Jimmy Kimmel is stunned by how much Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is spending on the job.
The Defense Department spent over $93 billion in September 2025 alone, the government watchdog Open the Books reported on Monday. “The shopping spree encompasses luxury food items like lobster, high-end furniture and rushed IT purchases,” the report notes.
Kimmel quoted from the Daily Beast’s reporting on the revelations in his Tuesday monologue, noting that Hegseth had “spent $6.9 million on Lobster Tail, $140,000 on donuts, $124,000 on ice cream machines, $26,000 on sushi preparation tables, and $15.1 million on ribeye steak.”
“What is this, My 600-Lb Defense Department?” Kimmel joked, referencing the MTV reality show My 600-Lb Life. "How are we eating so much food?"
“Can you imagine the size of the egg [Fox News host] Sean Hannity would lay if a Democrat had spent millions of dollars on lobster tails and sushi preparation tables?” Kimmel said. “He would never walk again.”
“They racked up quite a bill,” Kimmel mused about Hegseth’s department. He found it particularly funny that they spent $12,000 on fruit baskets.
The late-night host joked about Hegseth, “He’s been going around saying, ‘We’re making the military manly again! ... Now, where is the stand for my basket of fruit?’”
The Pentagon’s more surprising spending choices tend to occur in September, largely due to federal “use-it-or-lose-it” rules, the Open the Books report explained. The department feels pressured to use up its full budget to avoid potential budget cuts in the next fiscal year. Sept. 30 is the end of the government’s fiscal year.
Although the Department of Defense’s spending on food and furniture also spiked in September under previous administrations, the 2025 binge under Hegseth’s watch was large enough to spark criticism from some fellow Republicans.
“If taxpayers are going to be asked to spend $1.5 trillion on defense—nearly as much as the rest of the world combined—Washington must be able to defend how every dollar is being spent,” Republican Sen. Joni Ernst told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Ernst argued that Open the Books’ report on “binge-buying bureaucrats at the Pentagon” has revealed “how much work still needs to be done to meet that goal.”
Hegseth is known to have specific tastes when it comes to his department. In September he ordered soldiers to shave their beards and cut their hair.
“We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans,” Hegseth said in a September 30 speech to top military leaders. He added, “If you want a beard, you can join special forces... If not, then shave.”
In November, Hegseth installed new plaques at the Pentagon, unofficially renaming his department the “Department of War.” He urged Congress to officially approve the name change, a proposal that would cost an estimated $2 billion to pull off.
