaries and in service and protection of our nation. We are, they are watching you, what you do and what you say. And we deserve better from you. Women can and do serve with lethality today we can and do all of the jobs that are required of us. Yes, or no? Do you believe military women should be in all roles in the military?

Secretary Hegseth (01:55:43):

Women have joined-

Ms. Houlahan (01:55:43):

Yes or no, sir.

Secretary Hegseth (01:55:43):

… our military in record numbers under this administration.

Ms. Houlahan (01:55:44):

Should women be in all roles in the military?

Secretary Hegseth (01:55:58):

Standards should be high and equal for all positions.

Ms. Houlahan (01:55:59):

Yes or no, sir. We agree. Should they be in all roles in the military?

Secretary Hegseth (01:55:59):

My job is that 10% percent stays as sharp as possible. Standards should be high and equal.

Ms. Houlahan (01:55:59):

Reclaiming my time. Will you agree that all women, that women should be able to perform in all combat roles, assuming they meet the standards?

Mr. Rogers (01:56:09):

Gentlelady's time has expired.

Secretary Hegseth (01:56:11):

It's all about standards.

Ms. Houlahan (01:56:12):

It's disappointing.

Mr. Rogers (01:56:12):

Before we move to the next witness, I would like to hearken back to my several decades ago time as a trial lawyer and remind the members, you control your questions. The witness controls his or her answers. You can ask a yes or no question, but the witness is entitled to give his or her answer the way they choose to frame it. With that, I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Jackson.

Dr. Jackson (01:56:38):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. I deeply appreciate your time. Mr. Secretary, I would like to start by apologizing for some of the rude and childish behavior that was demonstrated earlier by one of my colleagues. I think I speak for several members on this committee, I apologize for that. Unfortunately, it's probably not the last bit of disrespectful grandstanding that's going to take place before this hearing is over. Secretary, under President Donald Trump's leadership, our government has been refocused on the most pressing challenges facing our nation. Instead of woke DEI and climate change programs, this administration is advancing our military readiness and lethality. As adversaries seek to challenge the United States, we must do better to equip, train and defend this great nation. And Mr. Secretary, on behalf of the patriotic Americans in the 13th Congressional District of Texas, I want to thank you for what you're doing to reclaim our military. I think you're doing a wonderful job.

(01:57:35)
Last month at SOF Week, you stressed an important and foundational SOF truth, people not equipment, make the critical difference. Our SOF community employ a number of capabilities and special expertise that bolster our ability to deter the PRC and set conditions if needed that provide the United States with distinctive advantages. We ask a lot of our special operations forces more and more as each day goes by and that's only going to continue. Crisis response remains a critical mission performed by SOCOM and despite flat funding, this responsibility has risen as high as 200% over the last decade. Mr. secretary, as you highlighted during SOF Week, our operator's lethal precision and timely crisis response capabilities have met these growing demands every single time. Given this significant and sustained increase in operational tempo, what can the department do to alleviate resource constraints in SOCOM's budget to ensure critical crisis response capabilities are properly funded and that our SOF operators can continue to meet the evolving global threats both with great power competition and in the counterterrorism arena?

Secretary Hegseth (01:58:49):

It's a great question, sir. I appreciate it. We start by listening to those units, to those men, what they're facing, what they need, what their families need, and then resource it because not only have they been used more than anybody else over the last 20 years, but even in just the last four or five years, the amount of times we call on the special forces community, special operations community has increased. So, the funding needs to match that, which you'll see in this budget. The training needs to be commensurate with it. And then I think morale and standards really matter. There's a reason why we've looked at schoolhouses of some of our most elite special operations forces and ensured that standards have not eroded because under the previous administration for political reasons, in pursuit of political correctness, for other ideologies, standards were dropped whether formally or informally amongst certain communities to sometimes reach quotas or sometimes for ideological perspectives.

(01:59:45)
We want to ensure standards go up to the highest possible level. Anyone who can qualify meets those standards. And guess what that does for those units? It increases morale, increases unit cohesion because they know they're as capable as they can possibly be.

Dr. Jackson (01:59:59):

Thank you. General Caine, do you have anything to add to that?

General Caine (02:00:03):

Sir, most of those matters or policies that my civilian leaders set and not something that the joint force weighs in on as you know. And thank you for your service.

Dr. Jackson (02:00:13):

Yes, sir. Thank you. I will say that we've had lots of discussions about this and I know you're aware of this, but the special operations community is being spread extremely thin right now and SOCOM, JSOC, they're repeatedly and more and more often having to tell the geographic combatant commanders that they cannot do what they're being asked to do just because they don't have the resources or the people to do the job. So, anything I can personally do, and I'm sure many others on this committee, we're willing to make sure that we can do that. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. Rogers (02:00:43):

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Crow.

Mr. Crow (02:00:48):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chairman Caine, Secretary Hegseth and Mrs. McDonnell. You're doing a great job today, Mrs. McDonnell. Secretary Hegseth. We have a lot of things in common. In fact, our careers started the same way. We were both infantry officers. We were both platoon leaders. We both deployed our platoons to combat in a counterinsurgency environment. There are very few better leadership training grounds in that experience. And it's that experience that I want to transport us back into time into back to Lieutenant Hegseth and Lieutenant Crow. There are a lot of things that make a leader and that make a unit effective. Would you say that unit cohesion is important?

Secretary Hegseth (02:01:37):

Unit cohesion amongst many is very important. Yes, sir.

Mr. Crow (02:01:40):

It's an important element. And part of that is making sure that all members of your unit felt included in that team. Correct?

Secretary Hegseth (02:01:48):

Far more important that every member of that unit felt capable to do the mission and united in that mission.

Mr. Crow (02:01:53):

But that they were included and felt part of the team as well.

Secretary Hegseth (02:01:56):

I wouldn't use the word inclusion, sir, but yes, they were cohering as a team, yes.

Mr. Crow (02:02:00):

And that you reduce tension and infighting and points of tension between your platoon members that you can focus on the mission. That was a part of the regular job.

Secretary Hegseth (02:02:09):

Absolutely. That's why I've said that our diversity is our strength is the single dumbest phrase in military history.

Mr. Crow (02:02:15):

And words are important-

Secretary Hegseth (02:02:16):

Because our unity is our strength. So, unity amongst members despite differences of backgrounds, race, whatever that is. We are here together on a mission.

Mr. Crow (02:02:24):

And I agree with you on that together on a mission. Part of that is words are important and setting the tone is important. Correct? When you're a leader.

Secretary Hegseth (02:02:32):

All aspects of leadership, mostly leading by example and also giving clear guidance.

Mr. Crow (02:02:35):

Did you ever tell them your political affiliation? Did you ever tell your platoon members your political affiliation?

Secretary Hegseth (02:02:42):

We certainly discussed lots of topics and I'm sure my political affiliation.

Mr. Crow (02:02:45):

Did you ever ask them theirs?

Secretary Hegseth (02:02:49):

No. Their political affiliation was never a concern to me.

Mr. Crow (02:02:54):

Because it's important that everybody feel included and that people weren't excluded. Correct? That would be antithetical to leadership.

Secretary Hegseth (02:03:02):

I'm sure my platoon contained Republicans, Democrats, and independents and I had no idea what their affiliation was.

Mr. Crow (02:03:08):

Okay. That was actually my next question. So, I appreciate you answering that. You led your unit in a counterinsurgency environment and you interacted with civilians. Correct?

Secretary Hegseth (02:03:18):

Interacted with members of the civilian population in Iraq, sure.

Mr. Crow (02:03:22):

And you were in fact a COIN instructor, a counterinsurgency instructor, correct?

Secretary Hegseth (02:03:27):

In Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012, I was the senior counterinsurgency instructor.

Mr. Crow (02:03:31):

And you signed off on a manual. There's actually a counterinsurgency manual that you signed off on and helped create and your name is on that manual. Correct?

Secretary Hegseth (02:03:38):

We were a part of creating a lot of content at the COIN Academy, yes.

Mr. Crow (02:03:42):

Do you remember this portion of the manual? It says, "If you've killed two innocents, you've set yourself back more than you've moved forward." Do you still agree with that?

Secretary Hegseth (02:03:54):

I would've to take a look at the manual, but obviously, no one in warfare is seeking to kill innocents.

Mr. Crow (02:04:00):

Okay. Because it's important to show why we're different from the enemy because we're not the enemy. We're different from our adversary. Would you agree with that? We have different morals and different values.

Secretary Hegseth (02:04:13):

We are not the enemy, sir.

Mr. Crow (02:04:15):

We have different morals and we have different values, the enemy.

Secretary Hegseth (02:04:18):

We have a code, a uniform code of military justice [inaudible 02:04:21].

Mr. Crow (02:04:21):

The answer to that is yes. You're not trying to compare us to Al-Qaeda and ISIS, are you? We're different.

Secretary Hegseth (02:04:28):

I know the code of the United States military and army that I signed up for [inaudible 02:04:31].

Mr. Crow (02:04:31):

You can't tell me whether we're different. You're not willing to say we're different.

Secretary Hegseth (02:04:34):

Of course we're different.

Mr. Crow (02:04:35):

Okay. Thank you.

Secretary Hegseth (02:04:35):

It's absurd.

Mr. Crow (02:04:37):

That's why I'm trying to reconcile the fact that we learned many of the same lessons as platoon leaders about unit cohesion, making sure that people were included, that we didn't ask people's a political affiliation, that we interacted respectfully with civilian populations. That what a leader says matters. That the tone you set matters. That we are not the enemy. That we are different from them. We lead differently, we have different morals. How can I reconcile that experience and those lessons learned from Lieutenant Hegseth to now Secretary Hegseth where you say things like what you just saw here, making us equivalent on the same standards as our adversaries, doing the same things that ISIS and Al-Qaeda would do? How can you possibly reconcile that? I can't. And just the other day down at Fort Bragg in our beloved 82nd Airborne division, sitting there while we politicized the military and pull our paratroopers into politics, booing, elected officials, booing politicians with whom you disagree. It's antithetical to our values. And you sir, have changed.

Mr. Rogers (02:05:48):

Gentleman's time has expired. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Gimenez.

Mr. Gimenez (02:05:54):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, when you say that you want the military to have standards, high standards is that for each job classification, you are going to be setting the standards that that job classification merits?

Secretary Hegseth (02:06:10):

Sure. So, if you're looking at combat arms, you're going to have a certain set of standards there that are very important.

Mr. Gimenez (02:06:15):

And that anybody who meets that standard is qualified to have that job, whether it be male, female, whatever, race, political affiliation, et cetera.

Secretary Hegseth (02:06:26):

We've made that clear from day one that those jobs are open to anybody that can reach the standard for that particular job. It shouldn't be lowered for any reason.

Mr. Gimenez (02:06:35):

Fair enough. When you're setting these standards, are you going to make sure that they don't set artificial barriers for entry for anybody? In other words, if you don't want a particular race or gender, you're going to set standards that push them away or are you going to be fair in setting your standards?

Secretary Hegseth (02:06:57):

The only thing that matters in the setting of standards is the capability to do the job.

Mr. Gimenez (02:07:01):

Fair enough. And I think that that's all we ask for. I'm going to transition a little bit. You're saying about peace through strength. Our doctrine is peace through strength, correct?

Secretary Hegseth (02:07:12):

Yes, sir.

Mr. Gimenez (02:07:12):

And the only way that really that works is if your enemy knows that you will use that strength. Is that correct?

Secretary Hegseth (02:07:23):

Yes. Credible and capable matters.

Mr. Gimenez (02:07:25):

And would you say that if you are ambiguous about using that strength, that actually invites not peace but war?

Secretary Hegseth (02:07:37):

Well, I think, sir, there are certain environments where strategic ambiguity is an important thing, but for the most part, your enemy or adversary needs to know you are capable and willing to use force if necessary. Yes, sir.

Mr. Gimenez (02:07:47):

Fair enough. Would you consider Russia and China to be allies?

Secretary Hegseth (02:07:53):

Unfortunately, especially under the previous administration, the Biden administration policies have driven Russia and China into an even greater alliance, yes.

Mr. Gimenez (02:08:02):

And so, would you consider that anything that benefits Russia in its aggression would also benefit China?

Secretary Hegseth (02:08:12):

I don't know that I would agree with every characterization of that statement, but certainly if you're benefiting folks that are on the same side, that matters.

Mr. Gimenez (02:08:21):

Fair enough. I commend you and the Trump administration for pushing our allies, our NATO allies into defending more of Europe. In other words, it's their responsibility. They have a bear in their backyard. They need to understand they have a bear in their backyard and that they need to protect themselves from that bear. But if that bear gets out of hand, will the United States come to its aide?

Secretary Hegseth (02:08:54):

Sir, the goal of this administration is peace in Ukraine, and there's no doubt about that. And we understand who the aggressor is in that scenario.

Mr. Gimenez (02:09:00):

I'm not talking about Ukraine. I'm saying if the bear, okay, we are a part of NATO, if the bear starts getting out of hand and we're part of NATO, will the United States fulfill its duties under NATO's obligation?

Secretary Hegseth (02:09:18):

Article five is a real part of NATO. We acknowledge that have never have not. But at the same time, we have been very aggressive in reminding Europe it is responsible for its defense for… No, that's not a small thing because the previous administration allowed-

Mr. Gimenez (02:09:33):

I'm not saying it's a small thing at all. I agree with it. The NATO nations need to be more involved in their own defense. I agree. They need to bear a big portion of that defense, but we're part of an alliance.

Secretary Hegseth (02:09:49):

But increasingly, not just a bigger part, but the lead of their defense on the continent 80 years on after World War II. The belief of this administration is that European countries ought to be able to build combat-credible capabilities that the bear fears and worries about, not a continual backstop reliance on the United States of America for decades and decades and decades. And that's why a 5% commitment for European countries is a huge focus for this administration that only President Trump could have achieved because in a world of a lot of threats, you can't just continually stay in the same posture in the same places for the same reasons of the last 80 years. So, we're encouraged by the investment of our European allies.

Mr. Gimenez (02:10:31):

I've only got a certain amount of time, I need to put this out. Okay? I believe like when we started out this conversation that it's imperative that that bear knows that yes, Europe needs to protect itself, but that the United States will also demonstrate peace through strength in order to keep the peace in Europe. And I yield my time back.

Mr. Rogers (02:10:53):

Gentleman yields. At this time, the chair would like to note that at approximately 12:30, the committee will recess for 15 minutes and reconvene at 12:45. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Maine, Mr. Golden.

Mr. Golden (02:11:08):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Secretary Hegseth, yesterday Admiral Kilby testified before the committee about the importance of fielding DDG Flight III ships. The anti-air ballistic missile radar capabilities are chief among the reasons why. I'm sure you know that you could ask just about any of the U.S. flag merchant vessels that had been attacked by the Houthis, or the Americans who were protected by destroyers when Iran attacked Israel with its large-scale missile attack why these ships are so important. So, we don't have a complete budget request from your department yet, but the word on the street is that it's going to request zero new destroyers. Of course, destroyers are well known as the backbone of any modern navy fleet. And China's closing the gap between us and them having doubled its destroyer fleet in the last 20 years. I'm also now hearing that the president plans to eliminate the frigate program outright.

(02:12:03)
Yesterday, Senator Collins asked you about the absence of anything referencing destroyers in your FY26 spreadsheets that were delivered to Congress. You didn't really answer the question, instead you referenced a historic shipbuilding investment that is forthcoming. So, just focusing on destroyers, there's really nothing historic about the two destroyers in the reconciliation bill. Just last year, Congress funded three new destroyers. We did two in FY24, we did three in FY23. So, from my perspective, the reconciliation bill sets you up for an easy opportunity to increase the size of America's destroyer fleet. So, I want to give you an opportunity to tell us what this committee could expect in the FY26 request pertaining to destroyers. I know you've been talking a lot about tradeoffs. In the short term, I would agree that maybe there's no immediate negative tradeoffs there or negative effects of not requesting any destroyers. But in the midterm and long term, I think surely any gap in production of destroyers may come back to bite us. So, I wanted to hear what your thinking is here.

Secretary Hegseth (02:13:14):

Appreciate the question, sir. We are procuring destroyers and I would contrast the previous administration's budget the last budget effectively, which procured five ships. This one includes 19.

Mr. Golden (02:13:27):

I'm talking about destroyers only here.

Secretary Hegseth (02:13:28):

There's a plus up of destroyers. We are reviewing the frigate program for reasons I think this committee is well aware of. Another one of those difficult decisions that we think we're in a place where we have to make them. Again, another program that was supposed to be off the shelf and reflecting something based on an existing design that was gold-plated time and time again and pushed backwards. That is one of the things we are reviewing. We call it historic because it's multiples of what we had before. Not all destroyers because you've got a lot of back end capabilities you need to invest in to be effective in the maritime space, but it does make a historic investment.

Mr. Golden (02:14:03):

You said plus up. When you say that, are you referencing the two destroyers in the reconciliation bill?

Secretary Hegseth (02:14:09):

Yes sir.

Mr. Golden (02:14:10):

So, that would be a plus up on top of forthcoming request for more destroyers in FYI26 budget request?

Secretary Hegseth (02:14:17):

Bryn, how would you break that down?

Ms. McDonnell (02:14:19):

Yes sir. So, our budget as the secretary says, one budget, two bills. So, the two destroyers he's referencing are the two in the reconciliation bill.

Mr. Golden (02:14:26):

Okay. Again, does that mean that you will request additional destroyers as part of the FY26 NDAA and appropriations process? Yes, or no?

Ms. McDonnell (02:14:41):

When we built the budget, sir, the four-month review that the secretary referenced, we found a requirement for two destroyers in FY26. So, the budget only requests two across both bills.

Mr. Golden (02:14:50):

Yeah, absolutely. The Navy has been planning to get two destroyers and FY26 and FY27. However, I think this committee, the Senate appropriators as well have been pretty clear that the destroyers in reconciliation were to supplement that anticipated request of four ships in two years, not supplant it. So, I suppose if that's all you're asking for, it'll be up to members of this committee and the Congress, whether or not we want to exercise what we think is the right call here, which would be to grow the size of our destroyer fleet, not slow down its growth. You can take the 40 seconds if you have any other comments or I'll yield it back.

Mr. Rogers (02:15:35):

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Luttrell.

Mr. Luttrell (02:15:38):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, General Caine and Ms. McDonnell, thank you for joining us today. Mr. Secretary, I'm very laser focused in on the advancements and the build out of hypersonic capabilities in our military and at the classification levels, obviously in this room. I'll always be concerned and always plan for the worst and hope for the best, but we are very far behind when it comes to our ability to build out hypersonics. The nefarious actors globally are really taking advantage of that over the past two decades and they're way out front. Can you give me, pass this off to Mr. Caine if you like, but I'd like to hear where we are and are we moving forward aggressively enough to outfit our arsenal?

Secretary Hegseth (02:16:31):

I will defer to the chairman on that, but very aggressive. Long range fires, hypersonics are central to this FY26 budget in some creative ways as well. So, I wouldn't fully agree with every characterization of what you said. We are catching up in quickly on capabilities and that's because of things that are known and things that are unknown in hypersonics because that's a capability that we need to have existing and-

Mr. Luttrell (02:16:57):

Need to have. Well said, yes, sir.

Secretary Hegseth (02:16:58):

Need to have.

Mr. Luttrell (02:17:00):

General.

General Caine (02:17:00):

Congressman first. Thanks for your service and the team's, appreciate it. A bunch of seals in the room here, so I'll be mindful of that.

Mr. Luttrell (02:17:09):

They're not as good as I was.

General Caine (02:17:12):

No comments, sir.

Mr. Luttrell (02:17:13):

Case in point.

General Caine (02:17:15):

Yes sir. Sir, it's very much on our joint force radars. As you know, the services handle a lot of that. The Navy is all over SM-6 Block 1B, which will hit in 2029. The Air Force is working on HACM and doing operational tests on that now and thinks that that was progressing. Along the way, we're looking at partnering with industry to look at additional capacity and capability in the hypersonic side, but the ability to leverage that capability to cause dilemmas in those ground force commanders on the other side is key and essential and something that we're very focused on through the services.

Mr. Luttrell (02:17:52):

Okay, good to hear. Mr. Secretary, I've spoken to the Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Army. I've spoken to Secretary Collins of the VA and I'm going to completely shift gears on this with you. If I am able to accomplish anything, and I'm putting this out for public consumption, so I'm probably going to get beat up for it, but if I can before I leave this place, this wonderful place we call Washington D.C., if I can make the transition from Department of Defense, our service members into the VA space seamless and effective, I have done something amazing. As a veteran yourself, y'all almost certainly understand you know the complexities of what it looks like when somebody says, Hey, thank you for your service. Here's everything. You need the VA is that way we lose 6,000 veterans a year to suicide. We have disability claims that are through the roof and our veteran community is more or less lost.

(02:18:51)
And I wholeheartedly believe if the DOD and the VA worked shoulder to shoulder with this, where it was almost just a drag and drop, here's your DOD service record, VA, he or she are on the way. There we go, you have him. We're good to go. And the veteran is absolutely taken care of. That does not exist currently, and it's something that I'm working every day on. I know you will support this. I'm probably putting words in your mouth and I shouldn't do that. But I want you and the Secretary of the VA, if you haven't been in the room together to talk about this, I'd love to be involved, but I want this put to bed. This is a problem that has existed for decades and decades and decades and it shouldn't. And I think if we make this process easier, we'll decrease the amount of veteran suicides down to zero. Our veteran space will be just wholeheartedly happier and then we can move on and focus on other things.

Secretary Hegseth (02:19:51):

As you know, I do agree wholeheartedly. I hope you've seen Secretary Collins and I, we look for it. We've never seen a memorandum

Secretary Hegseth (02:20:00):

Written together by a DOD secretary and VA secretary, which we signed together in his office at the VA. He came to see me, we talked about it. I came to see him in his office. We put out a video and a memorandum and put our staffs together to say, "This is a problem we need to fix. We need to streamline that transition in real time for those who serve." So we're fully committed.

Mr. Luttrell (02:20:22):

Thank you, sir. And I'll reach out to your office for that point of context so I can… I'm not going to hover on the top of them, but I'd like to have somebody I can talk to on a weekly basis. Thank you. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Rogers (02:20:32):

Thank you. Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Jacobs.

Ms. Jacobs (02:20:38):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all of our witnesses for being here. Secretary Hegseth, as you probably know today is National Women's Veterans Day. And in your confirmation hearing and in subsequent conversations you've said, and I'm quoting you now, "Women in our military have and continue to make amazing contributions across all aspects of our battlefield." And that women were some of the best soldiers you served with. Do you still stand by those statements?

Secretary Hegseth (02:21:06):

Yes.

Ms. Jacobs (02:21:07):

Great, thank you. As you probably know, I represent San Diego, the biggest military community in the country. So I meet with countless service members all the time. And with your focus on emphasis and on merit and standards, I wanted to tell you about three incredible women in our military. So the first woman is a major responsible for advanced collective warfighting training. Her officer evaluation report rates her as most qualified and some of the comments included are, and I'm quoting now, "She lives the Army values and demonstrates the warrior ethos daily. She rates within the top 5% of officers I've encountered in 18 years of military service."

(02:21:49)
The second woman is an aviator with a record of over 50 combat missions including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Two quotes from her most recent fitness report in April include quoting again, "People excel under her leadership and she has my strongest possible recommendation for promotion." The third woman is an instructor for an Army ROTC battalion. According to her evaluation report, her overall performance was rated at far exceed standards. And the comments include, "She is undoubtedly within the top 5% of non-commissioned officers I've worked with in my 22 years of service."

(02:22:28)
Given their stellar qualifications and accomplishments and their record of surpassing standards. I assume that you agree that the Pentagon and the services should do everything they can to retain women like these. Correct?

Secretary Hegseth (02:22:41):

I would commend the major, the aviator, and the instructor for their service.

Ms. Jacobs (02:22:46):

Great. I'm glad you agree because I also believe we should be recruiting and retaining the very best and brightest in our country to serve in the military. And yet you are actually kicking out these three highly qualified service members solely because of their identity. These are trans women. And you are using the very same arguments that have been used against desegregating the military or allowing women to serve or allowing gay people to serve. And in all those cases, those arguments were wrong.

(02:23:16)
So I think it's clear that this is actually not about standards or, and I'm quoting you again, "An equal, unwavering, gender-neutral merit-based system." Because if it were, you would be keeping these women in. Instead, you are the one injecting culture wars into the military and it's at the detriment of our military readiness and national security. Now, General Caine, I'd like to turn to you.

Secretary Hegseth (02:23:40):

So to be clear, these are men who think they're women.

Ms. Jacobs (02:23:43):

These are women. I'm happy to educate you on trans issues at another time.

Secretary Hegseth (02:23:47):

What we've identified is that there's mental health issues with that belief system.

Ms. Jacobs (02:23:50):

I'd like to turn to General Caine now.

Secretary Hegseth (02:23:52):

They are detrimental to readiness and that's the determination that we've made and that we stand behind gender dysphoria-

Ms. Jacobs (02:23:58):

You don't trust your commanding officers to be able to evaluate the people under them to decide. If that were true, wouldn't that show up in their fit reps? And yet these fit reps are from the last three months and all of their commanding officers say that they exceed standards. I'm turning to General Caine now. General Caine, I'd like to touch on something you said yesterday before the Senate Appropriations Committee. When asked whether the United States is under a foreign invasion, you said at this point in time I don't see any foreign state-sponsored folks invading.

(02:24:29)
Despite that testimony, 2000 National Guard troops have been federalized and deployed to Los Angeles and 700 Marines from my community of Southern California are now on the ground there as well. And on Tuesday, President Trump flanked by hundreds of uniformed troops said this is the reason they're there. I'm quoting now. "Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by an invasion." General, have you personally informed the President that according to your own assessment, there is no invasion?

Gen Caine (02:25:03):

Ma'am, first, the definition of an invasion, whether or not… That's really a policy decision and from a military-only perspective, I stand by what I said yesterday. But my advice to the president in any particular matter from a security standpoint or for the secretary for that matter, I keep that between them.

Ms. Jacobs (02:25:30):

I understand that, but the highest-ranking military advisor in the country does not believe there's an invasion. And yet the President of the United States is federalizing the National Guard and deploying-

Mr. Luttrell (02:25:38):

Gentlelady's time's expired.

Ms. Jacobs (02:25:42):

In the name of-

Mr. Luttrell (02:25:43):

Gentlelady's time's expired. This will be the last member before we have our break. Gentlelady from South Carolina is recognized.

Ms. Mace (02:25:49):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. And just to clarify, I want everyone to know that men are not women and I find it deeply offensive as a woman who's broken glass ceilings. So to all the women out there who are fighting their way through their track meets, their scholarships, their jobs against mentally ill men, I want you to know Republicans, we see you and we support you. Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you to Secretary Hegseth and General Caine for joining us today. The Department of Defense and our armed forces exist to protect our country's interests and our citizens' freedoms.

(02:26:22)
Under the previous administration, this mission was supplanted by divisive ideology and social experimentation. Allowing ideological advocacy to come before military readiness was an enormous mistake. At the direction of President Trump and under your leadership, the DOD is rightfully returning to its focus on lethality and readiness. Our country faces a complex array of challenges and must maintain unparalleled readiness. The changes you are implementing at DOD are critical to returning our military to its core mission. So I have a few questions for you, Secretary Hegseth today.

(02:26:57)
How much did the Biden administration spend on DEI programs at DOD?

Secretary Hegseth (02:27:03):

Well, when you look at directly or ancillary reflections of it was billions of dollars, ma'am.

Ms. Mace (02:27:09):

And did a focus on equitable outcomes rather than merit improved our effectiveness in the military?

Secretary Hegseth (02:27:17):

No, I think if you look at ongoing operations under the Biden administration and also recruiting and retention under the administration, it was a distraction, not an enabler.

Ms. Mace (02:27:26):

Do DEI programs make our military more lethal?

Secretary Hegseth (02:27:30):

No.

Ms. Mace (02:27:31):

Secretary Hegseth, how much money did the Biden administration spend on the chemical and surgical mutilation of our service members under the guise of gender-affirming care?

Secretary Hegseth (02:27:39):

I don't know, but $1 is too much.

Ms. Mace (02:27:43):

I agree. Did sex change experiments in the chemical and surgical mutilation or castration of service members improve our defense capabilities and make us more lethal?

Secretary Hegseth (02:27:52):

No.

Ms. Mace (02:27:54):

That's what I thought. Secretary Hegseth, can a history of mental health conditions disqualify someone from military service?

Secretary Hegseth (02:28:01):

Yes.

Ms. Mace (02:28:02):

And is gender dysphoria a documented mental illness included in this list of disqualifying conditions?

Secretary Hegseth (02:28:08):

It was not, but it is now per an executive order from the White House and reinforced by the Defense Department, gender dysphoria is properly recognized as a mental disorder and a disqualifying one for military service.

Ms. Mace (02:28:20):

God bless America. So I welcome the announcement of the Navy that they would be ending animal testing on cats and dogs. Huge win for animal lovers and those against the barbaric treatment of cats and dogs. However, I understand there are still some active [inaudible 02:28:36] dog and cat tests being funded by the DOD. Secretary, do you plan to end these experiments as well?

Secretary Hegseth (02:28:42):

As you know Congresswoman. We've looked at a lot of those. We've reviewed a lot of those and we've ended a lot of those. There are probably others under review and we will do that.

Ms. Mace (02:28:51):

I would love for you all to do a review and eliminate all of them and see them ended as well. Do you think you'll enact a DOD-wide ban on conducting or funding cat and dog experiments? Do you think that'll be in the future under your leadership?

Secretary Hegseth (02:29:07):

We will review that. Right now our focus is studies that actually add to our capability, our readiness, our warfighting ethos. So if they don't contribute to enabling better capabilities, then they will be reviewed and ended.

Ms. Mace (02:29:21):

And talk to me about recruitment. You've already hit your recruitment numbers this year so far, right? Or close to it?

Secretary Hegseth (02:29:29):

In record numbers, months and months ahead in all services.

Ms. Mace (02:29:34):

Why do you think that is?

Secretary Hegseth (02:29:34):

Well, I think a new commander-in-chief was elected in November and inaugurated in January and I used to call it the Trump bump. I think you can't call it that anymore. It's a tsunami of young Americans who believe in the direction President Trump is taking the country and specifically his leadership as commander-in-chief and they look at a fighting force that's going to be back to basics. We get accused of wanting to do ideology. It was ideology on the other side that was pushed into the military. We're pulling that out and getting back to basics, fidelity to the constitution focus on warfighting.

(02:30:04)
Americans respond when that's the focus and that's what we've seen.

Ms. Mace (02:30:07):

So if there was a young person watching today on C-SPAN, and I hope that there are a few, and if they're looking at… They don't know what they want to do with the rest of their life, how do they get recruited into the military? What can they go do today right now to come work for you?

Secretary Hegseth (02:30:19):

Well, the menu is large of any different services, any different jobs. And contrary to the narrative being pushed by one side, we have record number of females, minorities as well. This is not just one group of people joining the military and we welcome all Americans who are qualified to serve our country.

Ms. Mace (02:30:39):

Thank you Mr. Chairman and I yield back.

Mr. Rogers (02:30:41):

The gentlelady yields back. Yes, previously stated the committee will stand in recess for 15 minutes.

(02:30:45)
Hearing will return to order. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Washington, Ms. Strickland.

Ms. Strickland (02:52:20):

Thank you Chairman Rogers. I represent Joint Base Lewis-McChord, home to over 40,000 active duty service members and their families. JBLM is the Department of Defense's most important installation for projecting power into the Indo-Pacific region. Hosting the Army's First Corps and one-third of the Air Force's entire C-17 fleet. I want to start by recognizing the Army's 250th birthday. I'm an army brat myself. My father served in the military. He joined the army when it was segregated and he continued to serve when President Truman desegregated. Something that probably would've been defined as woke back then. I could not be more proud of the soldiers who make up Army what it is. And as part of the celebration, the Pentagon is going to host a day-long festival and parade estimated to cost up to $45 million. Department of Defense officials have described this as a generational recruiting tool and a plan to highlight every era and legendary leaders throughout Army history. So Secretary Hegseth, do you plan to include displays of Colin Powell, our first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Will you include displays about the Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat team? One of the most decorated units of all time.

(02:53:43)
Will you include displays about Major General Charles Calvin Rogers whose Medal of Honor, your department previously labeled as DEI? Recent articles by Stars and Stripes, Military Times, and others outline how your team has gone to great lengths to wipe out references of these American heroes. I'm incredibly concerned and actually disappointed that you will continue trying to tell an incomplete story about the Army's proud history, especially when you consider that 40% of those who are serving, who are enlisted represent minority communities.

(02:54:17)
So I'm going to ask you, sir, will you be able to talk about these things and will they be included? Then I have another question after that. Go ahead.

Secretary Hegseth (02:54:26):

Well, Congresswoman, I do not accept your insinuation that we would seek to disclude any race or group of people in representing 250 years of incredible service of the United States Army, including your father's, which I thank him for. We're proud that we're going to put on full display the Army's military might, 250 years on. Which is a demonstration of American freedom, power, and commitment.

Ms. Strickland (02:54:51):

And I agree. Are these three people that I mentioned going to be included in this celebration?

Secretary Hegseth (02:54:57):

This is a parade demonstrating

Secretary Hegseth (02:55:00):

… military might, capabilities through the years including to today.

Ms. Strickland (02:55:04):

Yes. And there will be exhibits. So will these folks be included, sir?

Secretary Hegseth (02:55:08):

Well, I think you'll be heartened to know that the Secretary of Defense is not involved in choosing individual exhibits in the celebration, but our team has put in a great deal of effort to make sure the Army's history is well represented. And I'll say this, part of the reason I'm sitting right here and I put on the uniform is a parade that went through my parents' hometown in Wanamingo, Minnesota. Blink and you miss it, nothing farm town.

Ms. Strickland (02:55:30):

Absolutely. Now I'm talking about the exhibition sir made. I'm talking about the exhibition. Are you going to include Colin Powell, the Japanese American 442nd or Major General Charles Calvin Rogers? That's my question.

Secretary Hegseth (02:55:43):

I'm sure we will include a cross section of a lot of incredible Americans and possibly all of them too. I have no idea.

Ms. Strickland (02:55:50):

So you have no idea or I'm going to take that as a no. All right, next question. Let's talk about Ukraine and Russia. So we know that Russia started this war, they have long been an adversary of the United States and at the same time you heard the president make some really interesting comments including, not including Russia in the widespread random tariffs. So I think one question I will ask you as we talk about wanting peace, because we all agree that's a desired outcome. Do you and the president support surrender to Russia by Ukraine as your definition of peace?

Secretary Hegseth (02:56:27):

Ma'am, no one has talked about surrender. We're talking about a negotiated peace.

Ms. Strickland (02:56:31):

So does that mean that you're okay with Russia keeping this territory that they're trying to take so they can march on to one of our NATO allies?

Secretary Hegseth (02:56:40):

Ma'am, I think the situation is unfortunate, unleashed by the previous administration, but everyone that talks about winning and prevailing has yet to present to me a plan that's going to push the Russian army out of those territories.

Ms. Strickland (02:56:52):

So, sir, I appreciate you talking about the previous administration often, but we are now in this administration, so as the person who serves at the pleasure of the US president, do you believe that Russia is a true adversary and is your definition of peace going to be surrender of Ukraine from this invasion?

Secretary Hegseth (02:57:11):

Ma'am, I've never said surrender and we're prepared to negotiate what we hope will be a lasting peace.

Ms. Strickland (02:57:16):

Thank you. I yield back.

Chairman Mr. Rogers (02:57:17):

General yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Guam, Mr. Moylan.

Mr. Moylan (02:57:21):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our distinguished witnesses, Ms. McDonald, Secretary of Head Staff and General Caine for your service and appearing before us today.

(02:57:32)
Secretary of Head Staff, I also want to thank you for visiting Guam and it's great to see you once again, sir. Thank you very much. I appreciate your keeping an eye on the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, sir, and wanting to make sure that our construction, our readiness projects on Guam stay on time and on budget. Considering the complexity of working in our isolated territory, of course with workforce constraints and logistical constraints as well.

(02:58:02)
Tell us about the mechanisms that you have in place to ensure we maintain our time and budget on the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, sir?

Secretary Hegseth (02:58:12):

Well, thank you for the question, sir. It was great to visit you. I will say a big part of that is focus and attention and time and I was struck not to be critical of any of my predecessors in this context, but that it had been over 20 years since the Secretary of Defense had visited Guam. It was one of the first places we felt like we should go because our focus is in the Indo-Pacific and the troops we have there, the capabilities we have there, the facilities we have there, the forward posture we want to maintain there. Guam being a central part of that.

(02:58:43)
So seeing is understanding. We came back from that with an even better understanding of what that island and other parts of multiple island chains needed to consider deterring China. And then our group went right to work. In responsive to many of the things we spoke about, but also to ensure that this budget funds those priorities. So indeed the Pacific Deterrence Initiative has increased robustly through this budget and then a lot of other ways in which Guam will be a part of the future fight.

Mr. Moylan (02:59:13):

I thank you and I also ask for your continued support. Our main workforce there is the H-2B workers which we'll be looking at to extend once again with your support. So thank you Mr. Secretary. One thing that will be helpful for our contractors on Guam is regarding the design bid and build. So this makes a lot of delays and change orders and cost overruns due to our site locations and our logistical complexities. As the department or I ask the department also to review some lessons learned from the design build versus design bid build models and instead that will really speed things up and I'm hoping your budget will enable more flexibility for our contracting strategies to do just that.

Secretary Hegseth (03:00:07):

One of the core pillars of how we're changing MILCON acquisitions is flexibility with a recognition that each site CONUS or OCONUS or more far-flung has unique complexities, workforce complexities, logistical challenges, resourcing challenges that need to allow the local leadership there to adapt as quickly as possible. And the last thing the DOD usually does well, especially the bureaucracy, is adapt. So we're trying to give maximum flexibility and latitude, sir.

Mr. Moylan (03:00:39):

That will be extremely helpful. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And then General Crane, with the transition to fully integrate Guam Defense System, GDS, how are we synchronizing the existing capabilities like THAAD and Aegis Ashore and the Golden Dome architect plans to ensure seamless integration with global missile warning and reconnaissance systems?

General Caine (03:01:07):

Well sir, thanks for the question, and thanks also for your service in the Army previously. The importance of integrating our defense capabilities is critical and as we look at systems like that and Aegis Ashore, the department is looking carefully at what has to be true to make sure that the other systems like GDA are able to bring forward a layered defense system from sensing layer all the way through the kinetic layer to ensure that we don't have any gaps. And so that's something I know the team that is running GDA, the team that's running THAAD and Aegis are doing, sir, down in the services.

Mr. Moylan (03:01:49):

Thank you. And I think a lot of our research will be done for the island of Guam to make sure this is right to protect our nation and our island at such a forward proximity and then these lessons learned from that will help our nation build on the Golden Dome. Would that be a correct statement?

General Caine (03:02:08):

Sir, I think our goal is to share lessons from not only your home but the other places that GDI and Golden Dome will be a part of and so they do accelerate our learning, sir.

Mr. Moylan (03:02:22):

Thank you.

Chairman Mr. Rogers (03:02:23):

Gentleman's time's expired. Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New Jersey, Ms. Sherrill.

Ms. Sherrill (03:02:31):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Hegseth, Chairman Caine, thank you both for being here today. Mr. Secretary, your testimony over the last several days before Congress, I've heard you speak about all of your supposed accomplishments from your time at the Pentagon. I have to say your training at Fox News has let you spend months of dangerous dysfunction and incompetence into catchy phrases like, restoring the warrior ethos, and increasing lethality.

(03:02:57)
But the truth is it's really been chaos at the Pentagon under your leadership. You've clearly shown you're unable to manage the Department of Defense, but what I'm most concerned about are three specific areas, your operational incompetence, your managerial incompetence, and your budgetary incompetence.

(03:03:13)
So let's start with operational. According to news reports, in your first week on the job, you got confused in a National Security Council meeting and thought President Trump wanted you to stop all aid to Ukraine. In a well-functioning administration you would've asked for clarification before making that seismic policy shift, but instead you ordered vital military aid heading to the front lines turned around, costing the US millions of dollars and depriving Ukrainian soldiers of equipment they needed to fight Russia.

(03:03:43)
So Mr. secretary, can you explain how exactly you misunderstood such a monumental presidential order?

Secretary Hegseth (03:03:52):

One of many fake news headlines we've dealt with.

Ms. Sherrill (03:03:57):

So President Trump told you to halt military aid to Ukraine on January 30th.

Secretary Hegseth (03:04:03):

As is often the case, highly ideological and very ill-informed reporters love to speculate about things they know nothing about in order to spear President Trump and myself.

Ms. Sherrill (03:04:14):

So it sounds like actually the reporting is correct because I will say if it wasn't a mistake, why did aid restart only a few days later?

Secretary Hegseth (03:04:26):

Again, we would take complete issue with what some call reporting and others call a hatchet job.

Ms. Sherrill (03:04:35):

So why did aid start just a couple of days later?

Secretary Hegseth (03:04:39):

I'm saying the reporting is inaccurate, ma'am.

Ms. Sherrill (03:04:45):

I don't think that's correct. So let's move on to your managerial incompetence. I think we can see why you misunderstood the president because you're obviously misunderstanding my questions. Less than a month into the job you fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, CQ Brown and the Chief of Naval Operations, Lisa Franchetti, without cause.

(03:05:01)
And to this day you still have not provided an adequate explanation for removing them. As far as I can tell you fired CQ Brown because he was Black and Lisa Franchetti because she is a woman. So nearly four months later we still don't have a new nominee for Chief of Naval Operations. News reports, and you can contest it, but I'd love to hear your answer, say that you haven't nominated someone because qualified admirals keep turning the position down. So tell me Mr. Secretary, when will Congress receive your nomination for the next Chief of Naval Operations?

Secretary Hegseth (03:05:37):

Ma'am, with all due respect, I would suggest not believing every headline you read.

Ms. Sherrill (03:05:41):

With all due respect, I'd like your nomination. When will we see it?

Secretary Hegseth (03:05:44):

There is not a single admiral or any military official has turned down a position that's been-

Ms. Sherrill (03:05:50):

So when will we see your nominee for the Chief of Naval Operations?

Secretary Hegseth (03:05:54):

In due time, for all the right reasons.

Ms. Sherrill (03:05:57):

Again, I think we've seen the managerial incompetence. Okay, let's move on to budgetary incompetence. You missed the deadline to submit a draft defense budget to Congress, which makes it impossible for us to complete our work on the NDAA or appropriations and makes it more likely you'll receive delays in funding you need for new acquisitions, programs and other priorities.

(03:06:16)
Additionally, you're blowing money on poorly conceived operations and vanity projects for President Trump. Retrofitting the Qatari jet to serve as Air Force One will cost about $400 million. The parade in DC this weekend will cost upwards of $40 million. Your bombing campaign in Yemen cost about $1 billion and a week later they were having missile strikes in Israel. Your operations in LA will cost tens of millions of dollars and you claim to be cutting costs at the Pentagon, but all I see are wasted dollars better spent addressing our most pressing threats like China. So Mr. Secretary, what priorities have you cut funding for to pay for these projects?

Secretary Hegseth (03:06:57):

Ma'am, I would just say your list left off securing the southern border.

Ms. Sherrill (03:07:02):

So, Mr. secretary, what priorities have you cut funding for to pay for these projects?

Secretary Hegseth (03:07:10):

We make trade-offs every day and I would imagine what we want to spend on is quite different than what the previous administration did.

Ms. Sherrill (03:07:15):

I think the American-

Secretary Hegseth (03:07:17):

We made those changes quickly and they're reflected in this budget and we're very proud of them.

Ms. Sherrill (03:07:20):

I think the American people can see why I'm so concerned about this incompetence. Thank you. And I yield back.

Chairman Mr. Rogers (03:07:25):

Gentlelady yields back. Chair now recognizes gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mills.

Mr. Mills (03:07:30):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary and the panel. Let me just go ahead and commend you on an amazing job that you've done not only in highlighting the importance of the warfighter but also guaranteeing that our recruitment and retention is of the highest levels that we've seen. This is due to good leadership, not managerial problems as one of my colleagues just tried to reiterate, and we'll note for the record as walking away, because they know they don't want to hear the actual facts and truth.

(03:07:52)
I'm going to go through a couple of things. They keep bringing up this plane, this aircraft. Well, let's go through history. This has been a long-standing cultural share as aviation was one of the most remarkable things that man had innovated. In 1945, President FDR actually gifted a Douglas DC-3 to King Abdul Aziz, which marked the beginning of civil aviation in Saudi Arabia.

(03:08:15)
The airplane is nothing more than a reason to complain about the president advancing US interests and this is more to conflate optics than actual outcomes, but we'll let them go ahead and spend their wills on a $400 million upgrade not realizing total cost of an aircraft. I think that's a cost savings, a good negotiation.

(03:08:34)
Now they talked about the Golden Dome. There's a lot of things that's intentionally left off operationally and classified to ensure that we can keep the sovereignty and protection of our nation without our adversaries actually knowing it. Our colleagues know this, but they want to try and highlight it in a way that brings about that you're trying to hide or not be transparent as opposed to operational and communication security.

(03:08:55)
But what they should be realizing is that there's a real violation in the 1962 Outer Space Treaty that when the leak was made about Sputnik 2's capabilities and what Russia was trying to do to arm and weaponized from a nuclear capability in space, that maybe we should take a vital interest and not just what we're seeing here on earth, but what we're seeing abroad as well. The president knew this in the first administration, which is why he created Space Force.

(03:09:18)
I'll also go ahead and talk about DEI. Our recruitment or attention is high because we're no longer factoring diversity, equity, inclusion. We're focused on increased lethality, readiness and being properly equipped. The warfighter ethos that he claimed was so intact. If it was intact, we wouldn't lower our standards and our standards aren't arbitrary. The standards that you are setting for our armed forces are based on real military and combat needs that we have seen and evaluated and usually lessons that are left from bloodshed and loss of life that we then base our standards upon to guarantee that we have the best, strongest and most prepared war fighters and the greatest voluntary force in the world.

(03:09:59)
With program reform, I love the fact that you're going after the ideas that it's not about trying to have the most expensive at 100% but what actually functions, works and saves cost-effectiveness, and readiness, and having it on the table for our warfighter now, not in five years from now. So again, a great achievement.

(03:10:19)
When we talk about recruitment and retention, one of the things I wanted to bring up and I hope that you'll address is those who are, in my opinion unconstitutionally purged from our military for actually having their medical and religious rights denied. And I would like to see these individuals who are wrongfully purged given the opportunity to not only return to serve in our armed forces in our nation, not a political agenda, but to also have the ability to be re-incentivized by having back pay, full benefits and being able to be returned to the ranks that they deserve without it being politicized.

(03:10:52)
I think that we should start naming a lot of our cities in Texas, and New Mexico, and Arizona, something that was by a Ukrainian city. Then our other colleagues might actually care about the protection of our borders. This is one thing that you've actually done great by sending our military down there and we have a 600% increase in apprehension rates and a complete decrease in human, and sex trafficking, and fentanyl, and opioids that are killing Americans by the thousands.

(03:11:17)
Now when it comes to the cartels, the president has designated our cartels, rightfully so as a foreign terrorist organization. What can Congress provide to DOD in order to better support the mission, the physical security of service members in the southern border, and is there a possibility of maybe a Title 55, Title 11, Title 10 combination that will allow us to be able to work with DOD and the IC to be able to start going after those cartels?

Secretary Hegseth (03:11:44):

Well, I appreciate those comments, sir. And as I mentioned earlier, it wasn't really an authorities issue when it came to securing the southern border. The previous administration claimed they needed new policies. No, we needed a new president who was serious about it and so we have focused on it, rightly designating those criminal cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Right now we believe we have those authorities if necessary we would come to Congress for additional ones.

Mr. Mills (03:12:08):

Thank you so much. And again, I want to commend you as well on the operations against the Houthi's. The previous administration had delisted as a terrorist organization which was disrupting 12% of global trade in addition to the Bidenflation that was sinking the middle class. So thank you for what you're doing. We stand by to support you. I'm going to support you from day one as I always have. Keep fighting and let's go ahead and go after the warfighters. Thank you. I yield back.

Chairman Mr. Rogers (03:12:32):

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes a gentleman from New York, Mr. Ryan.

Mr. Ryan (03:12:36):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you both for being here. We have all worn the uniform, we've all served in combat. We all love our country. We all revere our troops and I really want to speak with you not as partisans, but as patriots. I want to talk specifically about the events at Fort Bragg the other day. General Caine, I want to start with you. As a junior officer, were you ever required to make a pledge of political loyalty? Yes or no.

General Caine (03:13:06):

Sir, as you know, we are an apolitical military.

Mr. Ryan (03:13:10):

I have limited time.

General Caine (03:13:11):

No.

Mr. Ryan (03:13:12):

Thank you. At any time in your 30 plus years of incredibly distinguished service, did you have to make a pledge of partisan or political loyalty?

General Caine (03:13:20):

No, sir.

Mr. Ryan (03:13:21):

Thank you. Did you ever serve in any unit or command at any level where service members were required to make a pledge of political loyalty?

General Caine (03:13:29):

No, sir.

Mr. Ryan (03:13:31):

Thank you. And I want to commend you, you've been on the record on this including in your confirmation hearings where you clarified, "I've never worn any political merchandise or said anything to that effect." I appreciate that, that is the standard and I commend you for saying so and continuing to model that. General Caine, one last question for you. Should soldiers have to pledge political loyalty to participate in an event with our commander in chief? Yes or no, please.

General Caine (03:14:00):

Sir, I'm not… First, no. I'm not aware of any time in history that soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines have been asked to do that. I think they all-

Mr. Ryan (03:14:13):

And I'm sorry General, I do want to, just in the interest of time, I want to talk about what happened at Fort Bragg two days ago. There was guidance put out, and this has been verified by multiple independent news outlets, saying, these are to the soldiers of the 18th Airborne Corps and US Army, "If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration, then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out." This is swapped out of the event with the president.

(03:14:42)
In addition, in an incredibly disturbing incident, there was a pop-up shop selling MAGA merchandise on post at Fort Bragg. And to summarize this, there was a commander from Bragg who said on the record, " This has been a bad week for the Army, for anyone who cares about us being a neutral institution, this was shameful." If those are the facts, and I know the Army's investigating at least the MAGA pop-up shop, is that appropriate, General Caine?

General Caine (03:15:18):

Sir, I haven't seen any of these reports. I'm not familiar with them. But as I mentioned earlier and in my confirmation hearing, the nation demands an apolitical nonpartisan military.

Mr. Ryan (03:15:32):

I appreciate you saying that and happy to share those reports. Secretary Hegseth, are you familiar with DOD directive 1344.10? Political activities of the members of the armed forces.

Secretary Hegseth (03:15:43):

First off, I don't buy into your insinuation-

Mr. Ryan (03:15:44):

Yes or no. Are you familiar with-

Secretary Hegseth (03:15:46):

… that pledges are being done under this administration, that's insinuation.

Mr. Ryan (03:15:49):

I reclaim my time. Are you familiar with this DOD directive?

Secretary Hegseth (03:15:54):

There's never one time in my service or in this Defense Department-

Mr. Ryan (03:15:57):

Mr. Secretary, will you please answer these questions.

Secretary Hegseth (03:15:58):

I'm answering your question… Where politics has been considered for service members.

Mr. Ryan (03:16:01):

Are you familiar with this directive? Yes or no.

Secretary Hegseth (03:16:06):

Which directive?

Mr. Ryan (03:16:07):

DOD directive 1344.10. I'm happy to provide you a copy. There's even a one-page red and green cheat sheet. Are you familiar with it? This is the same director from when we were all in uniform.

Secretary Hegseth (03:16:20):

I'm sure I am.

Mr. Ryan (03:16:21):

Has anything changed in that directive under your guidance, given what happened two days ago at Fort Bragg? Is there a new policy change that we're not aware of?

Secretary Hegseth (03:16:30):

Again, I totally reject your insinuation.

Mr. Ryan (03:16:32):

Is there a policy change to DOD directive 1344.10?

Secretary Hegseth (03:16:36):

I know what you're attempting to insinuate, but-

Mr. Ryan (03:16:38):

I'll take that as a no.

Secretary Hegseth (03:16:39):

… there's been no policy change and there is no policy change.

Mr. Ryan (03:16:40):

Mr. Secretary. Have you ever worn a MAGA hat in front of the troops?

Secretary Hegseth (03:16:46):

I own plenty of MAGA hats but I don't-

Mr. Ryan (03:16:48):

Have you ever worn one in front of the troops at an official event?

Secretary Hegseth (03:16:53):

Not that I'm aware of.

Mr. Ryan (03:16:54):

I don't believe so. Do you think it's appropriate for the President of the United States to wear a political merchandise including a MAGA hat at official events including West Point Commencement?

Secretary Hegseth (03:17:02):

The Commander-in Chief-

Mr. Ryan (03:17:03):

Yes or no.

Secretary Hegseth (03:17:04):

… can wear whatever hat he wants to include the phrase, Make America Great Again because I would like to Make America Great Again as well.

Mr. Ryan (03:17:11):

So you think that's appropriate?

Secretary Hegseth (03:17:12):

The Commander-in-Chief has the right, in front of his troops, to wear whatever he'd like.

Mr. Ryan (03:17:17):

Okay. I strongly disagree with you and I urge you both, especially you General Caine, as we see an increasingly political rhetoric, including from the Secretary, to please for the good of our troops this is an incredibly difficult moment and we need leaders like you to continue to echo the apolitical nature. I have 12 seconds. Mr. secretary. I don't say this lightly. I have to say this on the record. I think your tenor as Secretary of Defense has been shameful and weak and you should resign. I yield back.

Chairman Mr. Rogers (03:17:47):

Gentlemen time's expired. Chairman now recognizes gentlemen from Texas, Mr. Fallon.

Mr. Fallon (03:17:51):

Mr. Secretary, we'll have a little bit of time to talk about all that. General Caine, is it true or not true that in 1988 you were at Plattsburgh Air Force Base as an ROTC cadet?

General Caine (03:18:03):

Yes, sir. I think I was. Yeah.

Mr. Fallon (03:18:05):

Do you recognize the person that you're addressing right now?

General Caine (03:18:08):

Yeah, I actually do. Yes, sir. Please don't tell anybody how we did out there.

Mr. Fallon (03:18:13):

We were athletic officers in 1988.

General Caine (03:18:15):

Yes we were.

Mr. Fallon (03:18:15):

I believe you worked for me at the time.

General Caine (03:18:17):

I did, sir. I still do.

Mr. Fallon (03:18:18):

Kind of, yeah. And just for the record, there was a Commandant Award recognizing the best kid out of all 200 and they got that right because it was the man sitting in front of me, General Caine, who won that. I got out as a Captain, so you're winning. General Caine, I want to talk to you about the lessons learned in Ukraine and how important that is. I also sit on the intelligence committee and how we can best a tour in the Indo-Pacific as that is a vital import, we don't want to get into a hot war with a peer adversary.

(03:18:54)
And then if you could also just touch on the importance of innovation in acquisition reform.

General Caine (03:19:00):

Yes, sir. As I've talked about before, the entrepreneurial spirit out there in Europe is one that we've all learned from. And as we look at creating multiple, simultaneous cognitive, physical and physical dilemmas for our adversaries around the world, we have to take that same entrepreneurial spirit and bring it back here to our nation, both in our national and our defense industrial base. So the importance of mass scale, building a DIB and a national base that can provide the combat capability that our warfighters need at the tactical edge is something that both secretary and I, as well as the services are very focused on.

Mr. Fallon (03:19:40):

Oh, thank you. And you're both a breath of fresh air. Mr. secretary, I wanted to visit you a little bit about recruiting first and then I do want to talk about politics in the military. We have seen a recruiting bump, thank the Lord, over the last three, four years it was a crisis. And if we didn't solve it, I don't know what we were going to do. So I would like to ask you, because I've asked each of the secretaries of each branch, to really do a deep dive and come back to Congress and let us know, because I want to start with doubts and ended in certainties, find out the reasons why the change, whatever they may be. Because whatever we're doing right, we need to continue to do so we don't get in this situation.

(03:20:15)
And if you all need some extra funding, if you have folks that are willing to come in, I would rather have a few more than a few less. And also I want to talk about the fact that I think you are a breath of fresh air. Not only the General, but yourself. Because the first thing that you said to us was you are going to reintroduce warfighting and lethality and force projection into our military and you specifically said that you did not want to see politics infest. Because we had people up here in the last few years that were clearly like a democratic general. I never want to see that again. I don't want to see a Republican General.

(03:20:48)
I want to see American Generals and American Generals only ever address us. And I thought it was a travesty. And I have a case in point. We have here, this individual was, I believe, a major in the Army was exalted and venerated above all 2 million active and reservists by the DOD, the former DOD. Why? Was there any excellence that was done? Was there a life saved? Was there a computer program written by Cyber? No. It was because this person was transsexual and they had a political flag in uniform and they were waving it.

(03:21:17)
That was disgusting. Not because there was a transsexual, because that was a political statement. And this person did nothing of excellence at all to be recognized. And instead, we should be venerating people like Gary Gordon and Randy Shugar who gave their lives to save Mike Durant and won the Medal of Honor. That's the lethality. That's what will deter the Chinese and that's what will deter our enemies. And I'd like to give you a minute and 13 seconds to expound on that and maybe answer, Mr. Ryan. Thank you.

Secretary Hegseth (03:21:43):

Well, amen. And you're exactly right. That's precisely what we want to return to and restore. And every accusation and insinuation that that is politicizing is blatantly false and they know it. Ultimately, there were ideologies and particular political perspectives being injected into our forces. Call it political correctness, call it DEI, call it CRT, call it what you want. They were being injected in.

(03:22:07)
Our job has been to remove those political ideologies and go back to basics. High standards that are the same. We're not looking at race, we're not emphasizing your differences. We're focusing on our unity, which is the point of any formation. Every formation I've ever looked at, I didn't look at the race or background of the people in that formation. I wanted the most capable leader, squad leader, team leader across the spectrum, able to do the job because when it hits the fan, that's what I need.

(03:22:36)
And our enemies need to see that. And let me say something about the Chairman. He is the most professional, apolitical, military expert I've ever worked with and our country is grateful, should be grateful to have him at the helm because they're in very steady, apolitical hands and he does a fantastic job.

Chairman Mr. Rogers (03:22:52):

Gentleman's time's expired. Chairman now recognizes the gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Vasquez.

Mr. Vasquez (03:22:57):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I understand that the border is a top priority for you and the Department of Defense. Well, it's also one of my top priorities in my border district. That's why I've introduced bipartisan legislation to stop fentanyl at the border, secure our ports of entry, hire more CBP personnel and combat the cartels, areas that I'm sure we agree on.

(03:23:16)
Now, DOD has spent more than $525 million from the defense budget on military operations on the border. You've done it by diverting over $1 billion from military modernization and quality of life programs like housing. And as such, I'm sure you're well-informed as to what your warfighters are doing on our border and the characteristics of the border itself.

(03:23:37)
Secretary Hegseth, do you know how many border miles there are in New Mexico?

Speaker 4 (03:23:44):

Exact number of miles?

Secretary Hegseth (03:23:44):

Not the exact number of miles.

Mr. Vasquez (03:23:44):

Can you give me a round figure?

Secretary Hegseth (03:23:46):

Hundreds.

Mr. Vasquez (03:23:47):

Okay. 180 miles. Can you tell me where the border wall starts and ends on this map of New Mexico?

Secretary Hegseth (03:23:54):

It's not properly oriented to your map, but I know that unfortunately because of the administration previous, they did not have the opportunity to finish the border wall and let it rust on the ground instead of putting it up.

Mr. Vasquez (03:24:04):

Thank you, Secretary. And you have been to New Mexico. Could you tell me where in New Mexico you've been to?

Secretary Hegseth (03:24:09):

I've been to the border twice, to look at once at our national defense area down there because I can't recall a time when a secretary of defense has gone down in the first four or five months of his tenure to the border to better understand-

Mr. Vasquez (03:24:21):

Was that in an urban area or in a rural area?

Secretary Hegseth (03:24:23):

Both areas. Traversed rural areas and urban areas.

Mr. Vasquez (03:24:26):

Okay, so you must be-

Secretary Hegseth (03:24:26):

Some with walls, some without.

Mr. Vasquez (03:24:27):

Secretary-

Secretary Hegseth (03:24:28):

If President Trump was actually supported, we'd have a border wall.

Mr. Vasquez (03:24:30):

Thank you, Secretary. I reclaim my time. So the most remote part of New Mexico is called the Boot Heel, and I'm not sure that you spent any time in the Boot Heel of New Mexico. Mr. Secretary, I was raised on the border, I've lived there my whole life. I've worked alongside ranchers, farmers, landowners, wildlife biologists, and other stakeholders for over a decade.

(03:24:48)
I headed a border security task force in my district before coming to Congress. I've traveled with border patrol on ATVs. I've hunted the border on horseback and hiked dozens of miles in the most remote stretches of the border in this region. Now do you happen to know why there hasn't been a border wall built in the Boot Heel?

Secretary Hegseth (03:25:06):

Well, based on what you just described, you should be a big fan of what our administration is under.

Mr. Vasquez (03:25:09):

Well, Secretary, I'm asking why a border wall has not been built. Funds have been allocated for other parts of the border.

Secretary Hegseth (03:25:15):

Here's what I know. Our commanders on the ground and others and our engineers would understand what goes where and why and where and where there should be a border wall, there will be a border wall. It will be funded through reconciliation-

Mr. Vasquez (03:25:23):

Secretary, are you familiar with the Animas Mountains, with Almuerzo, with San Luis Mountains or Guadalupe Pass or Long Canyon? Critical border areas?

Secretary Hegseth (03:25:32):

I'm aware that there are gaps in different places where walls are not as effective as other places and I get that.

Mr. Vasquez (03:25:38):

Thank you. I appreciate your answer on that.

Secretary Hegseth (03:25:40):

We're applying infrastructure where it makes the most sense because we're going to get 100% operational control of the border.

Mr. Vasquez (03:25:44):

Thank you, Secretary. So you agree then that a border wall doesn't make sense for the entire country?

Secretary Hegseth (03:25:48):

I think we need a border wall across our entire border.

Mr. Vasquez (03:25:51):

Okay, so you should know then why it's almost physically impossible to build a border across the Animus mountains and the terrain challenges that poses and the billions of dollars. Do you know if there's roads on those mountains currently?

Secretary Hegseth (03:26:01):

If we're going to spend money as a government, it should be to secure ourselves a border.

Mr. Vasquez (03:26:03):

I'll take that as a no. The point I'm trying to make, Secretary, is that if this is so important to the military and you as a Secretary of Department of Defense should know more about the Border. Mr. secretary, I urge you to skip the photo ops next time that you go to a port of entry and spend time on the ground in places like the Diamond Day Ranch.

Secretary Hegseth (03:26:20):

I think you should ask the soldiers on the border whether they've been photo op visits or not, because I spent a lot of time on the ground with the soldiers getting an understanding of what their facing, what they're doing, what their capabilities are, not for a photo op.

Mr. Vasquez (03:26:30):

Secretary, I reclaim my time.

Secretary Hegseth (03:26:31):

As the Secretary of Defense, I need to understand what our troops do and why-

Chairman Mr. Rogers (03:26:35):

Gentlemen reclaims his time.

Mr. Vasquez (03:26:36):

Thank you. Secretary, do you know what a tethered aerostat system is?

Secretary Hegseth (03:26:41):

I do.

Mr. Vasquez (03:26:42):

Okay. Well, great. Then you know that this type of surveillance technology is superior to having thousands of troops sitting in trucks looking at an empty desert. I've requested funds for more tethered aerostat systems, we haven't had a response from your department. Are you familiar with ASTs?

Secretary Hegseth (03:26:59):

What's an AST?

Mr. Vasquez (03:27:00):

Well, it's an Autonomous Surveillance Tower. They're equipped with these advanced cameras that have the capability to relay critical information to border agents on the ground. And this type of technology is badly needed on the Boot Heel and it's a much better expenditure than a border wall is, that's-

Secretary Hegseth (03:27:15):

I've seen those towers in use.

Mr. Vasquez (03:27:16):

Great. Well, these technologies have been described to me by both border patrol and CBP as force multipliers allowing their personnel to focus on law enforcement efforts while leaving this mundane surveillance tasks to much more efficient and cost-effective technology, a much more efficient way to surveil that part of the border.

(03:27:34)
Now, Mr. secretary, I have serious concerns with your fundamental lack of knowledge about the US Mexico border. Considering the billions of dollars that DOD is slated to spend on this mission with little clarity to those of us who live there. I would encourage you to do some homework on my region and learn what will actually make our border more secure and more safe. Thank you, Chairman. I yield back.

Chairman Mr. Rogers (03:27:53):

Chairman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. McCormick.

Mr. McCormick (03:27:58):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I think it's great that the Democrats are finally concerned about the border. It's fantastic. I hope more of them join that fight in the future. It's fantastic, especially after four years of allowing millions upon millions across the border without any concern until now. When we talk about politicizing the military, I find it also very laughable when, for the first time, if you were to wear a Make the Military Accountable to the Mission Again hat, would that be considered political?

Secretary Hegseth (03:28:31):

I think in many ways that's one of our slogans.

Mr. McCormick (03:28:33):

Okay. Exactly. Mission accomplishment, when I was a young Marine and an old Marine, we were always focused on the mission accomplishment. One of the greatest things you've done is brought us back to our focal point. The ethos of the warrior. Make America great again also, I disqualify as political. That's something that every politician should want to do, let alone any military or non-military person that lives in America. So I dismiss that as political. I'm glad that you brought the mission back to all services. Matter of fact, when I was down at University of North Georgia and we challenged you to come down to one of the Elite Eight, I was really impressed. I've always made fun of the army. No offense to my Army comrades about their PT. They were bringing it, they made it scientific, they're mission orientated, they're absolutely focused 100% in a large part because of the new leadership of the military, which I'm really excited about and I'm looking forward to getting you down there.

(03:29:28)
One of the interesting things that happened recently is the activation of the National Guard in California. This had to be done because quite frankly, California didn't take care of its own. We actually recently sponsored and wrote legislation that would make those states culpable for the finances that are spent on those National Guardsmen when the governor or the local magistrates don't do what's required to take control of their own problem, that it was created because of their lack of action.

Mr. McCormick (03:30:00):

Do you think that's a good idea or do you have a better idea for motivating people to do what's right instead of having the president step in?

Secretary Hegseth (03:30:08):

I think what the president has done here is common sense. If a governor and a mayor will not protect federal law enforcement officers in the execution of their basic functions, then the military, whether it's the National Guard or the Marines, is constitutionally or through statute, allowed to come in and provide that security. That's precisely what we've done. The president, unlike in 2020 in Minnesota, when Governor Walz allowed a precinct to burn down, President Trump said, "That will not happen. We will get in front of this. We will not allow this to cascade. We will protect our law enforcement." And he's provided that clarity and common sense, and we're proud to be on that mission.

Mr. McCormick (03:30:47):

I'm glad the president stepped in where local Democrats have not stepped up to the plate. One of the things I noticed in my recent experience as a veteran is I had to go down to the DEERS office in person, take a half a day off. Now luckily I have staff that can help me arrange those things, but I had to send in a form just to prove my son's still in college, instead of emailing it, or faxing it, or whatever we do in the modern technology, I do at the DMV.

(03:31:13)
I will hope that you and your leadership would help us as veterans make a much more friendly 21st-century experience, and I would hope that you would look at that just in your administration. I appreciate you very much.

(03:31:27)
Finally, I want to give you an opportunity to talk about a little bit about Ukraine. One of the things I've said all along is the president's one of the most peaceful presidents there is. When they worry about invasions of foreign country, this president has avoided war like no other president in modern history, he has actually been very good at foreign relations despite his lack of previous experience. Now he has a lot of, and he did the Abraham Accords.

(03:31:48)
One of the things that I thought would be interesting from we talk about peace from strength. The United States and Europe combined have $50 trillion GDP. Russia has two, we decimated them. We, meaning the Ukrainian forces with our support, decimated 50% of their armor and about a million casualties just based on the little bit they've given.

(03:32:09)
Do you think according to the supreme allied commander who was testifying here before, that if we gave them wholesale support, we could end this war very quickly, if Russia won't come to the table, per President Trump's guidance?

Secretary Hegseth (03:32:23):

There are multiple ways in which we could help affect the front line and negotiations, and the department is prepared to support what might be necessary to do so. But our overall message is… And there's been billions spent already and there are presidential drawdown authorities that exist right now that are still going in support of Ukraine, but our encouragement is that our European allies continue to step up as well.

Mr. McCormick (03:32:44):

General Cain, what do you think about Ukraine? You got about 10 seconds, sorry.

General Caine (03:32:49):

Well sir, I think obviously the killings have got to stop on both sides, and that's, as all of us, you, thank you for your service as a war fighter, know-

Mike Rogers (03:32:58):

General's time has expired chair. I recognize gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Chris Deluzio (03:33:02):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. General Cain, I want to start with commending what you've said here today to Mr. Ryan and others about the apolitical nature of our military. I know it's a set of values that any of us who've served understand; that the military respects deeply civilian control, and that certainly runs up to Secretary Hegseth and to the commander-in-chief no matter which party happens to be in the White House. I think even a pretty powerful example of that is when we have the State of the Union, you and the other members of the Joint Chiefs typically don't applaud for the more partisan parts of any president's remarks. Briefly tell us why that is even a norm we should care about, why the American people should care about that norm?

General Caine (03:33:46):

Well, sir, that's codified in the oath of office, in our constitution, and our commission. So it goes all the way back to the beginnings, and that's always been our tradition.

Chris Deluzio (03:33:58):

I think it's an important tradition and I think it's one that we should care about no matter which side of this dais we're on, Democrats or Republicans, I think we should demand and expect that our most senior military commanders understand that partisan loyalty doesn't matter. What matters is the oath to the constitution that we all take here, that any of us who've worn the uniform have taken.

(03:34:18)
And I want to just ask some questions about the kinds of, I think, difficult positions commanders are going to be placed in given what I saw happen at Fort Bragg, the guidance that exists now already for the military, and I ask this of you because you are not just the president's principal military advisor, you're the senior officer in Armed Forces. If you or any other commander were ordered to attend a campaign rally, you would decline, am I right?

General Caine (03:34:44):

Sir, per The Hatch Act, which we get briefs on every year, it outlines pretty clearly what you can and can't do when you're in active service. And so I completely trust and believe in the professionalism the United States Armed Forces, as does the secretary, and we follow those guidelines.

Chris Deluzio (03:35:10):

And I agree with you. And my concern here is less that we're going to see bad decisions made by our troops or their commanders, I don't think it's the problem. I think the problem is they're going to be placed in really difficult positions by civilian leadership, and the Fort Bragg episode to me is one of those examples. And I'll talk about some of the things, and we've heard some of it brought up here today. And again, my questions are to give you a chance to put out for the public what you expect of our senior military leaders. So some things that the president said in his remarks referring to a political rival, the governor of California, and the mayor of Los Angeles, called them incompetent in front of the troops, referring to Governor Walz, reference back to the debate between him and now Vice President JD Vance saying that was a good debate, "JD against this guy, remember how bad he was? He was one of the worst. I think he's running for president too. Can you believe it? He's a radical left lunatic." That's a quote.

(03:36:05)
Referencing the continued lie that he didn't lose the 2020 election, President Trump said, and I quote, "I was thinking about running because the election was rigged and stolen. We all know it."

(03:36:17)
That's what the commander in chief is saying in an event with troops who are ordered to attend. And let me be clear, presidents for a long time have always had the prerogative to compel the attendance of our troops to be there as the commander in chief, I get it. This is different to me.

(03:36:32)
You heard discussion of the campaign merch being sold on the base. Another piece of this, and let's bring this up, invitations to the event went out from Donald Trump's campaign, had an invitation right there taking you to a place where you can contribute, donaldjtrump.com.

(03:36:54)
So my question, my concern is of course you and I don't think any commander would agree to attend a campaign rally, but you're brought to something that traditionally troops have attended, as they should, with the commander in chief, but it turns into something that's a campaign rally. What should our commanders be doing when they're put in this position general?

General Caine (03:37:13):

Well sir, I hope you'll allow me to answer this. By even my engaging in answering this question that is making my job involved in politics. And so while I appreciate the question, I think the chairman and the force should stay out of politics. And if I engage in this question, and with deep respect and appreciation for your question, I don't think it's an appropriate question for me to answer.

Chris Deluzio (03:37:47):

General that is… I agree with the way you're approaching this, and that's what we should expect of our leaders. In the 10 seconds or so I have left, I will tell you I'm very concerned for the position that you and other senior leaders are being placed in by this administration. I'd urge you as the president's principal military advisor to give him advice to knock it off. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mike Rogers (03:38:06):

The gentleman's time has expired. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Van Orden.

Derrick Van Orden (03:38:11):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, did you take an oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States?

Secretary Hegseth (03:38:17):

Yes, I did.

Derrick Van Orden (03:38:17):

General did you?

General Caine (03:38:20):

Yes I did, sir.

Derrick Van Orden (03:38:21):

Well, let's delve into that document, Article II, Section 2, "The president shall be the commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and the militia of the several states."

(03:38:29)
So when people are listening to the commander in chief, they are actually fulfilling their constitutional duty that they took an oath to defendant uphold the constitution. And what these folks are saying is absolutely shameful, because when they are calling you incompetent Mr. Secretary, guess who's listening? Our enemies, the people that are plotting as we sit in this comfortable room in an air-conditioned beautiful space, they are plotting the deaths of us Americans. And it is shameful, and I wish my colleagues would come back in here and apologize to you personally. Let's cover a couple other things here. When someone has gender dysphoria and they decide mutilate their genitals and they're taking cross-sex hormones, they're out of pocket for about three years. How many countries is the DOD involved in right now?

Secretary Hegseth (03:39:20):

What?

Derrick Van Orden (03:39:21):

50, 60, 80, 100, whatever it is, right? Okay, someone is going to get on a plane and leave their family and potentially leave their wife a widow, or their husband a widower because somebody has decided to self-actualize. We're going to go forward and we're going to complete the mission because that's what we do. And a lot of my colleagues simply don't understand that, or they're trying to ignore it.

(03:39:47)
Clear up a couple things, the former chief of naval operations was incompetent and gave the Red Sea to the Houthis, the former chairman of the Chiefs of Staff let so much DEI garbage fly around they almost destroyed the military. That's why they got fired.

(03:40:01)
Okay, as far as standards, the standard is the minimum. That is the minimum level of performance that someone will reach or they're not qualified for the job. The NFL does not have a standard for females.

(03:40:17)
If you're a lady and you want to join the NFL, go try out for the team. How many women play in the NFL? Anybody? The answer's zero. Why is there an NBA and a WNBA? Why? Because they acknowledge biology. So we can have as many whiz-bang high-tech things available, but at the end of the day to win a war, you need someone to go in a room and beat someone to death with their hands. That's a fact. And all this other stuff is meaningless.

(03:40:48)
The Chinese Communist Party does not care what your pronouns are. They care if they know we will be able to destroy them, crush them, and grind them into dust if they mess with the United States of America.

(03:41:03)
Mr. Secretary, there's five soft truths. The first one is the people are more important than hardware. Do you concur?

Secretary Hegseth (03:41:12):

I would concur with that and all of your previous statements.

Derrick Van Orden (03:41:15):

Thank you sir. General, do you concur that humans are more important than hardware?

General Caine (03:41:20):

I do, along with the other soft truths.

Derrick Van Orden (03:41:22):

All right, well good on you. So here's an issue that I'm having right now. It doesn't matter how great our people are if they're not upholding this oath and understanding that the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump is the commander-in-chief, and that you are the Secretary of Defense, and that you are the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff.

(03:41:42)
And we've had a rash of incidents around bases that can only be described as insubordination, taking down the president's portrait, turning your's around, turning the Vice President's pictures around, removing them from stations, covering them with flags. That's insubordination. And insubordination is a crime according to the United States, the UCMJ, Uniform Code of Military Justice.

(03:42:11)
So what I just need to hear from you Mr. Secretary, and I commend you for your performance or what you did for Fort McCoy in my district, I need to hear from you that you are actively trying to find the people that are subverting the chain of command, and then will deal with them in the appropriate manner.

Secretary Hegseth (03:42:29):

Every place where we find incidents like that or others, they're immediately addressed.

Derrick Van Orden (03:42:32):

Thank you. General Cain, do you think it would be a political act for someone to be held accountable for insubordination, if you did that as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff holding soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, guardians?

General Caine (03:42:47):

Well Congressman of course you have to have the context around that, so I'd want to know more information sir.

Derrick Van Orden (03:42:54):

Okay. I want to commend you for your performance today and your restraint by not lashing out at some of the most disgraceful comments I have ever heard in my short tenure in Congress. And with that I yield back.

Mike Rogers (03:43:06):

The gentleman yields back chair. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Hawaii, Ms. Tokuda.

Jill Tokuda (03:43:11):

Thank you Mr. Chair. And I agree we've had many performances today, but what we'd like is some answers.

(03:43:16)
Mr. Secretary, did you invite Elon Musk for a briefing on war plans with China to the Pentagon? Yes or no is simple.

Secretary Hegseth (03:43:24):

There's been a lot of hyperbole and incorrect reporting around that situation, but we did invite Elon over to come talk to us generally, but there was no war plans being discussed.

Jill Tokuda (03:43:37):

Okay, so whose idea was it to invite him to the Pentagon for a briefing? You mentioned you served at the pleasure of the president. Was it the president's will to have him come and be briefed?

Secretary Hegseth (03:43:48):

As you know at that time Elon Musk was leading up DOGE efforts, and we've taken a great investment in DOGE at DoD and so getting his input on how we make DoD more efficient makes a great deal of sense.

Jill Tokuda (03:44:02):

Okay, but don't you think it's a conflict of interest for the world's richest man, many of the contracts that the DoD is engaged in, billions of dollars of contracts, going to his company and he is, as to your point, was leading DOGE, which was involved in cutting hundreds of contracts, but also becoming intimately aware of the platforms and the requirements that would be given out for new contracts.

(03:44:24)
Did you not think it was a conflict of interest to invite someone with financial interests into the Pentagon to have first-hand knowledge of what they could then bid on for their own enrichment?

Secretary Hegseth (03:44:37):

Ma'am, it was just an informal discussion. But I'll tell you anyone that knows, our defense department knows we show no preference to any company other than what your capabilities are. And we're grateful for the places where his companies benefit our national defense in various [inaudible 03:44:50]-

Jill Tokuda (03:44:49):

So for $280 million donation, the world's richest man, with companies intimately linked and involved in billion dollar contracts with the Department of Defense gained access into the Pentagon. So would you say that any company right now that has multi-billion dollar contracts with the Department of Defense has access to the Pentagon right now, one hour briefings with you personally?

Secretary Hegseth (03:45:15):

On the regular basis-

Jill Tokuda (03:45:15):

I think the answer is-

Secretary Hegseth (03:45:16):

… I meet with many people, and many different companies, and many different aspects of our defense industrial base to ensure we have the best possible capabilities. It would be imprudent to [inaudible 03:45:25]-

Jill Tokuda (03:45:25):

Well I'm sure for an investment of $280 million, Elon's investors are quite happy that it's come out into the billions.

(03:45:32)
I want to jump questions right now. Mr. Secretary, on January 6th, 2021, rioters and looters attacked federal law enforcement officials, vandalized and destroyed federal government property, and caused an estimated $2.7 billion in damages right here at the Capitol. Would you have sent the National Guard and the Marines in on that day?

Secretary Hegseth (03:45:51):

Well [inaudible 03:45:52] unfortunately President Trump requested the National Guard in advance, and that-

Jill Tokuda (03:45:55):

It took him quite a long time. I'm asking you as Secretary of Defense, would you have sent in the National Guard and the Marines on that day? We had 140 Capitol police officers injured, one died the next day. Would you have sent in the National Guard and the Marines?

Secretary Hegseth (03:46:09):

As I said, President Trump directed National Guard to be there in advance-

Jill Tokuda (03:46:12):

And I think you can look at the record of how long [inaudible 03:46:15] it actually took for him to actually send them in. But it's good to hear that it sounds like you would have sent in the National Guard and the Marines on that day in which the insurrection was taking place right here at the Capitol.

(03:46:26)
Mr. Secretary, during your confirmation hearing, you failed to deny the conclusion that you would carry out an order to shoot protesters in the legs. So let me be direct, given what we are seeing across the country right now, would you carry out or issue an order by the president for our military to fire upon protesters actively engaging in their civil right to exercise free speech, their first amendment rights, would you give that order from the president?

Secretary Hegseth (03:46:53):

I assume you're insinuating what's going on in Los Angeles and I wouldn't [inaudible 03:46:57]-

Jill Tokuda (03:46:57):

Not just Los Angeles. If we take a look at protests throughout the country, it's a simple question. If directed by the president, would you order our military to fire upon protesters? Simple, yes or no is fine.

Secretary Hegseth (03:47:09):

Ma'am we have, as you know, and as this committee knows, we have standard rules of engagement that are in place that give guidance to our troops and they abide by them.

Jill Tokuda (03:47:19):

I'm asking what you would do. Again, you said you serve at the pleasure of the President. Is that not true?

Secretary Hegseth (03:47:26):

I do serve at the-

Jill Tokuda (03:47:27):

So if the president told you to shoot people in the legs, would you do so? Now you failed to answer this question as well in your confirmation hearing when asked by members of the Senate.

Secretary Hegseth (03:47:36):

Because I refuse to accept a false hypothetical that's attempting to put me in a corner, and make it look like a [inaudible 03:47:43]-

Jill Tokuda (03:47:43):

At a time when we have more of the [inaudible 03:47:45] National Guard in Los Angeles than we do in Syria and Iran alone, I don't think this is a hypothetical, this is an actual situation that we are dealing with right now.

(03:47:54)
So again, I'll ask the question in the last 14 seconds I have, would you order our military to shoot at their fellow countrymen if ordered by the president?

Secretary Hegseth (03:48:04):

I think it's interesting that for four years insurrection was the left [inaudible 03:48:07]-

Jill Tokuda (03:48:07):

I think we know your answer. Thank you Mr. Chair, I yield.

Secretary Hegseth (03:48:09):

And [inaudible 03:48:10] in L.A.

Mike Rogers (03:48:09):

The Gentlelady yields back. Gentlelady's time has expired. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. McGuire is recognized.

John McGuire (03:48:16):

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. To all of our men and women who have served or are serving, your mission is important, and we would not have a country without you.

(03:48:27)
Secretary Hegseth, I last saw you at Memorial Day. We really appreciate your remarks, as we honored and remembered our fallen. Secretary Hegseth and General Cain, thank you both for being with us here today.

(03:48:39)
General Cain, I'd like to say congratulations to you on your recent confirmation as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Trump has put his trust and confidence in two great patriots to lead our men and women in uniform.

(03:48:51)
To me, MAGA, Make America Great Again, means America first, and that's America first, or make America great again for all Americans regardless of race, religion, or creed. And your policies are working, and day-by-day, week-by-week, all Americans are safer at home and abroad. So we commend you for your efforts.

(03:49:13)
If you had a basketball team and you hated your team, you probably wouldn't win any games. And so I love the emphasis, all of us love the emphasis on patriotism and love in our country.

(03:49:25)
Secretary Hegseth, I'd like to also thank you for all that you've done to restore the Department of Defense's focus on lethality and the warrior ethos. Facts don't care about your feelings and our enemies don't care about our social experiments. A quote from the Commandant of the Marine Corps, I hope I don't mess it up, but he said quote, "Our job is to stick bayonets in the hearts of our enemies, and these social experiments detract from that mission."

(03:49:57)
I get messages from my Navy SEAL brothers and other veterans all the time applauding the work that you're doing. The distractions of the last four years of the Biden administration are finally out of the Department of Defense. DEI, which to me is Marxist and it stands for Didn't Earn It, no longer takes precedence in our military.

(03:50:17)
Merit is once again valued. We're no longer worrying about the gender dysphoria, or woke books in our DoD schools, and those policies that have been erasing women. Climate change is no longer the concern of the war fighter. And by the way, I'm looking forward to celebrating with you guys on Saturday, 250 years of a story that must be told of the U.S. Army.

(03:50:39)
I want to thank President Trump for restoring American history. I know you had to jump through some gymnastics to do it, by returning the names of our bases that many of us called home during our time in service. And thank you and President Trump for showing the United States and the world that we are a nation built on law and order by the department's response in Los Angeles riots. Through your leadership and help of this committee, we will realize peace through strength and our warrior ethos.

(03:51:08)
So Secretary Hegseth, Section 866 of the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act directs the department to submit a strategy to ensure that solid rocket motor programs of record are adequately supported by the domestic industrial base. Yet solid rocket motor production is critical to a variety of systems, like President Trump's Golden Dome, we have been lacking.

(03:51:31)
I would say, Mr. Secretary, what progress has the department made in developing a solid rocket motor industrial base strategy?

Secretary Hegseth (03:51:39):

Well I would say in general, the defense industrial base is a focus of ours, the projectiles and other capabilities being a huge part of that munitions, but particularly on solid rocket motor projection, I'd have to hand it to my colleague Brynn if she has it on that line item. But if it was a priority that this committee identified and that we identified, then you can count on with a 13% increase in this budget it has been plused.

John McGuire (03:52:04):

Well we really appreciate that. By the way, in my district Virginia's 5th Congressional District, we applaud what you guys are doing to protect our country. We have a place called ATDM, Accelerated Training and Defense Manufacturing, as I toured the new Columbia submarine and the new Enterprise aircraft carrier, the secretary of the Navy said the welders have the same level of training as a neurosurgeon, and we don't have enough of those guys, but they're doing that right there in my district. And if your schedule ever permitted to come visit, I'd love to tour that with you folks, and we appreciate… Again, we appreciate all you're doing.

(03:52:36)
So under President Trump's leadership, you said that recruitment is up in the Army, and I think you said all services up; is that right?

Secretary Hegseth (03:52:42):

Yes sir.

John McGuire (03:52:43):

Awesome, I appreciate that. And maybe getting rid of these divisive ideologies and focus on more what unites us has something to do with that. Would you agree with that?

Secretary Hegseth (03:52:52):

Very much so. It's the leadership from President Trump and the environment they're entering into, which is back to basics.

John McGuire (03:52:58):

By the grace of God. And I would say morale amongst our enlisted service members and across our military is up. Would you guys agree with that?

Secretary Hegseth (03:53:05):

I've seen that.

General Caine (03:53:08):

Yes sir. The force is united against the problems that we have out there.

John McGuire (03:53:13):

Well, we're lucky to have you. Thanks for all you're doing. If we could be of help, reach out at anytime. God bless you. I yield back.

Mike Rogers (03:53:17):

The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Davis.

Don Davis (03:53:21):

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you Mr. Secretary for being here today, and to General Caine.

(03:53:28)
" The radar just lit up, and at that point we were in an hour-long fight just trying to kill whatever we could." These were words of a pilot at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base speaking of a deployment that occurred on April the 13th, 2024 in the Middle East, where pilots shot down rockets, drones heading to Israel from Iran. Another pilot said, "It was a deployment like we have never seen before."

(03:54:10)
Mr. Secretary, I'm incredibly proud of the airmen at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, and I was glad to join the ACC commander at a decoration ceremony recognizing 31 of the airmen in what they accomplished, and they accomplished the mission on April the 13th.

(03:54:31)
As you have highlighted, the war ethos, lethality, and readiness, I cannot think of a better example than what we saw on April 13th.

(03:54:45)
There was not a lot of time, there was a lot of scrambling. They packed up, took those F-15s to the Middle East and they got the job done.

(03:54:54)
Seymour Johnson plays a key role in our national defense. It also is a location of the Air Task Force, we have one of our Air Task Force, which aims to generate more efficient, integrated, and deployable units.

(03:55:14)
Mr. Secretary, the Air Force has conveyed a commitment of plans to bring back F-15Es with the 229 engines from Lakenheath. Meanwhile, we're working right here trying to prioritize operational and maintenance needs at the installation. We also have to come back and address the training needs.

(03:55:39)
In your opening statement, you mentioned NGAD, the F-47. Could you please just briefly expand further in terms of your vision of NGAD, and looking long-term at the potential of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and others to deliver and ensure the nation's continued air superiority, in face of growing global threats?

Secretary Hegseth (03:56:05):

I'll take it briefly and then hand it to the chairman. I have met some of those men and women from April 13th, impressive Americans, some of the refuelers I've had a chance to talk to from that evening.

(03:56:14)
We are investing in NGAD in a historic way, in the F-47. A lot of its capabilities obviously classified, but with a six generation fighter of that type, it shows to our adversaries that we are prepared to project power in the future. And where those go and where they're stationed is an open question. But we're happy to take a look. And I'll hand it to the chairman and

Don Davis (03:56:32):

Thanks for speaking with our airmen Mr. Secretary.

General Caine (03:56:35):

Sir, first thanks for your service in the Air Force, and in the Joint Force as well. Just piling on here, that particular day for the Air Force, not just with those Strike Eagle crews, but also the maintainers on the ground who were loading missiles up while there was engagements going on right over their heads, so extraordinary acts of bravery under fire out of your home district there.

Don Davis (03:57:03):

Thank you so much.

(03:57:04)
General Caine, thank you too for your service. In the opening statement, you shared that you were honored to serve alongside some of the most incredible warriors, and civilians, and their families. And you didn't stop there and I appreciate it. You said, I always especially remember our fallen and their families who demonstrate true sacrifice, courage, and commitment to our families.

(03:57:25)
Corporal Ryan Russell was a medic, the 2nd Battalion, Fort Bragg, was killed March the fifth, 2007 in Iraq. I talked to his mother, he was 20 years old, putting a face on this, 20 years old, killed with others about the same age, and she said the only thing she missed the most was his smile.

(03:57:45)
But my question is, we have, for instance, we can't bring back those loved ones, but we have the Honor and Remember Flag. Representative Kiggans, myself, if you could take a look at H.R 1363, I would ask you to do so, and Mr. secretary, I would simply ask what else are we doing to honor our fallen?

Secretary Hegseth (03:58:09):

We'll take a look at 1363. I will tell you we initiated the first ever advisory board for Gold Star Families at the Defense Department to follow through on their families as well, and finding every way possible to recognize.

Don Davis (03:58:21):

And I too heard your Memorial Day comments. Thank you. And I yield back, thank you.

Mike Rogers (03:58:25):

We will yield… The gentleman yields back, his time has expired. We will now go to another North Carolinian, Mr. Harrigan for five minutes.

Pat Harrigan (03:58:33):

Thank you Mr. Chairman, and Secretary Hegseth, and Chairman Caine, thank you all for your testimony today. I'd like to first identify with my colleague's comments from Wisconsin, but I'd like to take it a step further.

(03:58:47)
I think you all are owed an apology, and although I really wish that all of my Democratic colleagues' comments were of the nature of my colleague from North Carolina just a minute ago, that is not what happened today. And all we saw was flagrant disrespect towards both of you. And that's not what this committee is about. We should be able to disagree without showing disrespect. We should be able to have discourse without sowing discord. And we should be able to question without using words that you can't take back. And that's not what happened today from the other side of this committee. We need to do a lot better than this.

(03:59:29)
But I will say, gentlemen, that you handled those questions with humility and grace. And today many of my Democratic colleagues have struck out, and it's the second day in a row that many of my Democratic colleagues have struck out.

(03:59:45)
So with that, I've got a couple questions for you today. Mr. Secretary, I want to talk about Army Transformation Initiative. I want to thank you for the bold work that you have done to reshape our nation's army, purging our Department of Defense and our army of legacy weapons systems for structures and contracting mechanisms that have not helped us win the last 30 years of war are not relevant to helping us deter or defeat China, is something that this country desperately needed. It's something that American taxpayers desperately needed. It's something that our servicemen and servicewomen have desperately needed. What is your plan to iterate the Army Transformation Initiative across both our Navy and our Air Forces?

Secretary Hegseth (04:00:39):

It's a great point. I want to first compliment Army Chief General George as well as Army Secretary Driscoll for their initiative out the gate to not waste any time in recognizing precisely what you said, that we need an army structured and prepared to fight the wars of the future. We owe it to the service, we owe to the American people.

(04:00:57)
And they followed in large part a Marine Corps that led the way overall in those, as sometimes they do often.

(04:01:06)
But I recognize other services, the Navy and the Air Force could do more in that regard as well. Different ships, you might say, to steer an army and how you effectuate that modernization or that shift. We think the hard choices we're making in platforms and capabilities in those services mirror the kind of hard choices we're making in the Army. And that's what we as see as our job. In this moment right now, considering the threats we face, the world we live in, I'm going to spend the capital I have to be happy to take [inaudible 04:01:39] of constituencies or districts say, "No, we're going to put forward what's best for the Army, or the Marine Corps, or the Navy, or the Air Force, and we're going to make the tough calls."

(04:01:48)
And that might create some consternation, and that's okay, but our job is to ensure our budget matches those capabilities.

(04:01:54)
Army Transformation is a great example, and we're going to look for it in other services too.

Pat Harrigan (04:01:58):

I very much look forward to seeing what you'll have the Navy and the Air Force do, and we'll be behind you 100% of the way.

(04:02:04)
And Chairman Caine, a lot of talk today about the Golden Dome. I don't really fully appreciate some of my Democratic colleagues not knowing what that's about, or knowing the threats behind why we have to have the Golden Dome. But I also believe that we have to have many domes all across our country. As we've seen we've had very low-cost, high-impact technology proliferate all around the world. And I think we need to look no further than what happened in Ukraine just two weeks ago where you had $100,000 investment by the Ukrainian scuttle over $7 billion worth of hardware by the Russians.

(04:02:41)
I think that we have to look forward into the future and anticipate that we may face the exact same threats, maybe not against our military, but against our infrastructure, against our stadiums, against our city centers. And we need many domes to protect this country against those threats. How are you all working that problem set?

General Caine (04:03:03):

Well, sir, first thanks for the question. Thanks for your service. One of the things that we're learning is the nature and way we fight wars is changing. We're starting to face, as you're alluding to, problems of mass where numbers of exchanges, kinetic exchanges, and frankly non-kinetic in the cyber domain are increasing exponentially, so we have to match networks with networks, and mass with mass. And so as we move forward to create the force of the future that's on our radar.

Mike Rogers (04:03:35):

The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Cisneros.

Gil Cisneros (04:03:39):

Thank You Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary. So many topics to cover.

(04:03:45)
I represent California's 31st District, located in Southern California where you have deployed the National Guard and Marine Combat Battalion in an effort by this administration to provoke a confrontation, God only knows for what reason.

(04:03:59)
As my colleague from Tennessee mentioned, the military has been activated before by the president. But let's tell the whole story. President Johnson federalized the troops after the Governor of Alabama activated them to keep Black students out of the University of Alabama. President Johnson did it so the students could attend the university. He did it for the right reason. He corrected a wrong.

(04:04:21)
California did not ask the president for help. And the presence of the military is an effort by this administration to intimidate and incite fear and violence amongst its citizens. You failed at ensuring basic operational security, by sharing classified data over an unclassified network. This was blatant, lazy and put service members' lives at risk.

(04:04:44)
And knowing that your office is a SCIF, I hope you are not bringing in your devices, your personal cell phone, or even your work phone because that's not supposed to be in there either, right, your cell phone, into your office to send these Signal chat texts. Your blatant lack of basic OPSEC

Gil Cisneros (04:05:00):

… OPSEC would've gotten you resigned, forced you to resign from any other administration. You're requiring 8% cuts across all services, not to save the taxpayers money, but to fund President Trump's pet projects. You talk about quality of life for service members, but yet you take a billion dollars away from the army that was meant to improve their barracks and their [inaudible 04:05:28]. You said that money [inaudible 04:05:30], but we don't know that yet because we haven't seen a budget. If the president has projects he wants funding for, you need to come before this body and provide reasoning, not just shift money around. Right now you are stealing from our service members, robbing Peter to pay Paul. Now you have repeatedly said that you will judge every individual on their merit, is that true?

Secretary Hegseth (04:05:57):

Unlike the previous administration, yes. We are focusing on-

Gil Cisneros (04:05:59):

A simple yes or no for our service members on their merit.

Secretary Hegseth (04:06:02):

We judge everybody on how good they are at their job, yes.

Gil Cisneros (04:06:03):

But yet you are separating thousands of service members who are performing and doing their job at a high level. They are being separated not based on merit, some of have been recommended for early promotion and have gotten awards and are doing a great job, but you're separating for no other reason than frankly, I think you just don't like them. And you're classifying many of them as a national security threat, which is simply not true. You ask the Secretary of the Navy to change the name of a ship, the ship because Harvey Milk didn't meet your definition of warrior ethos. If a Korean War veteran and a Navy diver who gave his life for standing up for his beliefs doesn't meet your definition, I don't know what will. You keep talking about recruiting, but let's face the facts here, recruiting started improving before President Trump even came into office and the reason that changed was because of the investment that was put into recruiting.

(04:07:02)
Now, I was at the Pentagon at the time and I know how much we invested in it and I know how much of the services and when you take away that investment, you're going to get exactly what happened in President Trump's first administration, in 2019 we had the same recruiting crisis back in 2019 when he was president the first time. You continue to attack diversity, but I have always said diversity is about creating opportunity and I have seen plenty of individuals, many of them enlisted members who when given the opportunity have succeeded not because of their sex, not because of color, not because of their sexual identity, but because of their worth, ethic, and merit. Mr. Secretary, when using your definition of DEI, I think there's only one individual at the Pentagon right now who got his job based on that merit and that is you and you got it because of sucking up to your boss and with that I yield back.

Speaker 5 (04:08:00):

The Gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Mesmer.

US Representative Mark Messmer (04:08:05):

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you Secretary Hegseth and General Caine for being here today. Secretary Hegseth, I'd like to start by following up on some questioning from Mr. [inaudible 04:08:15] early this morning regarding SLCM-N. I really appreciate your response regarding the importance of the program. I want to add my voice to the course of those who believe the SLCM-N is a vitally important program and I'm looking forward to the budget boost that you mentioned for its development and deployment. Is there anything else you'd like to add about your view of the importance of investing in the SLCM-N program?

Secretary Hegseth (04:08:37):

No, I have nothing to add to what I said previous. I think it's an important part of the dynamic battlefield of the future to continue to maintain the proper level of deterrence.

US Representative Mark Messmer (04:08:45):

Excellent. Thank you. General Caine, in response to a question in front of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense about non-strategic nuclear capabilities, you spoke about the four C's across enterprise that you also mentioned here this morning. I'd like to focus my question on the competition piece, General Caine and Secretary Hegseth, can you elaborate on the strategy related to competition in the department and that would you agree that in general the department achieves better outcomes and programs when it engages industry in a competitive process?

General Caine (04:09:17):

Yes, sir. Absolutely we do. I mean there's many case studies over the arc of the last 30, 40 years that show how the taxpayer gets a better deal, the warrior gets a better deal when multiple entrants come to the table to drive better outcomes out of each of those producers. And as we look at the House's efforts, the Senate's efforts to work together along with the department and the other leadership to generate the national invests and defense industrial base of the future, I really hope we encourage competition, not just with the existing primes but new entrants and even startups. I spent some time in the private sector as an entrepreneur and realized quickly the value of competition to get to better outcomes.

US Representative Mark Messmer (04:10:08):

The goes without saying. Secretary?

Secretary Hegseth (04:10:11):

To echo the chairman, I think we're at a special moment where a lot of younger scrappier dynamic companies want to enter into the market and our job is to open that up so that not just the big guys who have mostly defense related industries at this point, not as much of a commercial base, in some cases, that aperture is widened to those other smaller, medium-sized companies that invest a lot of their own money in R&D in the hopes that they can cross the valley of death and actually participate in larger systems, so we want a lot more competition.

US Representative Mark Messmer (04:10:43):

Excellent, thank you. Are you considering an open competition process for development of the SLCM-N missile system?

Secretary Hegseth (04:10:54):

I don't know the particulars of the competitive process of the SLCM-N, but we can get that to you.

US Representative Mark Messmer (04:10:58):

Okay, that'd be great. Thank you. Secretary Hegseth on the HAC-D subcommittee hearing, you also mentioned our AUKUS partnership and how you've been working with the Minister Marles and Secretary Healey, not only relying upon the previous administration's Pillar Two framework, but also finding new ways to supercharge Pillar Two and setting up new signature programs under the AUKUS framework. What are the best capabilities in the near term that Pillar Two can deliver to our warfghters?

Secretary Hegseth (04:11:27):

Well, I don't want to get ahead of our discussions with Marles and Healey in Australia and UK in particular, but they're ongoing, they're recent and with an interest in identifying precisely those projects that we share a mutual interest in that are a part of our future fight where all of our defense industrial bases can contribute and benefit from collaboration. So we are looking for that and we will.

US Representative Mark Messmer (04:11:50):

Excellent. Would you anticipate hypersonic capabilities like a hypersonic glide vehicle or new electronic warfare systems could be a potential programs that AUKUS could focus on delivering?

Secretary Hegseth (04:12:02):

I think you were at our meeting, sir.

US Representative Mark Messmer (04:12:03):

Okay.

Secretary Hegseth (04:12:04):

Long range fires is something we've definitely made a part of our conversations.

US Representative Mark Messmer (04:12:08):

Okay, excellent. Secretary Hegseth and General Caine, we know that China is developing new technologies at an alarming pace, namely hypersonic weapons. Now the previous administration sadly did not seem to understand the gravity of this situation and did not prioritize funding for missile defense and hypersonic programs. Can you speak about the Trump administration's and your department's views about the importance of prioritizing investment in hypersonic and missile defense?

General Caine (04:12:35):

Well sir, I'll defer to the prioritization to my civilian leadership. What I'm trying to create as a global integrator along with the incredible work by the joint chiefs and the services is the mix of capabilities that we need to include hypersonics and other long-range fires to achieve the effects at the tactical edge so that we can win in the future and continue to win the way we do now.

US Representative Mark Messmer (04:13:00):

Thank you. I yield back my time.

Speaker 5 (04:13:04):

The Gentleman's time's expired. The Chair now recognizes the Gentlelady from New Hampshire, Mrs. Goodlander.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:13:09):

Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. We have one really important thing in common, we all swore an oath to this great document, the United States Constitution. We swore that oath when we joined the military and we swore that oath when we began the jobs that we're holding now. And I want to begin at the beginning of this document and at the beginning of your testimony, Mr. Hegseth, In the first sentence of your testimony, you said you're here today to testify about the fiscal year 2026 budget for the Department of Defense. You're required under law to submit this budget to the Congress because we've got the power of the purse after all, no later than the first Monday in February. Here we are in the second Thursday in June, we don't have your budget, as the chairman, the ranking member, and many of my colleagues on this committee have pointed out. You have testified that you want to be accountable for every dollar, every taxpayer dollar and where it goes, we can't do our job without your budget. When can we expect your budget, Mr. Hegseth?

Secretary Hegseth (04:14:15):

Well, as I also acknowledge in my opening remarks in the first year of an administration, it does take more time-

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:14:20):

Mr. Hegseth, please reclaiming my time.

Secretary Hegseth (04:14:21):

… especially while you're addressing the priorities of the previous administration.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:14:24):

When can we expect your budget?

Secretary Hegseth (04:14:26):

You have details of it already and you will have it very soon.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:14:30):

Can we expect the budget before the end of the month?

Secretary Hegseth (04:14:33):

I would refer to Bryn who's working that, but I know there are a great deal of detail that is already with the committee.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:14:39):

Okay, let the record reflect that you haven't given us a commitment, but you're required by law to do so. You're also required by law to pass an audit, that's been true since the 1990s. The Department of Defense is the only department that has continually failed an audit. You've committed to passing an audit in 2028, but we expect you to pass an audit this year and hope you will work with us to achieve that goal.

(04:14:59)
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your testimony and what you've said about the threats that we face as the United States, threats from China, Russia and Iran and I want to ask briefly questions about each. Mr. Chairman, you've said that the Chinese Communist Party is advancing an unprecedented military modernization effort with cutting-edge technologies including artificial intelligence. Do you agree that the United States military must have more powerful AI capabilities than China?

General Caine (04:15:32):

Well ma'am, first thank you also for your service in the Navy. I think LLMs and AI really underpinning all of our command and control capabilities is now and will be in the future a key and essential tool for decision-making.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:15:48):

Thank you. I agree that American AI dominance is extremely important.

General Caine (04:15:51):

Yes, ma'am.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:15:52):

Mr. Hegseth, should American AI dominance be up for negotiation with China and any trade talks that are underway?

Secretary Hegseth (04:16:01):

As the chairman said, we're very focused on AI dominance. It's central to maintaining our cutting edge and we're doing that.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:16:09):

Good. Well, I hope… Will you commit to telling the president not to sacrifice American AI dominance in any of his negotiations with the Chinese?

Secretary Hegseth (04:16:19):

The President is not surrendering any of our dominance to the Chinese.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:16:22):

Good. I'll take that as a yes that you'll be advocating for that. Thank you very much. I hope you'll also… You've both spoken to the importance of competition in the defense industrial base, I agree with that deeply. I'd point out that 40% of small businesses have left our defense industrial base supply chain in the past decade and trade wars that have caused unprecedented uncertainty are going to drive more small businesses out of business and that's something I hope we can work together to try to prevent because it's very real in my home state of New Hampshire. Mr. Hegseth, did you order a pause in offensive cyber operations against Russia?

Secretary Hegseth (04:17:02):

I know the story you're referring to and it's false. We said it then and I'll say it now.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:17:06):

So it is your testimony that you never ordered a pause in offensive cyber operations against Russia?

Secretary Hegseth (04:17:13):

We did not.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:17:15):

Okay. Let the record reflect that, and we'll be following up on that. I'm going to skip Iran because there's been a lot said in this hearing that has given me grave concern. One of the things that's been said in this hearing, Mr. Hegseth, was, I want to give you the opportunity to correct the record and make clear that you'll abide by, that you'll obey a ruling of the United States Supreme Court.

Secretary Hegseth (04:17:43):

I don't believe we have any cases pending before the Supreme Court right now.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:17:48):

I want to ask you, will you abide by a ruling, by a decision of the United States Supreme Court if it is issued and you're asked to do so?

Secretary Hegseth (04:17:58):

What I've said and I'll repeat is that district courts should not set the policy of foreign policy of the United States of America.

US Representative Maggie Goodlander (04:18:04):

This is a fundamental principle of the United States Constitution.

Speaker 5 (04:18:08):

The Gentlelady's time's expired. The Chair now recognize the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Schmidt.

US Representative Derek Schmidt (04:18:14):

Thank you Mr. Chairman and Mr. Secretary General, thank you for being here and for your extensive commitment of time today, we're grateful for it and it's the way the system is supposed to work.

(04:18:23)
I want to ask Mr. secretary on the service member and family healthcare side. In your opening statement, we haven't talked much about it today, but you brought up quality of life improvements made in partnership with Congress over the prior years and going forward and your commitment to them. And I jotted down what you said, which is the quality of care given by a defense healthcare system is an important priority for you.

(04:18:48)
At the end of the last year prior to the current administration's service in office, there was concern in many base towns, Army based towns about what we viewed as a push from the Biden administration to downgrade a number of our healthcare facilities. I represent among others, Fort Riley for example, and we were very concerned about the future of Irwin Army Hospital. We thought we had that sidetracked and perhaps we do, but we've heard some concern sort of bubbling up again that perhaps DHA's taking another look and I just want to be sure that it's on your radar screen. We understand some of the resource deployment issues. And with respect to Irwin in particular, it's a wonderful facility. I don't know if you had a chance to be out, but we'd invite you to come out to Fort Riley or Fort Leavenworth or both.

(04:19:37)
Irwin's a state-of-the-art physical facility. One of the challenges is that the physical plan is underutilized. One of the ways we have attempted to respond to that, on my watch, which is now five months old, is to work with the command staff and his team at Riley to connect them with appropriate high-grade civilian providers in the area to try to bring more specialty capacity there to look at other ways to fully utilize that capacity for our service members, their families, veterans in the area, perhaps others, maybe be creative. We want to grow our way out of any back-of-the-envelope challenges. We don't want to shrink our way out of it. So I just want to be sure to bring that to your attention. I guess I would ask, do we have cause to be concerned or can we at least have an assurance that if there is cause to be concerned you're going to take another look at this and engage us fully before we have any surprises?

Secretary Hegseth (04:20:28):

Well, we will certainly take a look. In particular, I will say that we're increasing our expenditures on the healthcare side to make sure we're addressing the needs properly. We're also willing to get creative and one of those, it's not precisely what you addressed is, working with VA. I mentioned it earlier in this hearing where there's places we can cross-level to in a mutually beneficial way that ensures the throughput necessary and skill sets necessary of different facilities, that makes sense also, but looking to the civilian side is another alternative. So I don't know if Bryn, you have particulars on that facility, but we'll get more information to you.

US Representative Derek Schmidt (04:21:01):

We'd appreciate that Mr. Secretary. If there's something else I need to know now I'll take it, otherwise maybe we can follow up with you, but we want to get creative. It's a great asset, and for Riley in particular, as you know, it's an old cavalry post that not unlike Fort Carson from my colleague to the right here provides a relatively large maneuver space in the middle of the country. You can't get that back. We want it to survive and thrive in a 21st century warfighting environment and in order to do that we've got to make sure we're doing the small things that are critical, including providing the right kind of healthcare to our troops. It's a great family post by the way.

(04:21:34)
So let me ask you, shifting gears a bit, and I don't know if this is appropriate for the Secretary or the General, I direct it to your discretion, but with respect to the future of the E-7, another issue that we have some of Kansas-based interest in, but obviously we're more interested more broadly in what we're going to do for aerial surveillance assets. There's been some discussion that the E-7 might be under consideration for reconsideration going forward and some talk about perhaps the E-2 being a bridging platform. What can you tell us about the thinking there and in particular, what level of confidence do you have that the E-2 has the capacity to do the Indo-PACOM operations that we need to be able to do? It's a long distance.

Secretary Hegseth (04:22:20):

I would file the E-7 under the tough choices file for us for sure. Our assessment is that it was gold-plated, it was late and it was over cost. And if we look at the future fight extending the E-2D is our view, alongside… We believe that space-based ISR is the capability of the future, not a prospective hopeful future, but the technologies are there to begin to deliver even more robustly than an aerial platform. So our budget does reflect those tough choices.

US Representative Derek Schmidt (04:22:53):

Can the E-2 do what we need it to do over the Pacific?

Secretary Hegseth (04:22:57):

Well we know that the E-7 being late to cost may not make it in time and that's part of the consideration that we're looking at.

US Representative Derek Schmidt (04:23:04):

Understood. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you, Secretary.

Speaker 5 (04:23:08):

The Gentlemen, yields back. The Chair now recognizes the Gentlelady from Maryland, Ms. Elfreth.

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:23:12):

Thank you, Mr. chair and thank you to our witnesses today. I want to echo first my colleagues and their concerns surrounding a number of issues including the deployment of Marines to Los Angeles, the importance of supporting our ally in Ukraine, the alarming security breach that was Signal-gate and the unjust termination of members of our military from diverse backgrounds who simply want to serve our nation. But before I get to my questions, Mr. Secretary, I want to just follow up with my colleague from New Hampshire. Setting aside district courts, do you believe you have the authority to defy a Supreme Court ruling? Yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (04:23:41):

We're not here to defy a Supreme Court ruling.

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:23:43):

Okay, I'll take that as a win. I'm going to move on to Cybercom in my state, Mr. Secretary, earlier this year, General Haugh was relieved of his command of Cybercom and NSA following a tweet that accused him of being disloyal to the president. And the oath that you took, the oath that I took does not demand loyalty to any president but to this constitution, I too brought my copy from college with me. And yet as of this date, General Haugh, his successor has not yet been named. And you've stated many times that lethality of the military is critical, so it's difficult to understand how this administration would allow any billet to remain unfilled, especially those who lead our combatant commands. I joined my colleague Congressman Bacon in my grave concern that both the firing and the delay in hiring of a leader of CYBERCOM only gives assurance and comfort to our adversaries. So I'm sure you would agree that any combatant command cannot be at its most lethal if a commander Remains absent, when will the president announce the new commander of Cybercom?

Secretary Hegseth (04:24:45):

I would note there's a very highly capable deputy there-

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:24:51):

Absolutely, I agree.

Secretary Hegseth (04:24:52):

… so it's not adrift at all. We recognize that and we are in the process of ensuring that slot is filled.

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:25:00):

In the next month, two months, three months?

Secretary Hegseth (04:25:03):

It will not be that long.

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:25:04):

Okay, I appreciate that. General Caine, during your confirmation process, you stated that the dual hat arrangement provides the ability to look across both organizations and has empowered both US Cybercom and the NSA to fulfill their missions better than each could do alone. Can you confirm for this committee that you hold that view to this day? In one sentence or less, speak to the importance of that dual hat arrangement.

General Caine (04:25:27):

Yeah, that reflects the current policy, the administration, the Secretary of course, as does the president reserves the right to rethink that. Both organizations are critical and whether they're a single or dual hat relationship, if directed we'll take a look at the risk associated with each of them and come back to our civilian leaders with those risks and let them make a decision on it.

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:25:53):

But you are in the room, are you not advising the president as what is best for our national security?

General Caine (04:25:58):

I am in the room, yeah.

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:26:00):

And can you commit to-

General Caine (04:26:01):

Thankfully, yeah.

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:26:01):

I agree. Can you commit to continuing your advocacy for that dual hat relationship?

General Caine (04:26:07):

After some analysis, at the time I wasn't even in the military, I was still coming back in. So if directed to take a look at it, we'll carefully, ma'am, measure the goods and others of each of those, but you have my commitment that I'll continue, as I have, giving my candid, forthright military advice on that each is and others of all those to the Secretary-

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:26:27):

I appreciate that.

General Caine (04:26:28):

… the embassy and the President.

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:26:28):

Thank you, sir. I want to move on to sexual assault in the military and it remains a stain on this DOD and this entire nation. It erodes cohesion, it brings a lifetime of pain and recovery for victims, including my constituents. It's important to members of this committee that funding for SAPR and particular increases and that any flatline of that funding would be viewed as a decrease. In preparation for and during your confirmation, Mr. Secretary, you made commitments that you would support a robust sexual assault program and response program that, "Seeks to drive sexual assaults in the military down to zero." I commend you for that commitment, I agree with it and yet it's been brought up many times, we have no budget by which to measure your commitment and your promises. So can you commit to today that when we do at last receive your final FY-26 budget, we will see an increase to SAPR funding and a plan from you as to how to drive sexual assaults down to zero.

Secretary Hegseth (04:27:20):

As I said in my confirmation, I applaud Congress for the efforts that have been ongoing to address that issue, which we do need to drive to zero. That funding has not been reduced. We've looked at a lot of places for efficiencies, that has not been one and I think you've seen the same news I have that thankfully sexual assaults are coming down and we continue to want to do that.

US Representative Sarah Elfreth (04:27:38):

But we have to remain ever vigilant, which is why I hope it's not level funded. I hope we can continue to drive that down. So I look forward to that final budget whenever we do receive it. Lastly, and I'll take this for the record, moving on a similar topic which is rape kits for DoD civilians overseas. In April, DHA issued a memo denying DoD non-beneficiary civilians who are victims of sexual assault and rape access to sexual assault evidence and collection kits. If I could get for the record your explanation for this decision, these civilians support the DoD. It's incredibly important that we find and bring justice to those victims and I look forward to working with you on it. And I will yield back my time, Mr. Chair.

Speaker 5 (04:28:13):

The Gentlelady's time's expired. The Chair now recognizes the Gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Crank.

US Representative Jeff Crank (04:28:17):

Mr. Crank. Thank you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary and General thank you for being here. And I want to first kind of apologize for the personal attacks. My mom and dad taught me to be different, you won't get that from me, Mr. Secretary. Secretary Hegseth and General Caine. We've heard multiple times this year that we can't do Golden Dome because it'll just cause China and Russia to build better missiles to get around our defenses. For that logic to make sense, it would mean that China and Russia aren't already advancing missile technology and have stood pat on the missile technology they had 20 or 30 years ago. I founded the Golden Dome Caucus here in the House. Is that an accurate statement that they have stood pat on missile technology or are they advancing our enemies on missile technology?

Secretary Hegseth (04:29:04):

I think it's fair to say, like us, they're attempting to advance in every way possible.

US Representative Jeff Crank (04:29:09):

Secretary Hegseth, El Paso County is the fastest growing county in Colorado. It's projected to see significant population growth over the next three decades and we're proud that the region's become such a desirable place for families, but that growth has to be balanced with protecting critical operations of our five military installations And that's why initiatives like Security, Open Space, and Agriculture Resiliency, or SOAR, initiatives are so important. Through a combination of private funding, USDA's Regional Conservation Partnership program and the Department of Defense's Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program or REPI, this initiative supports targeted land acquisitions near military bases. These efforts help conserve wildlife habitat, preserve agricultural interests, and of course maintain the necessary buffer zone, the most important part that allows military missions to continue. Does the Department of Defense plan to continue to support the REPI program in the FY 26 budget request to Congress?

Bryn MacDonnell (04:30:11):

Yes sir, it does. I could get back to you with a specific number.

US Representative Jeff Crank (04:30:14):

That would be great. Thank you. Additionally, the Colorado Trust for Public Land has been awarded an $18.5 million USDA RCPP grant to help leverage DOD REPI funds and reduce future land use conflicts around installations like the US Air Force Academy. However, I understand the USDA is currently holding the funds under review. While I recognize this may fall outside of your direct jurisdiction, the success of this land acquisition is essential to protecting the Academy's training capabilities. Can I count on your assistance in working with USDA to find a solution that protects the readiness of the Air Force Academy and responsible federal funding?

Secretary Hegseth (04:30:55):

Yeah, we're happy to look at that with you.

US Representative Jeff Crank (04:30:57):

Great, thank you. I also would like to talk a little bit about the border. My district is home to US Northern Command. We're very proud of what US Northern Command has done with the new authorities that on January 20th the president gave Northern Command on the Southern Border and in addition, 4th ID has troops down there. Could you talk a bit about some of the great work that the US military is doing in support of securing our southern border?

Secretary Hegseth (04:31:30):

We think it's foundational and fundamental work to the security of our nation. And as I've said before, because the previous administration allowed 21 million illegals from places we don't know to enter our country. And thank you for asking because it gives me an opportunity to sort of… I see questions that are specifically meant to attempt to sow discord between the chairman and I knowing you're going to get different answers based on our positions and he had said, "The technicalities of an invasion," well, we're not talking about an invading army here, so of course everyone's trying to spin his words. What we're talking about is the invasion of human beings, mostly military-age males from all around the world. We have no idea what their intentions are and they facilitated it under the previous administration.

(04:32:11)
So me and my position, I can happily, not happily, I can clearly state that it is an invasion and we are proud to have the military at the border to interdict that and they're every single day through increased authorities are working together with Border Patrol to ensure that that number goes from 99.9% to 100 at the Southern Border. I cannot commend the joint staff NORTHCOM and our military for reacting to that in the early days of the administration, orienting their focus to the Southern Border and applying the manpower expertise necessary because for two decades we spent 20 years guarding other people's borders and we got really good at it and it's about time we take that expertise and apply it to ours and I commend our military for following those lawful orders and executing it incredibly well.

US Representative Jeff Crank (04:33:02):

They did a great job and it's very similar to what's happening right now in Los Angeles. It's a support role. They're not down there arresting people, they're not doing that, but they're doing great job supporting. Thank you Mr. Secretary. I yield back.

US Representative Jen Kiggans (04:33:15):

Thank you. The chair now recognizes the Gentleman from California, Mr. Whitesides.

US Representative George Whitesides (04:33:20):

Thank you. Mr. Chairman and Mr. Secretary, thank you for your service to the country. I'm a new member of Congress from the north side of Los Angeles and I'm proud to represent a region with both a large veteran community and a world-class aerospace production base. It was our area that broke the speed of sound for the first time, that assembled the space shuttles and that now builds many of the most advanced aircraft that this nation depends on for its national security.

(04:33:49)
I want to start by communicating my deep concern for the deployment of military troops to the streets of Los Angeles County. Over the past few days, I've received briefings from military leadership, including the Marine Corps and the National Guard and one thing is eminently clear, so far this operation has been poorly planned and poorly executed and is not an example of the operational and logistical excellence that the Department of Defense is famous for.

(04:34:15)
Our service members have been sleeping on the concrete floors of federal buildings and even outside on roads. No contract has been made to feed them or adequately house them. NORTHCOM was not given adequate time or resources to prepare to absorb these guard units. The lines of command are muddy at best. I've personally heard that NORTHCOM is the lead agency, the DHS is the lead agency, that the FBI is the lead agency or that your office, Mr. Secretary, is the lead agency. It's unclear whether the Marines who have been deployed have even completed their full training for this civilian-focused non-lethal mission. The briefings that we have received to date indicate that only a fraction of the assigned forces are actually being utilized on a day-to-day basis. On top of this, yesterday we heard in your testimony, Mr. Secretary, that the department may start sending troops to other cities and states. And earlier today you refused to say whether you would follow the decision of the Supreme Court on the legality of the deployments of the National Guard and the Marines.

(04:35:23)
We're on an extraordinarily dangerous path. The nation's founding fathers were rightfully deeply skeptical of domestic deployment of federal troops. That skepticism stretches all the way back to the Boston Massacre and is a skepticism based on blood. Going forward I would urge you to avoid politics and to actually pay attention to what law enforcement officers are saying on the ground.

(04:35:51)
Now, we've talked a lot today about leadership and accountability. I've been lucky to work for several inspiring leaders. When I was NASA chief of staff, my boss was Administrator Charlie Bolden, who you may know, he served as a decorated Marine general as well as a space shuttle commander. This was a Marine who flew more than a hundred combat missions in north and south Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. He commanded the mission which deployed the Hubble Space Telescope, which at the time was the largest object ever deployed by the shuttle. He's a serious man and an American hero.

(04:36:20)
I haven't been a member of the Armed Services Committee for very long, just over five months, but in that time I've had the privilege to meet and talk with the senior-most members of our military. I've met men and women who've served for decades in our armed services, who've served for years in combat zones. What have I learned from these American heroes? Leaders don't just speak, they listen. They are strong, but they show humility. They are curious and they learn from all members of their team, even people that they disagree with.

(04:36:52)
You and your team have made multiple serious errors, putting our pilots and troops at risk by disclosing operational details and unclassified communication channels, firing general officers with unique experience and leadership skills, hiring senior team members who seem to be unable to work together well and who seem unable to hold confidential information private. We need the Department of Defense to be run well so that our troops are led well and our nation is protected. In order for that to happen, Mr. Secretary, I suspect you'll need to listen more and talk less. You will need to be more curious and capable of learning from different voices. I know that that is not the style of this administration, but you now have the lives of millions of service members and hundreds of millions of Americans depending on your capacity to learn and change. I sincerely hope you can do it and I yield back my time.

US Representative Jen Kiggans (04:37:49):

Thank you. The Chair now recognizes five minutes for myself. I have the privilege and honor of representing a district that has a huge Navy presence, so I want to switch gears and talk a little bit about naval aviation. Although I'm the daughter of a Green Beret who served in Vietnam, I had the privilege of serving for 10 years as a helicopter pilot. I'm married to a 20-year veteran who flew F-18s and now a proud mom of a naval aviator and a son who graduated from VMI about three weeks ago, so a big military family and I represent a district where naval aviation, really the heart of East Coast naval [inaudible 04:38:19], the East Coast Master Jet base.

(04:38:20)
Yesterday we spent some time talking about the importance of the East Coast. I understand the importance of the West Coast very much and this potential China fight that we are all thinking of every day, but it can't be understated the value of what the East Coast brings in our battle groups and our carrier strike groups that deploy the people that live in my district. So it's a little bit disheartening when I read about and think about the future of naval aviation when I hear from the Department of Defense that about $500 million that was appropriated for the next generation strike fighter in the form of F/A-XX is to be reallocated to the Air Force. And then when I read memos from this committee, this committee is unaware of any changes to the Navy's requirements justifying the procurement of F/A-XX and continues to support efforts to award the F/A-XX development and design contract to the Navy.

(04:39:06)
So we're trying to piece together, and I asked the same question yesterday and I echo the comments of my colleague from Virginia, Congressman Wittman, but that piece is very important. Right now I house very aging F-18 squadrons. There's no prioritizing or no commitment from the Navy to give me even F-35 squadrons. I have four F-35 squadrons that the Marine Corps has on the East Coast, but you all know better than anybody that putting all your eggs in one basket is one of the worst strategies.

(04:39:31)
I've got the West Coast Naval Air Station, Lemoore, the West Coast Master Jet base looks great. We've been out there to visit just to compare. They're slated to have, I believe, eight F-36 squadrons and there's even a F-36 Center for Excellence that they want to put there with no mention of the East Coast Master Jet base. So I just want to hear from you, I'll start with you, Secretary Hegseth, but could you explain a little bit about your comments, why that is and what your plans are to be supportive of our East Coast Master Jet

US Representative Jen Kiggans (04:40:00):

… face. So that is equally if not more important.

Secretary Hegseth (04:40:04):

I think it's a fair point. I do think it's equally important. On the FAA access, we are reviewing it, no doubt. It's fair to say. The budget does provide for a completion of the design. As I've stated the F-47, the EDGAD program is the priority in this budget to get that moving. So we are invested in sixth gen and we do recognize the Navy's unique power projection capabilities. The F-35 factors into that also. And so we're looking at its development in the future and we'll take into consideration those options and certainly make sure as we're planning its considered.

US Representative Jen Kiggans (04:40:38):

That base needs it. And General Caine, I'd to hear your thoughts too. You to quote you, you said we need a capability that is mobile. There's nothing more mobile than a United States aircraft carrier. And when I turn on the television, we want to talk about dropping bombs on Houthis in Yemen, who do they show? They always show my husband taking off F-18s. I get very jealous. I know there's a helicopter over there in starboard D just waiting for something to happen, but that's what they show. It's Naval aviation.

General Caine (04:41:00):

Ready to fish somebody out of the water. Ma'am, thanks for the question. Thanks for your service. Thanks for your husband's service and congratulations to your son. That's a big, big deal. Obviously the Navy's working all those issues, east coast, west coast power, but as a global integrator, having fifth gen on the west coast that can go in those carrier groups and get out there and provide deterrents and or capabilities is key. Echo the secretary's comments, I'll get with the Navy and take a look at their force in terms of fifth gen and moving forward. And of course the FAXX timing is a policy decision, so defer to my leadership.

US Representative Jen Kiggans (04:41:40):

Thank you. Well, I know that you all are aware of our work we did from this congress, last Congress with the quality of life initiatives and for the infrastructure needs at our bases, but that basis hurting. And again, that is our East Coast master jet base and we all know money follows a new toy sometimes. So please think of that and please prioritize and at least give us a commitment that that is coming our way. And in closing, I just want to talk about, I'm the co-chair of Women Peace and Security Caucus, which we have here. We've had here, this was a 2017 Trump bill that was signed into LA co-sponsored them by Senator Marco Rubio, strongly championed by Ivanka Trump designed to improve military readiness, strengthen our allies, promote lasting stability through the inclusion of women and peace and security efforts.

(04:42:21)
Just please be mindful of that, it's a cheap $3 million in fiscal year 24, but having been in a lot of meetings with a lot of our allied partners, it's a cheap form of just maintaining those relationships and really giving a role to the roles that women want to play. I mean, it's an important role for us. I will say this, I will say that we are watching, women are watching and as a person who was commissioned in 1993, which was the first year that women could fly in combat, it was an important piece in my decision to serve. So I just would love to hear your thoughts about the future of women, peace, and security.

Secretary Hegseth (04:42:56):

Ma'am, my issue is not what women, peace, and security was, it's what it became under the Biden administration. So our review showed that what it became, which is far more ideologically focused, was not what it should be. And so our decision there was driven by removing that aspect.

US Representative Jen Kiggans (04:43:13):

I don't disagree and happy to be a part of the solution to fix that and my time has expired and the chair now recognizes senator from California.

Speaker 6 (04:43:24):

Got promoted.

US Representative Jen Kiggans (04:43:26):

I'm sorry about that.

Speaker 6 (04:43:26):

Thank you, Chairwoman. Thank you Chairwoman. Thank you to the witnesses for being here. Mr. Secretary, I just got word that Senator Padilla from my great state of California was physically assaulted and arrested for attending Secretary Noem's press event. The mere fact that he showed up, he was forcibly removed. Is this how you would treat a member of Congress who attends your press event whether invited or not?

Secretary Hegseth (04:43:53):

I've been here for five hours, sir, I don't know about that.

Speaker 6 (04:43:55):

I'm just asking would you have me forcibly removed from your press?

Secretary Hegseth (04:43:58):

I'm not going to speculate on a hypothetical. I'm sure there's more context.

Speaker 6 (04:44:02):

I'll take that as a yes. Mr. Secretary, does the DOD have any plans to allow the military to follow the orders of President Trump when his order violates the constitution? Yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (04:44:14):

I reject the premise of that question, which is that President Trump is ordering unconstitutional orders.

Speaker 6 (04:44:19):

I'll take that as a yes as well. Mr. Secretary, the deployment of active-duty Marines to California is incredibly disruptive to the lives of service members who are being drawn into the president's publicity stunt. And I want to know how you're planning to take care of these troops. So will you commit to sending my office and this committee a detailed plan on how you plan to house and feed the 700 Marines and potentially thousands of Marines?

Secretary Hegseth (04:44:51):

What's disruptive is when concrete blocks are thrown at the heads of ICE officers and so we're proud that National Guardsmen and Marines have responded in real time to help defend those law enforcement officers.

Speaker 6 (04:45:01):

So do you have a plan? Do you have the plan to house-

Secretary Hegseth (04:45:03):

Not only do we have a plan, but it's been a focus of mine who's held… I've held a riot shield before in a riot. I recognize what it means to respond in real time. Without enough time-

Speaker 6 (04:45:12):

Mr. Secretary, will you get me that plan?

Secretary Hegseth (04:45:14):

… everything they can as fast as they can and we have a plan for that.

Speaker 6 (04:45:17):

Mr. Secretary, I reclaim my plan. Chairwoman? LA Mayor Bass stated that the area placed under the recent curfew is around one square mile. Is that the same area where service members will be deployed?

Secretary Hegseth (04:45:33):

Service members are in Los Angeles to defend law enforcement-

Speaker 6 (04:45:36):

Do you know?

Secretary Hegseth (04:45:36):

… ICE agents and facilities?

Speaker 6 (04:45:38):

So essentially you're telling me that American people and the American people that a one square mile block of LA and for the record LA counties over 4,700 square miles warrants the deployment of 700 Marines and the federalization of 4,000 California National Guardsmen? You testified earlier that you will send in the military to protect local law enforcement. Did LAPD Police Chief McDonough ask you for your help?

Secretary Hegseth (04:46:05):

I read reports on a regular basis-

Speaker 6 (04:46:07):

Did he ask for your help?

Secretary Hegseth (04:46:08):

… from ICE agents-

Speaker 6 (04:46:09):

I'll take that as a no.

Secretary Hegseth (04:46:10):

… who couldn't be more grateful.

Speaker 6 (04:46:11):

Did LA Sheriff Luna ask for you to send in the military, Mr. Secretary? Did LA Sheriff Luna ask you to send in the military? Yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (04:46:22):

I don't work for the LA sheriff.

Speaker 6 (04:46:24):

Well, you said you sent in to support the military but they didn't even ask to support law enforcement but they didn't even ask for your help. Have you been to Los Angeles in the last seven days?

Secretary Hegseth (04:46:35):

My team is from the top down focused on-

Speaker 6 (04:46:39):

I'll also take that as a no. How did you arrive at the decision not to coordinate with local law enforcement and the governor's office on the initial deployment?

Secretary Hegseth (04:46:50):

It would be great if the governor attempted to actually coordinate instead of grandstand.

Speaker 6 (04:46:56):

All right, so I believe you're secretly deploying troops to an area without coordinating with local officials as somehow not disruptive to the logistical and operational conditionals on the ground. You agree with that?

Secretary Hegseth (04:47:09):

I would need you to repeat the question, sir.

Speaker 6 (04:47:12):

Does the department plan on coordinating with Governor Newsom's office on local law enforcement going forward, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary Hegseth (04:47:23):

We've coordinated with local law enforcement quite well but the governor's been an obstruction to that of course.

Speaker 6 (04:47:28):

All right, Secretary Hegseth. This political stunt and by your own admission is expected to cost American taxpayer at least 134 million and will disrupt the lives of hundreds and potentially thousands of active-duty Marines and 4,000 National Guardsmen. That's 134 million and thousands of personnel diverted away from critical missions in the Indo-Pacific where China is rapidly expanding from Europe, where NATO needs US support amid growing Russian aggression and from CENTCOM where tensions are escalating so critically that your own General Carrillo had to cancel all his testimony in Congress today. Your redirection of combat-ready troops from real-world national security threats to manage a domestic protest is gross mismanagement and a slap in the face of service members whose lives are disrupted throughout this event. As a veteran myself, it's a disgrace and you should be ashamed. I yield back.

US Representative Jen Kiggans (04:48:25):

The gentleman's time has expire.

Speaker 7 (04:48:27):

Madam Chair, can we add into record please that the gentleman from California has just stated that it is okay to have one mile of complete criminality in LA so long as it doesn't cover the 47-

Speaker 6 (04:48:37):

That was not my statement [inaudible 04:48:44].

US Representative Jen Kiggans (04:48:43):

Neither gentleman is recognized.

Speaker 6 (04:48:44):

You do not have the right. You have not been recognized by the chair.

US Representative Jen Kiggans (04:48:49):

Neither gentleman is recognized. That chair now recognizes the congressman from Louisiana, Mr. Higgins for five minutes.

Mr. Higgins (04:48:59):

Well, thank you Madam Chair. Let's bring it down a notch, shall we? It's always fascinating to observe folks talking about things they've never experienced. A great deal of authority up in this bizarre body reading scripted, hateful, planned rhetoric and directing them at you gentlemen who do indeed know what it is to stand a post. Let me address first the General Caine. I have to say good sir that research in your service career, my goodness gracious, 35 years of distinguished exceptional service. I can't imagine that there's a better American man to be the chairman of Joint Chiefs of staff. Thank you good sir. As an enlisted army grunt, I thank you for being where you are and for your 35 years of service,

(04:50:12)
Mr. Secretary and General, I have plenty of questions that I don't have to get to because you almost finished with this thing. I have questions on recruitment and training and Fort Polk and software monetization, artificial intelligence shipbuilding. Our new army rifles, which I find questionable by the way. But when I met with you in the Pentagon a couple of months ago, Mr. Secretary to dive deep into the reconciliation considerations and the budget, what the DOD would need and primary threats face in our country. I'd never really sat down with you like that before, but what struck me good sir, was that you are a committed and dedicated patriot and I know that I can expect that sort of transparency and accessibility and candor from your office.

(04:51:16)
So I'll get to these questions down the line. I know you'll answer the phone and your people will respond because that's the man that you are. You've covered a tremendous amount today and you've been subjected to some politically motivated vitriol. On behalf of Congress, I apologize for that. So let me just state that from my humble position, I'm going to make a promise to you two gentlemen and by extension to the country that we love and serve, whatever you need to accomplish your mission, we're going to work very hard to provide.

(04:52:06)
May God give you strength and may he provide shields of protection and peace for your families. I know your nights are long, you probably each working 20-hour days every day. Thank you for that, for being here today, for your accessibility and God bless you each. Madam Chair, I yield.

Speaker 8 (04:52:33):

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Vindman.

Mr. Vindman (04:52:38):

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I ask unanimous consent to submit for the record an article, a distinguished member of this committee-

Speaker 8 (04:52:45):

Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. Vindman (04:52:47):

… confirmed that there was in fact a pause in offensive cyber operations earlier this year. The SecDef just denied this. This committee deserves to know whether the secretary just lied. Mr. Secretary, many believed you were underqualified for this role. You've been secretary for four and a half months now. For the sake of the American people and our service members, I hope you've done your homework since. Let's talk Ind PACOM. What year has the Navy publicly set as the benchmark for being ready to fight a war with China?

Secretary Hegseth (04:53:23):

Well, it needs to be right now. We know what China has said-

Mr. Vindman (04:53:27):

But I'm glad to hear that. But there is a publicly set date.

Secretary Hegseth (04:53:30):

Well, we know it wouldn't be prudent for me in this environment to reveal when we think we're ready. That's what China has said and we understand what they're saying.

Mr. Vindman (04:53:40):

Not a filibuster. 2027 is the year. According to unclassified DOD assessments, how many warships does China have in its navy today?

Secretary Hegseth (04:53:51):

Many and growing.

Mr. Vindman (04:53:53):

370. It's the largest navy in the world. How many does the US Navy have today?

Secretary Hegseth (04:54:00):

Thanks to this budget, it's increasing substantially, but it's just south of 300.

Mr. Vindman (04:54:08):

296. Pretty close. How many ships is China expected to field by 2030?

Secretary Hegseth (04:54:14):

I believe that's a classified number, but it's going to go at a rapid rate.

Mr. Vindman (04:54:19):

That was a released, there's an unclassified number.

Secretary Hegseth (04:54:21):

It's going up at a rapid rate.

Mr. Vindman (04:54:23):

Let me help you out. 435. Let's see if we would do better in UCOM. What corridor in Eastern Poland is vulnerable and a priority for US reinforcements. It connects Belarus to a Russian region.

Secretary Hegseth (04:54:39):

I'm sure you can tell me.

Mr. Vindman (04:54:40):

I can tell you. It's the Suwalki gap. Which heavily-militized Russian territory connected the Suwalki gap? It contains nuclear-capable missiles, it threatens all of NATO. It's right there in the middle of Eastern Europe.

Secretary Hegseth (04:54:58):

I see we're playing a quiz game here. Ultimately, thankfully we're getting our NATO allies to step up in their spending to make sure that they can hold-

Mr. Vindman (04:55:05):

Mr. Secretary, I asked you a specific question. Thank you. It's Kaliningrad Oblast. So what percentage of Ukrainian front-line casualties, let's talk drones, are now caused by FPV drones.

Secretary Hegseth (04:55:20):

A very large percentage and we're studying that conflict closely to understand.

Mr. Vindman (04:55:23):

I hope so. It's over 70%. And which US service has written doctrine or standardized procurement for integration of FPV drones?

Secretary Hegseth (04:55:33):

That's the army.

Mr. Vindman (04:55:35):

I wish that were the case, but actually the answer is none of them. So we're not prepared yet and we need to get there fast. Let me turn to a different topic. A few weeks ago when my office opened up in Fredericksburg, I spoke to the mother of one F-18 pilot who flew the March 15th mission over the Red Sea in Yemen that you discussed over Signal. I spoke to her again on Tuesday and asked her if there was anything she wanted me to bring up. She believes that you need to resign. She also had several questions, but one thing, she said she would appreciate an apology. An apology for putting classified information. Her son couldn't even tell her where the Truman was. Going. But into the Houthi PC small group Signal Chat that risks her son's life and the mission. Mr. Secretary, yes or no, do you think you owe an apology?

Secretary Hegseth (04:56:24):

Please make sure to let her know how grateful we are for the skill and heroism of-

Mr. Vindman (04:56:28):

I am very much grateful. I'm sure everybody in this room is grateful. I'm proud of what her son has done. The question is, do you owe her an apology for your actions? Are you going to be accountable?

Secretary Hegseth (04:56:39):

It was an incredibly successful mission. Her son did great work.

Mr. Vindman (04:56:43):

They did a magnificent job.

Secretary Hegseth (04:56:44):

And thankfully the Houthi campaign was successful.

Mr. Vindman (04:56:45):

Secretary, I agree with you. Magnificent job, the performance of those pilots and Navy Personnel. Magnificent. We're talking about what you did and accountability. Are you going to apologize to the mother or not?

Secretary Hegseth (04:56:58):

I don't apologize for success.

Mr. Vindman (04:57:01):

You don't apologize for putting her son's life in danger and for putting the mission in jeopardy? Well, that's really disappointing and not befitting the type of leadership that our troops and families deserve. It's frankly a stunning lack of OPSEC. Privates are trained to do much better than that. It was reckless and it sounds like that accountability doesn't extend as far as the Secretary of Defense. So I think you should resign. The mother says she wants you gone. And with that I yield back.

Speaker 8 (04:57:33):

Gentleman yields back. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Sorensen.

Mr. Sorensen (04:57:38):

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to the secretary and the general for joining us today. Mr. Secretary, I'm hopeful that we can come to an agreement that we need both sides of the chambers working together for the betterment of the military. Do you believe that bipartisanship is essential to the mission of our armed forces? Yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (04:58:00):

Bipartisanship. Bipartisanship can be a wonderful thing.

Mr. Sorensen (04:58:05):

Great, because I didn't come to Congress with political baggage. I was called here because I believe and my constituents believe that we need impartial, bipartisan people to find solutions to complex problems. But today this nation is being pushed and pulled in so many different directions. I had a constituent this weekend that said, Eric, I don't even know what to believe anymore. Facts don't matter. Conspiracy theories run rampant like brush fires without anyone to quell them. So I'm hoping you can shoot straight from the hip with me. We're almost done. Do you have a targeted number of reductions in civilian personnel in our armed forces?

Secretary Hegseth (04:58:44):

We have very diligently tried to identify the places where we might need to make changes, but for the most part it's been a DRP process, a volunteer process of civilians to try to reduce the number for cost savings.

Mr. Sorensen (04:58:56):

Is there an analysis that supports how you're coming up with these decisions?

Secretary Hegseth (04:59:01):

We looked at about eight to 10% congressman, but ultimately everyone here acknowledges that the civilian size of the DOD has exploded over the last 20 years. And so where there are room for efficiencies, we are actively trying to find them and right size those spots because a lot of those places are not making us more nimble or faster at what we do.

Mr. Sorensen (04:59:20):

And what do we say to the people that have strived in their entire life, these are former retired members of the military working as civilians back home. What do we say to them?

Secretary Hegseth (04:59:30):

Well, almost all of them took a voluntary DRP to separate.

Mr. Sorensen (04:59:34):

Do you have a timeline for making these cuts?

Secretary Hegseth (04:59:37):

Like I said, almost all of them were volunteers who themselves decided to retire early.

Mr. Sorensen (04:59:42):

Okay, I want to reset for just a moment and I'm going to be honest with you. I learned a lot about military service from both of my grandpas who served and fought in World War II. My Grandpa Sorensen was a proud Navy photographer. I have his photos, they're framed above my desk here on Capitol Hill. I learned to be proud of him and from him I learned how to become proud of veterans, which is why I want to talk about a different veteran.

(05:00:10)
One who served in the Korean War from 1951 to 55. He served courageously like my Grandpa Sorensen. But unlike my grandpa, this veteran was forced to resign from the Navy. I'm talking about Harvey Milk, because he was gay. You see, as a kid, all I wanted to be was the weatherman on TV. I learned that I could have gone into the army or the Navy to learn meteorology, but someone like me wasn't allowed. They didn't want someone like me, Mr. Secretary. There wasn't anything that I could do to change myself or the way that my nation thought of me. And so I want to keep this very simple. Do you believe that Harvey Milk is a veteran who deserves his country's thanks?

Secretary Hegseth (05:00:58):

Sir, the decision to rename the ship was-

Mr. Sorensen (05:01:00):

I'm just asking, do you believe that Harvey Milk is a veteran who deserves his country's thanks, yes or no?

Secretary Hegseth (05:01:07):

If his service was deemed honorable, yes.

Mr. Sorensen (05:01:10):

Yesterday the Secretary of the Navy was in your seat. He couldn't give me a straight answer. I disagree with your leadership and his, because I believe that every veteran deserves our thanks. We all walk in the footsteps of leaders before us. And you may not find the value in the fact that many of those people are women, with different skin colors, different backgrounds, different talents, immigrants, gay, straight, transgender, disabled. You may want to change it, but you can't because the America that you and I both serve is a place where everyone has the ability or should have the ability to grow up and be the hero their grandpa was.

(05:01:55)
I wanted to do that when I was a kid. We're going back to that time. Gay kids like me, they don't want to go into the army. They don't want to go into the navy because you don't care for them. It's happening all over our country. My grandpa taught me never to judge the value of a veteran's service. And I hope, Mr. Secretary, you learn to do the same in your capacity and you can find it in your heart to make that part of your process. May God continue to watch over our troops, our veterans, and our military families. I yield back.

Speaker 8 (05:02:31):

Gentlemen yields back. I now recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Beal.

Mr. Beal (05:02:37):

Mr. Secretary, unlike my colleague down the dais, I don't feel sorry for you. I visited with soldiers in war zones whose life is on the line. So a few tough questions. I think you'll be okay. And so my first question is, are you authorized to disclose intelligence that would put our troops in harm's way to our enemies?

Secretary Hegseth (05:03:06):

Well, I reject the premise of the question.

Mr. Beal (05:03:09):

As a hypothetical, are you authorized to do that?

Secretary Hegseth (05:03:11):

I have not. And do not.

Mr. Beal (05:03:12):

Exactly. And I assume that. So when you told our ranking member that everything that you say is authorized, that wasn't completely accurate. Correct?

Secretary Hegseth (05:03:23):

What I said is that every way that I communicate is-

Mr. Beal (05:03:26):

No, you actually said everything that you said is authorized. I wrote it down. Now with that said, and the reason I bring that up is because it's about accountability and we're talking about this war ethos. The primary component of that is accountability. And indulge me in a quick analogy. Republicans introduced a bill on the House floor a few days ago, a resolution standing against terror, racism, hate anti-Semitism, which as an American, as a black man, I'm going to stand against those things six times a week, twice on Sunday. Now the nefarious part was, there was a line that was stuck at the end of that resolution that essentially gave a shout-out to law enforcement, which I do support, but also to ICE. Which right now a lot of Americans have a problem with the way ICE is being deployed.

(05:04:23)
And I'm not happy with what they're doing, nor do I want to shout them out for that. And so accountability was I didn't duck from the question. I went and I talked to my constituents. I went on social media, I did interviews to explain exactly where I stood, that I stand against hate. I stand against racism. I stand against anti-Semitism and I hate that that line was stuck in there. That's accountability. So when we're asking you these questions and you're ducking and you're not answering them directly, that's not a culture of a war… What was the term? A warrior ethos. I'm looking at members who serve and they're taking their lead from you. That starts with you. And if we have troops who are in war zones and they're watching while they're risking their lives and you can't just answer some tough questions, what kind of culture is that setting?

(05:05:23)
So as a prosecutor, when I think about what's happening in California and around the country with ICE, it's not only dangerous and unconstitutional, but it raises serious public safety concerns because we have people with masks that are going around saying that they're ICE. And we've had reports of that saying that they're ICE and committing crimes. And that's a big problem. But it gives me back to the point of the accountability piece. So for example, do you believe quality military housing is important? Yes or no? And just keep your mic on for time because I only have a minute left.

Secretary Hegseth (05:06:03):

Our budget commits to robust military housing and barracks.

Mr. Beal (05:06:06):

Do you believe military children deserve a strong education?

Secretary Hegseth (05:06:11):

Our budget funds strong education and we hope more educational choices for military.

Mr. Beal (05:06:16):

Love it. Is it a priority to provide real reliable care to our veterans?

Secretary Hegseth (05:06:22):

Of course.

Mr. Beal (05:06:23):

So Mr. Secretary, we have a problem here because your answers don't match your budget priorities. You said your mission is to restore this warrior ethos and that threats we face are serious, but so must our investments. So when we think of, for example, a $45 million parade, I can think of 45 million things we could do more effectively with $45 million than a parade, such as the things that I mentioned, military housing, military children's education, providing reliable care for our veterans. All of these things would be higher on the priority than a parade.

(05:07:05)
And when we talk about showing strength, we're not talking about theater, we're not talking about showmanship. We're talking about things that actually make our military more lethal and keeps us safer. And so what I'm saying is that in my limited time left is accountability does matter and this body cares about what our military is doing because we care about national security and we all take it very seriously.

Speaker 8 (05:07:45):

Gentleman's time has expired. All time for member questions has expired. The chair now recognizes a ranking member for any closing comments.

Mr. Smith (05:07:55):

Now I just want to thank the chairman for his excellent leadership of the committee. Obviously highly contentious time. The only comment I would make, a number of members of the other side expressed outrage that we were critical of Secretary Hegseth. I don't know how many of those members sat here when Joe Biden was president, but the savage attacks on Biden and Secretary Austin and Sherman Milley, and the hypocrisy of that was just breathtaking for me to behold. And let me just say, I think I agree with what Mr. Beal just said. Tough job, not as tough as a lot of other jobs. But part of it is you are accountable to this body and you are accountable to answer questions even if sometimes they are obnoxious. That's part of the gig. And I do hope going forward that the Department of Defense will have greater contact with this committee.

(05:08:44)
I have not spoken to you one-on-one in the entire time you've been Secretary of Defense, only interacted with you twice. I've been through a ton of secretaries of defense that served for presidents, including President Trump. Always had a very good relationship and a very good conversation. Your department is cutting us off in a way that is not helpful to any of the bipartisan hopes that have been expressed by the other side of the aisle. I hope that will change. I hope there will be interactions. I will say, General Caine, you've been very generous and reached out. I've had good communication and I do appreciate that because that is responsibility of the job. I haven't met too many people at the Pentagon that like coming over here. In fact, I can't think of one, but it is part of the job in a constitutional republic. We are the people's voice. We are charged with conducting oversight. So I hope that interaction will continue. Criticism is part of the gig. Again, I thank the chairman for conducting an excellent hearing.

Speaker 8 (05:09:41):

Thank you, my friend, and I would say Ms. McDowell, you crushed it today. So for your first… And to our other two witnesses, thank you for your first appearance before the House Armed Services Committee. Thank you for your service to our country. And with that, we are adjourned.