Hegseth Vows to Cut Pentagon, Then Expands It

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday pulled together hundreds of troops to lay out cuts to the Pentagon’s bureaucracy — and ended up announcing major plans to add to it,” Politico reports.

”At first, the Pentagon chief’s ‘State of the Force’ speech at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, sounded similar to his more publicized talk last year, where he declared new grooming and fitness standards and vowed to get rid of ‘fat generals and admirals.’ He touted an effort Wednesday to monitor testosterone levels and cut 20% of the military’s top officers — particularly those he considered too ‘woke‘ for their jobs.”

”But Hegseth then took an abrupt U-turn, declaring a half-dozen new initiatives that are likely to add to the Pentagon’s budget — among them a combatant command for drones, a commission led by SpaceX founder Elon Musk and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and a new military base that the Pentagon chief said governors could compete over to house in their states.”