The former Fox News weekend host-turned Defense Secretary made himself the star of a cartoon to sell President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion request.
Standing in front of an animated Pentagon and fake chalkboard, Pete Hegseth framed the $1.5 trillion as a “generational down payment” for national defense.
“Despite what you might hear in the media, America is not in decline,” Hegseth begins. “Now, with global threats that are constantly evolving, it’s time to make a $1.5 trillion investment, a generational downpayment.”
“For far too long, Washington bureaucrats allowed America’s defense industrial base to fall apart,” Hegseth said while showing what appears to be a cartoon depiction of former President Joe Biden and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Hegseth then names several missions under the Trump administration, including Operation Sledgehammer and Epic Fury, which he called “testaments” as to why the Pentagon is seeking such a large budget.
“This is a generational down payment on our future, a down payment on deterrence. President Trump’s budget is sending one, unmistakable message to our allies, our enemies, and our defense industrial base: we are expanding our strength, we are restoring deterrence, and we are putting America first,” Hegseth concluded.
The Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion budget proposal represents a 42 percent increase from what the U.S. currently spends on the military. That figure does not include the cost of Trump’s war in Iran, which is expected to cost billions, and up to $1 trillion by some estimates.
The single-largest line item is the Trump administration’s proposed Golden Dome missile shield, which the Pentagon says will cost nearly $18 billion, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years. The Golden Dome has been compared to Israel’s Iron Dome system.
Hegseth turning to cartoons to explain his ask follows his testimony on Capitol Hill this week, in which he was grilled on the Trump administration’s endgame for its war in Iran, especially as costs balloon and the U.S. weapons stockpile is diminishing.
On the Hill, Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, faced rare bipartisan criticism over the war’s costs and an apparent lack of strategy to end it
The cost of the Iran war has increased to about $29 billion, the vast majority of which will be spent on restoring and replacing weapons.
