At a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, President Trump joked about Secretary Pete Hegseth.
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00:00With that, I think we're going to maybe go around and we have some letters where the secretaries and people around the table are making statements about how they're doing and what's happening.
00:12And I could start with Pete on the left because he's my least controversial person.
00:20They don't know how good he is.
00:22So we'll go around the table and you can hear it.
00:24These are cabinet meetings where they're very open and transparent and I can guarantee you Biden didn't do this.
00:31He didn't do this.
00:32Go ahead, Pete.
00:32Well, Mr. President, I think we're controversial because we're over the target.
00:36And like so many things, Mr. President, you inherited a demoralized military that couldn't recruit.
00:42It was perceived as weak after what happened in Afghanistan and elsewhere because of Joe Biden.
00:47And what we have seen since your election and the inauguration has been nothing short of a recruiting renaissance.
00:52Decades, it hasn't been decades since we've seen this kind of recruiting in the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force.
01:01The men and women of America want to join the United States military led by President Donald Trump.
01:07And the police, by the way.
01:09Absolutely.
01:09And fire.
01:10I always mention the fire, but the police and fire.
01:12But the police and fire likewise are, I mean, they have waiting lists now.
01:17And six months ago was a disaster.
01:19Truly historic.
01:19We can barely absorb the volume and retention as well.
01:23Men and women in the military who don't want to get out now that they have a real commander-in-chief.
01:29We're reinforcing standards.
01:30We're going to be fit, not fat, in our formations.
01:34We welcome back all the COVID, the folks who were forced out because of the COVID mandate.
01:39We ripped wokeness out of the military, served DEI, trans.
01:43And it's Fort Benning and Fort Bragg, again, at the DOD.
01:49We're rebuilding the military, sir.
01:50The Golden Dome is well underway.
01:53F-47, reassuring allies and deterring enemies.
01:56We found nearly $6 billion in DOGE savings that we're going to reinvest, including $50 billion from the Biden administration, focused on things like climate that have nothing to do with lethality and warfighting.
02:07And we will have, as you said, sir, the first trillion-dollar budget that we plan to spend wisely on behalf of our warfighters.
02:14From day one, sir, we've helped get 100% operational control of the border, come alongside DHS and CBP.
02:21We've got 11,000 troops on the border who now, because of the new national defense area, sir, can help detain illegals at the border and hand them over to CBP.
02:31It used to be if you saw camouflage on the border, they could hold binoculars, and that's it.
02:36Now we can detain and assist, and we are going to get 100% operational control of that border.
02:42Our NATO allies know they have to step up.
02:45The Houthis in the Middle East are feeling the weight of American power, and we're deterring Communist China.
02:50And so because of your leadership, sir, I believe we're making the military great again.
02:54And I thank you.
02:54Thank you very much.
02:57Howard?