Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a little short on cash.
You see, the Army is apparently short $4 to $6 billion, and while that is a lot of money to the rest of us, it’s pretty much pocket change for the Pentagon. So Hegseth just needs to make a few small adjustments here and there, which led him to a terrific solution: drastically cut training for servicemembers.
Attribution: APA thick plume of smoke rises from an oil storage facility hit by a U.S.-Israeli strike in Iran on March 8.
Chat, is it good when—in the middle of what the Wall Street Journal describes as “Air War in Iran Gives Way to Crippling Stalemate in Hormuz”—the Defense Department decreases its Army pilot flight training hours to the mandatory minimum?
What about when it cancels its Army Sapper Leader Course on combat engineering or all of its artillery training courses?
Pffft, warfighters don’t need that stuff.
Whiskey Pete, pay no attention to the Pentagon’s internal plan saying that the Army Corps’ aviation units would be deploying next year at “a lower state of readiness” or that it would take an entire year for units to build back “combat proficiency.”
Well, at least it’s only one branch of the military that has to deal with this, right?
Wrong.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told Congress Tuesday that the Navy could run out of money by July, which could cause interruptions in training and other operations.
It’s honestly astonishing that the military could be facing any sort of shortfall given that the Pentagon’s budget—initially set at $839 billion for this fiscal year—got a $156 billion boost, bumping it to nearly $1 trillion. And next year, if President Donald Trump and Hegseth get their way, it will have $1.5 trillion to completely mismanage.
But Hegseth doesn’t have that money yet, now does he? Right now, Trump’s ridiculous war in Iran has burned through … well, the Pentagon doesn’t actually know how much the war has cost thus far. It could be $29 billion, it could be $40 to 50 billion.
It’s neat how government spending is now an untraceable mess.
Attribution: APAn Army carry team moves a flag-draped transfer case with the remains of Sgt. Declan Coady, who was killed in a drone strike in Kuwait after Trump launched his war in Iran.
One would think that being stuck in an expensive war with no end in sight might spur a defense secretary to implement more training, but nope. The right thing to do during a war is to purge high-level military personnel—because you’re jealous that the Navy secretary got more face time with Dear Leader—and to block promotions of Black people and women—because gross, they’re not warfighters.
Hegseth is a vicious toddler who couldn’t balance a checkbook, much less responsibly handle nearly $1 trillion. At the end of the 2025 fiscal year, he spent nearly $93 billion in one month.
The Pentagon has been doing this sort of last-minute frenzied spending for at least a decade, spanning both Democratic and Republican presidencies. Money left unspent at the end of the fiscal year goes away, so it’s a use-it-or-lose-it situation.
But Hegseth’s spending spree was orders of magnitude larger than in previous years. The guy blew $225 million on furniture and tossed in a $98,329 grand piano for the Air Force chief of staff. And how about a little $5 million for iPads?
But, of course, Hegseth is not alone in draining the coffers.
Trump’s little trick of sending National Guard troops across the country to whatever city he was mad at cost around $496 million last year. If he keeps up the pace, it could reach $1.1 billion.
Remember how the so-called Department of Government Efficiency was going to root out fraud and waste? Perhaps it should have started with the Pentagon—it’s the only agency that has been completely unable to pass an unmodified financial audit. From 2017 to 2024, the Pentagon copped to $10.8 billion in confirmed fraud, but the Government Accountability Office said that reflected “only a small fraction.”
Attribution: APPresident Donald Trump speaks with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on March 23.
The administration keeps showering money on federal law enforcement and the military because those are the only federal personnel who Trump cares about. But that isn’t leading to full staffing by competent people.
Instead, we’ve got Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruits with criminal charges and failed drug tests. They can’t meet the physical requirements, and they can’t pass an open-book test. Perhaps slashing their training wasn’t the best idea?
The FBI is also lowering standards, no longer requiring a college degree or even 18 weeks of training. Just a brisk little 8 weeks is all it takes to join Kash Patel’s FBI.
Cutting training mid-war is a slap in the face to servicemembers. It’s an explicit indicator that neither their safety nor skills matter at a time when they might be sent to fight Trump’s flailing war.
Hegseth’s understanding of the military is almost childlike. He’s pretty sure it’s just “big men with guns go bang bang, and big planes drop missiles that go boom boom.” It’s almost funny—if it weren’t dangerous as hell.
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