Pete Hegseth and General C.Q. Brown defend the FY27 Pentagon budget before the House Armed Services Committee, citing $22 billion in shipbuilding funds and claiming Operations Midnight Hammer and Southern Spear obliterated Iran's nuclear facilities. While Ranking Member Smith condemns the war as destabilizing and costly, the administration highlights a recruiting surge and drone dominance. Simultaneously, Democrats criticize a Republican budget resolution for adding $70 billion to ICE without oversight, citing deaths of Renee Goode and Alex Predi. The episode concludes with Queen Camilla visiting the New York Public Library to promote her "Reading Room" charity, which has reached 12 million people. [Automatically generated summary]
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Budget Betrayal and Family Needs00:12:09
Fund mass men and their mass raids or help families put food on the table, keep a roof over their heads and stay healthy.
I choose families.
I urge a no vote on this latest Republican budget betrayal and I yield back.
I reserve.
Gentlemen from Pennsylvania Reserve, the gentleman from Texas is recognized.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve.
The member from Texas Reserves, gentlemen from Pennsylvania, you are recognized.
Mr. Speaker, I now yield one and a half minutes to the always eager gentleman from Maryland, the distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Raskin.
The member from Maryland is recognized for one and a half minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Last year, Devil May Care, foot-loose, free-spending, Trump-enabling mega-Republicans cut ICE and CBP, a check from the American people for $170 billion with no oversight, no accountability, and no programmatic details.
And in the months since they passed their staggeringly irresponsible, budget-busting, debt-enlarging, big, beautiful bill, the American people have seen the consequences of handing billions of dollars to a rogue agency headed up by terrible leaders like Christy Noam.
ICE now routinely tramples the constitutional rights of the people.
It thumbs its nose at federal court orders, and it brings fear and terror to communities across the country.
Look at what federal courts have said about ICE, which didn't just lie about the killings of Renee Goode and Alex Predi.
In dozens of cases, federal judges have found that ICE officials are lying in court.
A Reagan-appointed judge rejected the testimony of the acting ICE director as, quote, disingenuous, squalid, and dishonorable.
Another judge called the affidavit of a top ICE official, quote, the sorriest statement I've ever seen in court, and said that if you were asking to get a warrant issued on this, I'd throw you out of my chambers.
Could I request an additional seconds?
Thank you very much.
Well, now our colleagues, rather than deal with the reality of what they've created, a monster here with American citizens being shot down in cold blood at point-blank range in Minnesota,
Alex Predi and Renee Goode, rather than deal with that reality, they just want to double down on their world historical error by giving up to another $140 billion with basically no strings attached to the people at ICE that have unleashed this chaos against us.
And I'm voting no.
Gentleman from Pennsylvania Reserves, the gentleman from Texas, you are recognized.
Mr. Speaker, unleash chaos.
Think about that.
Ask the American people what they believe about unleashed chaos.
Millions upon millions of people flooding our country.
The Biden administration releasing five-plus million people into our streets and our neighborhoods.
Record number of criminals, record number of terrorists.
Mr. Speaker, I think the chaos that was unleashed was from the Biden administration and the Democrats opening up our border and throwing complete caution, rule of law, and the security of the American people to the wind.
And we have suffered greatly as a country.
We're trying to fix it, trying to be the adult, trying to fund the government, trying to support our ICE agents and all those at the Homeland Security that are protecting our ports, our critical infrastructure.
They're doing their job for the country they love, and we are preventing them from getting a paycheck.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve.
Gentlemen from Texas Reserve, the gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized.
Mr. Speaker, I now yield one and a half minutes to the gentleman from Texas, distinguished member of the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Green.
Gentlemen from Texas is recognized for one and a half minutes.
And still I rise, Mr. Speaker, in defense of the American people who are suffering as a result of more than a trillion dollars in health care cuts.
I rise to defend them because my colleagues across the aisle would reduce them to freeloaders, would reduce them to persons who do not deserve to be in the country and receive medical care.
I rise to call to your attention Mr. Bonner, an American citizen, worked for NASA.
Mr. Bonner was in line for a double lung transplant.
His premiums went up to the point that he could not afford the premium that would allow him to get the double lung transplant.
We had to go out on the internet to secure funds for an American citizen who is in line for a double lung transplant who couldn't get it because of the premiums that went up in January.
You would reduce these persons, the barners of the world, to freeloaders.
They are not freeloaders.
These are American citizens who are suffering because of the way you're treating health care.
I rise in support of the American citizens who don't have money in the stock market and who are not playing the stock market.
They have the supermarket as their means of determining how successful they are.
When they go there, they cannot afford the necessities of life.
They're having to choose guests over food.
I rise in defense of the American people that you reduce to freeloaders and persons who don't care enough about this country to want to support it and make sure that all persons have access to health care.
I rise to defend the American people.
Gentlemen's time has expired.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how time remains on each side?
The gentleman from Pennsylvania has seven and three-quarters remaining remitting, and the gentleman from Texas has one minute remaining.
And I'll remind members to direct their comments to the chair.
Gentlemen from Pennsylvania, you are recognized.
I reserve.
Gentleman, reserves.
Gentlemen from Texas, you are recognized.
Mr. Speaker, I'm going to go ahead and close.
I've got a minute.
I heard from my Democrat friend about rising to support the vulnerable in this country who need health care.
Well, let's just face the harsh facts.
I know it's difficult for my Democrat college because they created this monster, but Obamacare, since the inception, has doubled premiums, doubled deductibles.
It has made health care anything but affordable.
And then Joe Biden writes an executive order to allow illegal immigrants to avail themselves of social services, namely health care, when American people are standing and waiting in line, getting sicker at hospitals and other health care providers.
I think it's unacceptable.
This is the most generous country in the world when it comes to immigrants, Mr. Speaker.
But we're going to fund the Homeland Security Department.
We're going to protect the American people.
I urge my colleagues to support it.
Jennifer from Texas.
Reserves.
Gentleman from Pennsylvania, you're recognized.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Let me first state for the record that it's always a pleasure debating with Chairman Arrington.
We have vigorous debates in the Budget Committee as well as here on the House floor, and always a pleasure to do so.
I thank he and his staff, who are always professional and courteous to us.
Now, Mr. Speaker, we've heard a lot over the course of this debate.
I would like to take a step back and put things in perspective.
Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is this.
Things are too expensive right now, and they're making it worse.
Their policies are making it worse, which is remarkable because two years ago, being a resident of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I saw more TV ads, I should say was subjected to seeing more TV ads, especially during the sports games I watch, than any other state in the country.
And as different as the two presidential nominees may have been from one another, one thing they actually agreed on is that the overwhelming majority of the ads from the Democratic nominee and the overwhelming majority of the ads from the Republican presidential nominee were about the same thing.
They were about costs.
So everyone agreed the costs were too high and they needed to come down.
This president ran around my state saying, and I quote, I will lower costs on day one.
Remember when he said that?
Well, here we are, not on day one, not on day two, day 400, 500, whatever it is of this presidency.
And costs aren't any lower today than 2024.
In fact, they're higher.
More for health care, more at the supermarkets, more at the gas pumps.
And unlike previous downturns in our economy, it is not because of an act of terrorism like 9-11.
It is not because of a downturn in the business cycle.
No, it is specifically because of the reckless policies of this administration and those who have supported those policies here in Congress.
His reckless trade war has only increased costs.
He has doubled down on that policy by now launching a war in Iran that in just two months had brought gas prices from under $3 a gallon to now $4.22 just today and rising, perhaps approaching $5 a gallon this summer.
And what has he done on taxes and health care and spending?
Their first reconciliation bill last year showered tax breaks by the trillions to mostly the wealthy, and it paid for it on the backs of the health care of the American people.
And here we are now in Reconciliation 2.0.
And what do we find?
Nothing in here about the price of groceries.
Nothing in here to lower the price of gas.
Nothing in here on housing, on child care, or on health care.
No, we have $70 billion more for ICE and CBP.
We can do far better.
The American people deserve better.
Say no to their reckless policies, vote no on this bill.
With that.
And here on the floor of the House, that five-minute vote, being held open now for over two hours, started at 5.27 p.m. Eastern Time, as Speaker Johnson has members of his own party angry over another measure the House is supposed to be taking up, the Farm Bill and issues with ethanol.
The Speaker meeting off the floor with Midwestern members and Freedom Caucus members, putting this Senate-passed budget resolution into trouble here on the House floor.
Max Miller of Ohio changing his no vote to a yes earlier, with about 20 Republicans voting, still having not voted, and several voting against the GOP bill to fund ICE and border protection.
The no votes at this time include the chair of the Freedom Caucus, Andy Harris of Maryland, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, and Victoria Sparts of Indiana, Michael Cloud of Texas, and Andrew Clyde of Georgia.
Meeting Young People from Around the World00:06:57
As the vote continues to be held open, we'll take a look at some of King Charles' visit to the U.S.
He was in New York City today at a cultural reception, and he spoke immediately afterward.
Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention, please?
Can I have your attention, please?
Thank you so much.
As the British Ambassador to the USA, it's an enormous honor for me, Your Majesty's distinguished guests, friends, to welcome you tonight with our hosts, Christie's and the amazing people at the King's Trust.
That I think deserves a quick round of applause.
Thank you so much.
The first British envoy in this town was appointed 10 years after the Declaration of Independence called John Temple to see 240 years on what this extraordinary engine of collaboration and partnership has become represented in this room is absolutely extraordinary.
Your Majesty, your grandfather King George VI, on his first state visit, visited this town and was famously fed hot dogs by President Roosevelt in Hyde Park and led to my favorite ever New York Times headline, King eats hot dogs and asks for more.
Mine is to first of all invite an extraordinary gentleman who needs no introduction, a global ambassador, chair of the Global Ambassadors for the King's Trust for working for the King's Trust for over 40 years, Mr. Lionel Ritchie.
Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
I can assure everyone I'm not singing tonight.
Don't even start.
All right, don't start.
Listen, this is an honor.
What an honor tonight.
They actually wrote a speech for me, but I actually feel that I know this gentleman from the heart.
Knowing that what we have between the United Kingdom and the United States, we are bringing together the best of cultural experience, of really knowing what it means to put your arms around kids to promote them to a better place.
Now, this has happened for me for 40 years.
I've done this for 40 years.
I am now honored to say I am the chairman of the Global Ambassadors, along with my dear friend Edward.
And we are now taking it to the next stage, which is taking the global group around the world.
Now, for 50 years, the gentleman that I'm going to bring forward is actually responsible for more than you know about the heart of kids.
When I met him, we didn't have too much in common in terms of the way we grew up.
And then we started talking, and we realized we're from the same place.
We have the same heart.
And then we started getting involved with people who automatically have the same heart, who have that same philanthropic world of how can we help kids.
Now I'm going to go back.
It is therefore my pleasure to introduce to you, and I can't believe I'm saying this, this is pretty stretched from the days of my Commodores.
Please join me in welcoming His Majesty King Charles III.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm most grateful to Lionel Ritchie for his incredibly kind words.
And I hesitate to make yet another speech, because I think you may have had enough.
But it's a wonderful opportunity, if I may say so, apart from anything else, that at this reception we can celebrate both my King's Trust and the enduring cultural bond between the people of the United Kingdom and the United States, which of course is a relationship rooted in shared creativity, enterprise and values, reminding us that we are truly greater together.
That's the point.
And if I may say so, for me, it's a wonderfully proud but extraordinary moment to think that it's 50 years since I started this trust.
Quite difficult to get it off the ground in the first place, but we did.
And so perhaps you can imagine that after all these years of investing in young people, helping them to start their own businesses, everything else, when I see the difference it's made and helping to build self-confidence, self-esteem, but also highly successful businesses, many of which they've sold on for millions, and then of course the greatest thing, which I always hoped but never quite believed would happen, having invested,
many of the people who've been successful through the trust then come back to help support other young people in the future.
So that, for me, has been a wonderful virtuous circle.
So over five decades, 1.5 million young people around the world have been supported by my trust, and only now do quite a lot of them actually admit they were starting by them.
And which demonstrates, I hope, time and again that with opportunity and encouragement, potential and latent talent truly knows no bounds once you can help develop it and release it.
So if I may say so, I was particularly pleased to have a chance this evening to meet some young people from New York, Chicago, Canada and the United Kingdom to hear directly about the impact that the Trust has had on their lives.
The remarkable achievements they continue to make are a powerful testament of what can be accomplished when young people are given the opportunity.
So ladies and gentlemen, as we look to the future, I won't see the long-distance future, but I'm enormously grateful to you all for what you can all do as supporters to help this vital endeavour to champion the next generation, ensuring that their talent and ambition continue to strengthen our societies for many years to come.
And with the help of people like Lionel Ritchie, and I really mind that he isn't singing this evening, because it's always a great treat.
Defense Spending Levels for Allies00:16:30
I don't know how he does it.
He must gargle with port or something.
Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here.
You've been very noble to come and support.
And if I may say so, your presence and continued support are really deeply appreciated.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
The committee will come to order.
Without objection, The Chair reserves the right to declare the committee in recess at any point.
Before we begin, I want to remind those in the audience that this hearing is open to the public, but actions that disrupt or distract the proceedings will not be tolerated.
The chair reserves the right to remove disruptive persons from the hearing.
The U.S. Capitol Police are on hand to assist with that task, and I thank them for their service.
One housekeeping note before we get started, we are expecting to be called to the House floor for votes around 10.30.
We'll go as long as we can up until those votes, and then I ask members to come back as soon as they can after voting.
Upon conclusion, well, I also want to ask members when you're entering and leaving the chamber, because there's hearings going on all across the Capitol, because this time of day, please go in and out through the side door.
Those doors make a lot of racket when you come in and out, so ingress and egress through the ante-room.
All right, with that, I want to welcome our witnesses and thank them for their service to our nation.
We are meeting today to review the Pentagon's FY27 budget request.
Each year, the budget presentation gives us the opportunity to take a hard look at the threats we face and our ability to deter and defeat them.
It helps us decide on a level of investment that will actually secure our homeland and protect our interests across the globe.
Here are the facts that underlie this year's budget request.
We are confronting an unprecedented global threat environment with multiple adversaries working together to undermine our security and that of our allies.
They are building alliances and supporting each other with drones, munitions, missile technology, and energy supplies.
And China is leading the charge against us.
As you can see from this graphic, 25 years ago, the PLA was just a defensive force with little ability to project power beyond their borders.
Today, the PLA is a modernized military force capable of projecting power well into the Pacific.
Their rapid military buildup has delivered thousands of new ships, subs, missiles, and space assets that severely challenge our ability to safeguard our national security interests in the Indo-Pacific.
China continues to invest heavily in the PLA's military modernization, announcing another 7% increase in defense spending this year.
As a result, they are spending more of their GDP on defense than we are.
In fact, as you can see from this graphic, all of our adversaries are spending more of their GDP on defense than we are.
Meanwhile, our defense spending as a percentage of GDP has been steadily falling since World War II.
That yellow line that you see on the graph cutting across that bar represents 4 to 5 percent of GDP spending.
History has shown that meeting or exceeding that level of investment ensures we can truly deter our adversaries.
That's also the level of investment we're asking our allies to make.
But for years, we've chosen not to make that same level of investment ourselves.
Since World War II, defense spending has shrunk significantly as a percentage of federal outlays, as you can see from the red line on that chart.
Nonetheless, non-defense spending, on the other hand, accounts for over 85 percent, and it's been increasing for that same period of time.
This underinvestment in our defense has had very real consequences.
Our defense industrial base, long the envy of the world, has atrophied significantly.
We're no longer capable of manufacturing for our warfighters at scale or speed.
Just look at shipbuilding.
China builds 47 percent of the world's ships.
The U.S. builds one-tenth of one percent.
We build fewer ships than Croatia or the Netherlands.
Our global munition stockpiles are low and we lack the capacity to rapidly restock magazine depth.
We have very little industrial capacity to mine, refine, or process critical minerals.
As a result, many of our defense supply chains are reliant on the very adversaries we seek to deter.
Beyond the impact to our industrial base, the inadequate investment in our defense has resulted in a vicious cycle that has pitted sustainment against modernization.
For years, administration after administration comes to this committee with budgets asking us to decommission weapons systems that they admit we still need, or to cut funding for training, parks, and supplies, or to put off needed maintenance to the facilities where our service members live and work, or to reduce the number of military personnel.
These budgets have asked us to make these sacrifices and accept the near-term risk so we could afford to reinvest in military modernization, which is something we desperately need to do.
But we in Congress consistently rejected this mutually exclusive choice.
Instead, we divided up the limited budget we were given and made a worse choice.
We underfunded both sustainment and modernization.
The result is we don't have enough munitions, ships, aircraft, or autonomous systems to ensure dominance against every adversary.
And the ships and aircraft we do have suffer from unacceptably low mission-capable rates.
Fortunately, that's about to change.
This President has requested a historic $1.5 trillion budget for our national defense.
For the first time in over 40 years, we've been presented a budget that accounts for the true cost of American deterrence.
This budget fully funds both sustainment and modernization.
It provides a 24 percent increase in operation and maintenance, including a 20 percent increase in core readiness programs like flight hours and combat exercises.
It includes a 115 percent increase in funding to repair and improve facilities for our service members and their families.
It increases military in strength by 44,000 and provides for a historic pay raise for our service members.
It calls for an unprecedented 76 percent increase in procurement and 64 percent increase in research and development.
This will enable us to truly catch up in our modernization efforts by quickly fielding new munitions, aircraft, ships, land, space, and autonomous systems to replenish and expand our arsenal.
It directly confronts the challenges in our defense industrial base with over $100 billion in investments to revitalize manufacturing, expand domestic and allied critical minerals projects, and secure our supply chains.
Finally, this level of investment gets defense back to 4.5%.
That's where we need to be.
We want to truly deter conflict.
It also ensures that America leads by example as our allies heed the President's call to increase their defense spending and improve their military readiness.
I would also note that it's critical that we do not reduce deterrence while we're asking our allies to ramp up their own capacity.
And that's something we're going to be paying a lot of attention to in this committee.
Before I close my remarks, I want to highlight the bravery, dedication, and professionalism of our warfighters throughout this conflict with Iran.
Their tremendous work to achieve the very clear military objectives of this operation has given the President the opening he needs to negotiate a true and lasting peace that will ensure Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon.
Mr. Secretary, General Kaine, thank you for being here.
I look forward to hearing how this budget request will ensure our military can preserve American deterrence for generations to come.
And with that, I yield to my friend, the ranking member, for his opening statement.
Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate those opening remarks.
I want to start by agreeing with you on the last point.
Our troops have performed incredibly well in the last 15 months.
They have been asked to do more than anyone expected, and they have demonstrated the incredible capability of the United States military.
I think we should all recognize that.
Even if we question the strategy, some of the decisions behind it, our troops deserve nothing but our praise for the incredible job that they have done.
It has not been perfect.
Certainly mistakes have been made, but we have demonstrated to the world that we have a highly capable military.
And I hear the Chairman on the need for an increased budget.
I think there's a whole lot of needs across the United States of America that would have the same attitude about health care, about education, about infrastructure.
But the problem is we have a $40 trillion debt, and we insist on cutting taxes for absolutely everybody, so we reduce the amount of revenue that is available to that.
We also have to have a national security strategy that lives within a sound fiscal picture.
Most experts would say that the most profound threat to our national security right now is exactly that, is our fiscal picture.
How are we going to continue to be able to afford to fund the things we need to fund as we run the debt ever higher?
The other thing worth worrying about is the Pentagon has not yet passed an audit.
If we give them what is roughly a 50 to 60 percent increase, is that money going to be well spent?
We have every reason to doubt that.
Now, I will say, and I praise the chairman, this committee, and in a bipartisan, bicameral way, we have tackled the problem of acquisition reform.
I think last year's bill put us on a good trajectory to get to the point where we can, in fact, innovate faster at scale.
I also believe the Pentagon has been working on that.
We've had many meetings with Deputy Secretary Feinberg, who has focused on that, but we've got a long way to go.
Can the Pentagon really absorb another $500,000, $600 billion, depending on what the supplemental and the reconciliation package are?
I don't think so.
We need to pay as much attention to how we're spending the money as to how much we're spending, and we never seem to do that.
But the larger problem is the strategy that has been put before us.
I looked through the Secretary's remarks, and I've heard you give speeches before about this, about how realism is our strategy.
And I find that absurd, and given what we are doing, you can say a lot of things about the strategy, but calling it realistic?
We started a full-scale war in the Middle East against Iran to try to reshape the Middle East.
Now, we can talk about that in a bunch of different ways, but it is the exact opposite of realism.
And in fact, starting wars in the Middle East that get out of control and lead us to have far greater costs for the benefits is one of the cornerstones of the unrealistic strategy that this administration has criticized over and over and over again.
And yet, here we are in a full-scale Mideast war, and we've seen the costs of that.
Certainly, at the top of that list is 13 service members killed and hundreds wounded, but it goes way beyond that.
That thousands of civilians have been killed.
Over a dozen countries now have been dragged into this war in one way or another.
The Israel-Lebanon war has exploded since this war started.
We now have a conflict between the Shia militias in Iraq and Kurdistan that is straining, to put it mildly, our relationship with Iraq and also causing greater chaos throughout the Middle East.
We've seen the impact on the economy.
Certainly, here at home, gas prices up by over a dollar.
The impact of the fertilizer increase is going to come later as food prices skyrocket.
But what is happening to us is a small part of what's happening to the rest of the world.
Certainly, the Middle East's economy has been tossed up in the air, but dozens of countries are rationing gasoline as we speak and experiencing extreme economic pain because of this war.
So there's nothing realistic about that.
And one of the big questions that we need to get answered today is: where is this going?
What is the plan to achieve our objectives?
We've seen the cost, and the cost is very, very high.
All we keep hearing on the objectives is we keep seeing all of the targets that we have struck.
And again, that is an incredible accomplishment from a tactical standpoint.
I think the proficiency of our military has been on display.
But we're not in this for a tactical advantage.
We're in this to fundamentally change Iran.
And as we sit here today, Iran's nuclear program is exactly what it was before this war started.
They have not lost their capacity to inflict pain.
They still have a ballistic missile program.
They're still able to blockade the Strait of Hormuz and have the ships that are capable of doing that.
What is the plan to get that to change?
And most disturbingly, the President keeps telling us that it's over.
What was it, a week ago Friday, the President announced that Iran had agreed to give up their nuclear program, to give up their ballistic missile program, to stop support for terrorist groups, to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The only problem with that is literally none of that was true.
He was completely making it up.
Iran hadn't even agreed to meet with us, as became embarrassingly clear as the day spun out and poor JD Vance had to keep going back and forth to the airport.
We never even had a meeting.
So wish fulfillment is not really a strategy.
I mean, maybe the president thinks he's doing some sort of Jedi mind trick and can tell Iran, you will give up your nuclear weapons, and they automatically will.
But that's not working.
So what we need to hear today is what is going to work.
We have 50,000 troops in the region who are still at risk.
How are those tactical victories going to translate into some sort of strategic success?
And by the way, this is one of the things that realism recognizes.
You can win a whole lot of little small battles and lose the war, which is why you don't stumble into the war in the first place.
But at the same time, we are doing all of this on our own as we increasingly push away all of our allies.
Sometimes just because we want to do what we want to do, we don't want to have to consult them, sometimes just gratuitously insulting them.
I mean, in the middle of this war, where we were asking NATO to come join us, the president took time out to insult President Macron and his wife.
Okay, how is that helping us to try and belittle everybody in the world?
And I also, for the people who are criticizing NATO over this war, I will remind people that NATO is a defensive alliance.
What that means is every country in it pledges to defend a country if attacked.
And when we were attacked on 9-11, that's what NATO did.
They put in Article 5, and for 20 years they fought beside us.
NATO is not, if any one of the countries decides to unilaterally and unwisely start a war precipitously that everyone else is supposed to join.
That's not the way it works.
So berating and belittling our allies after we did that and driving them ever further away from us, how is that realistic?
Not only are we going to try to reshape the Middle East, but we're going to do it alone.
While we're pushing everybody away from us.
And then we have other tools in our arsenal.
Standing Up for International Rules00:15:39
You see those numbers on the budget.
But the State Department's really important.
Development is really important.
These are ways to achieve our ends, and we have moved away from that.
We got rid of the entire USAID, literally causing the starvation of children in countries where we had pledged to provide food, causing massive health care disruptions, people literally dying because we've cut that off.
In diplomacy, we have sidelined, again, the entire world.
France and the U.K. have brought together 44 different countries that have an interest in trying to open up the Strait of Hormuz.
We've pushed them all aside.
And then we've even pushed aside our own diplomatic corps.
We have a very, very talented State Department.
I praise today the talent of our military, and I will stand by that.
They deserve that praise.
Our diplomatic corps deserves that praise, too.
But we've shoved them all to the side in favor of two real estate guys who are going to go negotiate all the deals in the world, which to date, by the way, has yielded exactly nothing.
So there's nothing realistic about starting a war in the Middle East, going it alone, and pushing aside all diplomacy and all development and all other tools in our arsenal.
And on top of that, of course, we also want to dominate the entire Western Hemisphere, including apparently annexing Canada and invading Greenland.
How is any of that realistic?
And then the administration comes before us and asks for what is a hopelessly unrealistic budget in this environment.
Back on that chart there when we were showing how much money we were spending on defense, we had a balanced budget.
We had a surplus many years.
We don't have that anymore.
So call this strategy whatever you want to call it, but please don't call it realism.
It's not.
Forgive me, it reminds me of one of my favorite lines from a princess bride.
It's a tense morning.
I want to lighten it up a little bit.
The guy keeps saying inconceivable when things happen.
And finally, the guy says to him, you keep using that word.
I don't think you know what it means.
I don't think we know what the word realism means.
So please, can we not have the realism conversation?
Let's have the conversation about what the strategy actually is.
And I'm sure you have a different definition of it than I do.
But as I look at it, the strategy seems to be to use as much violence, as much threats, as much coercion as possible to bend the world to our will.
I think that is a very dangerous strategy because one of the oldest clichés in the military is the enemy gets a vote.
And we may think that we can stand up and talk tough and talk about how strong we are and how we're burying our enemies and they're begging for a deal.
We can do that all day long, all right?
But the enemy gets a vote.
They don't have to do what we tell them to do.
And meanwhile, that coercive violent strategy undermines our credibility in the world because the chairman is absolutely right.
And this is one area where I strongly disagree with the folks on the far left who say that we don't really face any threats, that the U.S. is a malign influence in the world and always has been.
I don't agree with that.
China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, a variety of other transnational terrorist groups, including, yes, narco-terrorists and human traffickers over here.
They all are trying to weaken us.
All right?
They don't want a rules-based order.
They want to play by their own rules.
They want to push us aside.
We want to be the side that stands up for the rules.
But if what we're saying to the rest of the world is stick with us because we're a better bully than China, we coerce countries more effectively, that undercuts the very message we're trying to spread to build the coalition we need to be successful.
I also worry about the values that we are showing the world.
When the president threatens to kill off an entire civilization, that is the message coming out of the United States of America.
If we are going to be this big, powerful force that throws our weight around the world, the world wants to know at a minimum that we're doing it for the right reasons and with a sense of values to protect people, not to destroy entire civilizations.
And we all hear that and we all go, well, gosh, you know, he probably doesn't mean it.
Well, that is so reassuring, okay, that he's just making it up.
We're supposed to be the United States of America.
I grew up on stories of the U.S. at the end of World War II being the country that the Germans wanted to surrender to, not the Russians, because they knew they could trust our values.
We don't seem to care about those values.
No rules of engagement.
Give them no quarter.
All right?
That is not who we are supposed to be.
And just one final point on that.
The girls' school that got hit in the first days of this war.
There is absolutely no question at this point what happened.
We made a mistake, and that happens in war.
We identified this target based on earlier charts.
And yet, two months after it happened, we refuse to say anything about it, giving the world the impression that we just don't care.
We do not care about the casualties and the chaos that is caused by our war, and we should care, even if we want to prosecute that war.
Now, I agree with the chairman.
We need a strategy.
We face the most complex threat environment that we face in a very, very long time.
So we really want to hear from administration.
Don't give us this realism, chest-thumping stuff.
What are we really going to do to meet those threats, to deal with the challenges we face?
And I'll close just by saying one of the other ironies of this, of course, is we have a great example in the world right now of what our strategy should be and where our values should be.
And that's Ukraine.
And I'm really curious.
Here we are.
We roll out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin.
We belittle and insult President Zelensky in the White House.
He has no cards, right?
Well, here we are a year after that.
Looks like he had a couple cards to play, because Ukraine is actually winning against Russia.
Ukraine, a sovereign democracy standing up against a brutal, oppressive, coercive dictatorship.
And we can't even bring ourselves on a consistent basis to say we are with Ukraine and we are against what Putin is doing and stand up and support them.
So I want to see that strategy to meet the complex threat environment that we have.
But simply saying we've already won and boasting and bragging and trying to be little and insult the entire world, that's not going to get us to the posture that we need.
So I hope we have a conversation about how we can build a strategy that makes sense and is actually realistic.
Without a yield back.
I thank the ranking member for his opening statement.
Now I'd like to introduce our witnesses.
And we have the Honorable Pete Higgs, Secretary of War.
General Dan Kaine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and they are being accompanied by Mr. Jay Hearst, Acting Chief Financial Officer and Comptroller for the Department.
I also want to welcome the Secretary's wife, Jennifer.
Welcome to our hearing.
Glad to have you here with us today.
And with that, Mr. Secretary, we'll start with you.
You're recognized.
Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, distinguished members of the committee.
We appreciate the opportunity to testify in full support of President Trump's historic $1.5 trillion fiscal year 2027 budget request for the Department of War.
The President's budget request reflects the urgency of the moment, addressing both the deferment of long-standing problems as well as positioning our forces for both the current and the future fight.
We think divesting to invest is a strategy of austerity.
I'm honored to appear alongside General Dan Kaine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Jay Hearst, our Comptroller or Chief Financial Officer.
I'd like to start by thanking this committee and Congress for your partnership in securing the investments needed for a stronger, prouder, and more secure America.
I think what our troops have demonstrated to the world over the last 15 months are a reflection of that.
A nation's ability to build, innovate, and support the critical needs of its warfighters at speed and at scale is the foundation upon which its survival rests.
However, upon taking office on January 20th, 2025, President Trump inherited a defense industrial base that had been hollowed out by years of America-last policies, resulting in a diminished ability to project strength.
Under the previous administration, we were focused on offshoring and outsourcing, riddled with cost overruns and degraded capabilities.
Under the leadership of President Trump, our builder-in-chief, we are reversing this systemic decay and putting our defense industrial base back on a wartime footing.
If you ask anyone at our Pentagon, urgency informs everything we do.
We're rebuilding a military that the American people can be proud of, one that instills nothing less than unrelenting fear in our adversaries and the utmost confidence in our allies.
We fight to win in every scenario.
The $1.5 trillion FY27 budget put forward by the President will build upon the historic $1 trillion FY26 top line and continue to reverse the four years of underinvestment and mismanagement of the Biden administration.
The $1.5 trillion budget will ensure the United States continues to maintain the world's most powerful and capable military as we grapple with a complex threat environment across multiple theaters.
Not to mention, this budget also includes a historic troop pay increase, 7% for lower enlisted, and the budget eliminates all poor or failing barracks.
Quality of life for our troops is front and center in this budget as well.
By supercharging our industrial capability and transforming how the Department does business, we're restoring American commercial dominance at a pace unseen in generations, transforming the defense industrial base from a broken, slow-moving system of the past.
We have flipped the Pentagon acquisition process from a bureaucratic model to a business model, 180, decisively moving from an acquisition environment paralyzed by bureaucratic red tape into an outcomes-driven organization focused on delivering the most at cost, at scale, for taxpayer dollars.
Over the past year, through historic multi-year procurement agreements, smart business deals for things like critical munitions and capabilities, we've sent an unambiguous demand signal to industry partners to build more and build faster.
The result has been a surge, a revitalization of our great American factories and a massive reinvestment in the skilled American workers who serve as the industrial muscle behind our warriors.
Let me briefly provide you with some concrete high-level metrics of what's been accomplished over just the past few months.
These are announced new facilities and investments to support American warfighters, and I would refer you to the screen.
The Department has helped stimulate more than 250 private investment deals in 39 states in 180 cities and 150 companies worth more than $50 billion.
It's resulted in 280 new or expanded facilities, more than 18 million new square feet of American manufacturing, and more than 70,000 new jobs in defense.
This is the key part of this: these $50 billion of investment in new plants, new assembly lines, and new factories, these are private investments, not taxpayer dollars.
By changing our departments, transforming our department's business model, American companies are investing in America with their own money, their own capital.
A historic demonstration of American manufacturing and defense revitalization, all again with their capital, not Uncle Sam's.
This has never been done before and is long overdue from a bureaucratic model to a business model.
Anyone on the outside looking in at what's been done inside this Pentagon in the last 12 months cannot deny the fundamental transformation at speed, at scale, to innovate and meet the threats of today and tomorrow.
These investments equal great things for America, American families, and American workers and help to ensure that our warfighters are able to defend the American dream and all American made.
Together with the help of the policy updates and appropriations passed by Congress, President Trump's War Department has begun to turn the lights back on in manufacturing towns across this country and once again forging a lethal arsenal of freedom.
Where critical supply chains are threatened, the War Department has acted decisively to inject capital, stimulate production, and prevent adversarial exploitation.
We are firing up the American economic engine and at every level of our defense industrial base.
Every policy we pursue, every budgetary item we request serves to ensure that the Department remains laser focused on increasing lethality and survivability of our forces from the front lines to the factory floors.
This is a historic budget, as you said, Mr. Chairman.
This is a fiscally responsible budget.
This is a warfighting budget.
And speaking of warfighting, the topic of Iran, I'm sure, will come up today, which I very much welcome discussing.
I look forward to sharing the incredible successes of our military achieved in a matter of weeks.
President Trump, unlike other presidents, has had the courage to ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon, and he's ironclad in that.
We have the best negotiator in the world driving that deal.
The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless, and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.
Two months in, I remind you, two months in to a conflict.
Lest I remind you, and my generation understands how long we were in Iraq, how long we were in Afghanistan, how long we were in Vietnam, two months in, on an existential fight for the safety of the American people, Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb.
We are proud of this undertaking.
I am proud that President Trump has had the courage to do it, and I look forward to sharing more about what our troops have accomplished.
So I thank you again for the opportunity to address this committee.
I ask that God would continue to watch over our troops in harm's way, and those that have fallen are always in our memory, and we fight to ensure their legacy.
Joint Force Missions and Capital Investment00:14:20
Look forward to answering the questions of this committee.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
General Kane, you are recognized.
Thank you, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and members of this committee.
Thanks for having me today.
I'm honored to be here today alongside the Honorable Pete Hegseph and Honorable Jay Hearst to testify in the President's fiscal year 2027 budget.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to testify today, and I'm thankful for your continued partnership in support of our warfighters defending the homeland and our interests around the world.
It's a privilege to speak with you today about the foundation of America's strength, our 2.8 million members of our joint force.
And I'm continually inspired by our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Guardians, and Coast Guard Guardsmen, and our civilians standing the watch for our nation, supported always by their families.
Each and every one of them could have chosen another path, but they don't.
They choose to serve and to do something more important than themselves.
And every day, they meet the nation's challenges, from combat operations to critical support roles, with the courage, tenacity, and grit that keeps our nation strong and secure.
I would also like to express my deep gratitude for the 39 members of our joint force who have passed away during my time as the chairman, including 14 who've passed during Operation Epic Fury.
As the Secretary said, we are deeply grateful for each of them and their families, and their names will never be forgotten.
As the Chairman, my duty is to ensure our civilian leadership has a comprehensive range of military options and the associated risks to those leaders who make the nation's hardest decisions and offer my military advice privately.
I owe the President, the Secretary, and the Congress the truth at every turn.
My blueprint for this role is General George C. Marshall.
His commitment to civilian control of the military and nonpartisan military remains a constant standard and something I borrow from often.
I strive daily to emulate his candor, delivering the facts to our leaders and telling them always what they need to hear, not always what they want to hear.
And once a decision is made, executing it with absolute dedication, and that is the demand of our profession.
I sit here today before you representing our incredible joint force, and I want to emphasize my commitment to this committee and the Congress that I will always follow General Marshall's steadfast example by providing clear and candid nonpartisan military advice and working together with our civilian leaders to ensure that our military does the things that we must do,
being prepared to deter and defend our nation and, if called upon, win our wars around the world.
America's joint force is operational at its core, purpose-built for the realities of a complex and ever-changing world.
We are organized, trained, and equipped to execute the most demanding missions across the globe with unrivaled precision.
Over the past year, our warfighters have consistently demonstrated exactly what it means to be the most capable, adaptable, and most professional military force in the world.
Our shared goals are to ensure the joint force maintains the strategic initiative and advantage, projecting American power and responding to global challenges on our nation's terms.
During Operations Rough Rider, Midnight Hammer, Southern Spear, Absolute Resolve, and Epic Fury, the Joint Force executed globally integrated operations and missions alongside our interagency and international partners.
And once our civilian leaders made a decision, we make those missions our own, demonstrating the unmatched capability to seamlessly synchronize our capabilities across all domains, from the seabed to cislunar space and higher.
We are able to accomplish these complicated missions and work because we draw from a deep, enduring reservoir of training, professionalism, and commitment.
Our operational tempo is high, but we are designed to sustain and rebuild our strength continuously.
We build readiness every day.
We train professionals every day.
We learn and sharpen our edges every day by being learning leaders.
And I am incredibly proud to be a member of this joint force team, proud of the team, and proud of the commanders.
As the chairman and the ranking member both said, we live in complex and dynamic times where global risk is scaling.
The complexity of today's modern battlefields demands our constant adaptation, innovation, and partnership with this Congress.
As a joint force, we are up to the challenge.
We are built for this environment.
However, continued success is not guaranteed by past achievements.
It must be secured through forward-looking partnerships with Congress.
And to drive this pace and change and maintain our superiority, we need timely, predictable, and sustained investment.
The resources we discussed today are critical to modernizing our force and ensuring that whatever threats emerge in the future, that your joint force is ready to meet those challenges to protect our interests and defend our nation.
As the Secretary said, the President's fiscal year 2027 budget supports the Department's goals of recharging the Defense Industrial Base and the National Industrial Base, ensuring our military is ready, securing our military advantage.
Within the joint force, the uniform side, our priorities remain the same, ensuring our warfighters are properly armed, globally integrated, and ready, while always taking care of our people.
And what truly sets our people apart from other militaries around the world is the 1.8 million members, enlisted members of our force, who maintain readiness beyond reproach and are the envy of every other nation.
I'm joined today by the senior enlisted advisor to the chairman, Dave Isom, who is here with me today representing the 1.8 million members of the enlisted force.
He is a great American, not an American.
While we face a dynamic and a dangerous world, I have the absolute trust in the extraordinary men and women who come and volunteer to serve our nation within our joint force.
They execute the missions quietly every day.
And coupled with the American spirit, outthink, out-compete, and relentlessly innovate, we will maintain our decisive edge, but doing so requires your partnership.
We stand ready today to answer our nation's call.
It remains the honor of a lifetime for me to serve alongside the members of this joint force.
And as we sit here today in this important hearing, I ask us all to remember our deployed teammates who are out there right now doing our nation's business.
And may we again always remember our fallen who have given us the gift of an incredible example and their family members who continue to show us what courage and grit look like.
Thank you again for your enduring support and I look forward to your questions.
Thank you, General.
I recognize myself now for questions.
Secretary Higseth, thank you for undertaking the Arsenal of Freedom tour and the great work the Department is doing to help enhance our capacity in our defense industrial base.
Could you tell us how last year's reconciliation bill helped enable what you have been able to do and what you think this year's FY27 budget request will do on that front?
Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership and your support on that topic.
I mean, coming into this position, we fell in on a lot of the reforms you and this committee have been advocating for for a long time, looking for somebody that was willing to run with them.
And our department have run with those.
And that reconciliation bill last year was kind of the rocket fuel to initiate President Trump's priorities in this department.
So we fell in on a department that was focused on a lot of the wrong things going in the wrong direction.
And with reconciliation, we were able to put, you know, $22 billion in shipbuilding, $22 billion into Golden Dome, $25 billion into munitions, established drone dominance, which we're continuing to do to this day in this next budget funds.
So getting in front of that budget cycle, which had been notoriously unpredictable coming out of the continuing resolution of FY25, to fund this and then a bill, a historic bill in FY26, laid the groundwork for this historic budget to ensure that we're not coming at a cold start here.
We came into this administration.
Reconciliation was a beautiful tool.
We were able to use that through that one big, beautiful bill to fund the priorities of this department.
We spent on $4 billion on barracks, started immediately getting after the quality of life of barracks.
Because of the austerity of the Biden administration, we traded off of maintenance, traded off of quality of life to try to fund other things operationally.
This budget stops that cycle and both invests in sustainment and modernization, which is something that's critically important.
So without that reconciliation bill, I think, Mr. Chairman, we'd be in a very different place.
So thank you for that.
Great.
Well, as you are aware, the expansion of the defense industrial base is the principal focus of this year's NDAA.
So in addition to enacting this budget request that's been submitted, we want to work with you to enhance the Department's statutory authorities to improve the capacity of our DIB.
What additional changes in law, such as the additional multi-year block buy authority, would you recommend that we pursue in this year's NDAA?
A few aspects of the acquisition transition transformation that's been undertaken by Under Secretary Duffy in acquisitions and sustainment.
So there are some aspects of that we'd like to codify even more.
But you mentioned it.
Multi-year procurement is incredibly important and one of the most important parts of this bill.
When this committee and this Congress funds those things, companies are already breaking ground on tens of billions of dollars of new plants.
You named the, we've got 14 in our ammunition council that were focusing on certain ammunitions.
There are 14 that are critical.
You know, PAC-3s, SM3s, SM6s, Thads, Patriots, Tomahawks, AMRAMS, JASMS, PRISMS, you name them.
We were building of it too slow and too low a level.
Now the companies are going to pay for those factories and those production lines.
And when Congress gives those five to seven year demand signals, they will then fund not just, hey, can we get 10 more per month, but can we 2x, 3x, 4x the production, pay for it now, and the companies invest accordingly.
So it's been a critical aspect of some of what we have done so far, but we need more of those five to seven year investments.
Great.
General Kane, what does the $1.5 trillion budget mean for the warfighter and our ability to project forces and secure our interest around the globe?
Chairman, you know, in my view, this represents a historic down payment on future security.
If the budget is approved and ultimately deployed, as we look at the character of warfare changing very, very fast, what is layered in to this budget by our civilian leaders will allow us to start getting ahead of where technology is evolving.
And as I mentioned, the character of warfighting is changing pretty quickly.
Mass, simultaneity, autonomy, undersea, space, cyber, information, all of those ways that are now manifesting themselves on the battlefields around the world require a higher end of capital investment, and that is why we are grateful for the opportunity to have this budget make its way to the joint force.
So it is an important down payment on the future here, sir.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
With that, I yield to the Ranking Member for any questions he may have.
Thank you.
Mr. Hearst, drag you into the conversation here.
We have not yet received from the Pentagon the costs of the war.
So just for the record, we would like to get that as soon as possible.
Certainly, the munitions expended, but also underreported is we have had a fair amount of equipment destroyed, including two C-130s with the rescue of our downed airmen.
So do you have either A, a cost estimate coming to us anytime soon, or B, a specific supplemental request?
Thank you for that question.
So approximately at this day, we are spending about $25 billion on Operation Epic Fury.
Most of that is in munitions.
There's part of that is obviously OM and equipment replacement.
We will formulate a supplemental through the White House that will come to Congress once we have a full assessment of the cost of the conflict.
So you're saying the full cost at this point is $25 billion?
Yeah, that's our estimate for the cost.
Okay, interesting.
I'm glad you answered that question because we have been asking for a hell of a long time and no one has given us the number.
So if you could get those details over to us, that would be great.
Mr. Secretary, you mentioned the nuclear aspect of Iran and the war.
And it is worth noting that every president prior to this one, including President Trump in his first term, also prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon without actually having to go to war in Iran.
So we need to keep that in mind.
But also, since the war started, Iran's nuclear arsenal has not been weakened in any way.
And at the moment, in negotiations, what Iran is saying, basically pay us to open up the strait.
Navy Deployment and Indo-Pacific Strategy00:14:57
That is their position, which is completely untenable.
I agree.
It's worth noting, of course, that the strait was open before the war started.
Now we're negotiating to get back to status quo.
And Iran's most recent offer is to say we'll talk about nukes later.
So what is the plan to actually turn all of this lethal kinetic action into an improvement in the nuclear situation?
Because we haven't gotten there yet.
Play it out for us.
How does that happen?
How does it actually lead to that result?
Well, I would take issue with the premise of the question that nothing was done.
Operation Midnight Hammer was a very effective war started.
Under this administration, unlike other administrations, which cut bad deals and pallets of cash with no ability to oversee whether Iran is actually pursuing a nuclear program.
If we want to litigate JCPOA or the Iran deal, our view, the President's view, is that was a very bad deal.
It gave them a bunch of money up for the first time.
You talked about negotiated deals, allowed them to fund their proxies and spread Hamas and Hezbollah all around the region, build up nuclear capabilities.
What are we going to do?
President Trump has been clear-eyed from the killing of Qasim Soleimani to the pulling out of the Iran deal to Midnight Hammer and now to this effort to recognize that you have to stare down this kind of enemy who is hell-bent on getting a nuclear weapon and get them to a point where they are at the table giving it up in a way that they never have it.
So they haven't broken yet.
Okay, we haven't gotten there yet.
For all of the legal cases.
Well, their nuclear facilities have been obliterated.
Underground, they're buried.
And we're watching 24-7.
So we know where any nuclear material will be.
We had to start this war, you just said, 60 days ago, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat.
Now you're saying that it was completely obliterated?
They had not given up their nuclear ambitions, and they had a conventional shield of thousands of people.
So Operation Midnight Hammer said nothing of substance.
It left us at exactly the point in the place we were before.
So much so.
The facilities were bombed and obliterated.
Their ambitions continued, and they are building a conventional shield.
Let me try again.
It's the North Korea strategy.
You know this very well.
The North Korea strategy was use conventional missiles to prevent anybody from challenging them so they could slow walk their way to a weapon.
President Trump saw Iran at its weakest moment, took an action to ensure in a way that only the United States of America could do with our Israeli partners to ensure that the conventional shield was brought to the question.
If I could get to it.
So on Ukraine, a year or plus ago, your advice, the President's advice, was Ukraine had no cards to play.
They should go cut the best possible deal they could.
Clearly that was wrong.
What did you miss?
What did you miss about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that you didn't see that Ukraine was going to be capable of doing what they have done in the last 14 months?
What we didn't miss, and we are here in this committee, is that Joe Biden, with no accountability, gave hundreds of billions of dollars of our weapons to Ukraine to an outcome that never would have happened if President Trump was present.
So he pulled out our, you guys don't talk about that.
Ultimately, President Trump believes there should be a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
But you didn't expect Ukraine to be where they are at right now.
I'm asking you, just from a strategic standpoint, what you're doing.
I think the Ukrainians have shown great courage, and I appreciate that Europe is now paying for any weapons that we provide.
All right.
I yield back.
Thank you.
All right.
Now, I want to remind everybody, everybody wants to get their questions, so we are going to be sticking strictly to the five-minute rule today.
So with that, I recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson.
Thank you, Chairman Mike Rogers, for your leadership working with President Donald Trump.
As the grateful father of four sons who have served overseas in Iraq, Egypt, and Afghanistan, I especially appreciate War Secretary Hegseth and Chief of Staff Kane for your competence, service, and success.
Military families have never been more appreciated than today, and our enemies of dictators now understand peace through strength.
Dictators historically are on the run.
With your leadership, President Trump has given Syria a chance with President Al-Sharah replacing Dictator Assad from Damascus, who now lives in Moscow.
Dictator Maduro is correctly in a Manhattan jail, as you successfully revealed in Caracas that the war criminal Putin air defenses do not work.
The Chinese Communist Party radar failed, and Cuban mercenaries were expendable.
The Cuban dictatorship is failing, and the ultimate mass murderer, Dictator Khomeini, is dead in Iran, joining the 35,000 people he murdered this year.
With your leadership, American morale has never been higher, and hopes for freedom of the oppressed people of Iran, Cuba, Russia, and China have never been higher.
And it is just an exciting time to be here with you.
And, Mr. Secretary, we continue to see the growing nuclear threat of our adversaries as they expand their capabilities with the largest military buildup in peacetime in world history by the Chinese Communist Party.
How critical is it that we continue, as at the Savannah River site in South Carolina, to develop the plutonium pit processing so that we have modernization?
Well, Congressman, I appreciate that question.
On nuclear modernization, this budget funds $71 billion to modernize the triad in ways that we had neglected to do, and our nuclear triad underwrites everything.
But I really appreciate your opening statement.
I think something that obviously the media doesn't want to cover and doesn't want to talk about is the historic record-breaking surge in recruiting in our ranks.
30-year record in recruiting of Americans wanting to join our joint force, wanting to put the uniform on.
We are meeting recruiting goals halfway through the year.
We couldn't meet our recruiting goals under the previous administration.
Under Joe Biden, Americans didn't want to join the military.
We couldn't get it.
Now we have to turn people away and push them to the next fiscal year.
That is why this budget grows our force by almost 50,000.
Ultimately, additional troops into the force that we believe we can recruit.
That is the best vote of confidence I can imagine.
Well, here in even better haste.
You are really understating, leaving no airmen behind.
What an inspiration on Easter Day.
God bless you all in what you have achieved.
With that in mind, too, General Kane, with your VMI military perspective, War Colonel Putin is losing in Ukraine as his 30-day special mission is now four years of, as the Secretary has identified, courageous Ukrainian success led by President Vladimir Zelensky.
I appreciate that NATO and the EU have unified for Ukraine as the U.S. ranked 17th per GDP in assistance for Ukraine.
Ukraine is frontline stopping War Colonel Putin from resurrecting the failed Soviet Union, rigging elections in Belarus, invading Ukraine, keeping troops in Moldova, and with the end vice village invading and rigging elections in the Republic of Georgia.
As we are transitioning greater responsibility to our NATO allies, how do we ensure seamless integration to deterrence during this shift?
Congressman, we are very fortunate to have great leaders out in the European theater right now.
General Grinkiewicz and his leadership team are committed to ensuring that that integration and transition takes place in a most combat capable and effective way.
Very entrepreneurial leaders out there across the components and with General Grinkovich, and he is doing a great job out there, as the committee knows.
And indeed, as we conclude, historically, President Trump, Mr. Secretary General, you have united the Middle East nations unprecedented to ally with the United States.
You have united Latin America unprecedented to ally with the United States.
You have united the Indo-Pacific unprecedented to ally with the United States and united NATO and EU unprecedented to ally with the United States.
You are achieving peace and deterrence through strength.
I yield back.
The gentleman yields back.
Chair not recognized the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary and General Kaine, this morning's Wall Street Journal's lead headline reads, quote, Trump tells aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran.
It goes on to describe, again, the thinking behind the strategy, but also talks about how prolonging the blockade is going to continue to drive up energy costs all over the world.
Given the ever-changing messages from this administration on the war strategy and timeline, I really honestly don't expect you to confirm or deny the journal's story.
But one thing is clear: the number of transits across the Strait of Hormuz has dropped to the lowest level since the war began, and commodity markets have stopped listening to the happy talk.
And crude oil prices this morning have risen to the highest level since the war in Ukraine started in 2022.
AAA reported this morning that the average price of gas is $4.30 a gallon, up 30 cents in one week.
Diesel's average is $5.45.
My friend Mr. Garamendi says in California it's closer to $8 a gallon.
And fertilizer prices have also hammered farmers at exactly the same time they're beginning planting all across the country.
Aside from the damage this war has done to American consumers, farmers, and small businesses, I want to focus for a minute on the cost of the war and our military readiness, particularly to other combatant commands.
Mr. Secretary, you put out a national defense strategy in January, which listed the threat assessment facing our country.
China was number one with the second largest, most powerful military in the world, of course.
Russia's nuclear force clearly was number two in terms of the threat they posed to the homeland.
North Korea, which has missiles that actually can reach U.S. territory, was ranked number three.
And Iran was described as, quote, and accurately, after Midnight Hammer, that Iran's regime is weaker and more vulnerable than it has been in decades.
Again, this was before February 28th, when the decision was made to go in the military strikes on Iran.
So today, we have three carrier strike forces in central command.
The Indo-PACOM, which is where Russia and China are operating their navies, 52% of the globe.
We have one carrier strike group in Japan, George Washington.
And the imbalance in terms of just what our commitments and, frankly, what our national defense strategy is just blindingly obvious in terms of what this war is doing.
Gerald Ford is on day 312 of its deployment.
They've gone through fires, plumbing problems, and again, an extended deployment, which, in my opinion, is hitting readiness as hard as anything I've seen in the time that I've been on this committee.
So, General Kane, I mean, in terms of, again, the carrier strike groups that are over there, I mean, assuming that we get to some endgame here, Ford is not going over to the Indo-Pacific to buttress the gap that exists there today.
They've got to go back into pretty heavy repair and availability in terms of trying to recover from their deployment.
So, again, in terms of just the decisions about where we're putting people and putting really the most powerful part of our Navy, can you explain again what that means in terms of the situation in Indo-PACOM, where China is watching, and we saw Mr. Rogers' pretty powerful presentation in terms of the buildup that's happening in that part of the world.
How does that align with the national defense strategy, which was just put out by this administration in January?
Well, sir, first I want to echo your comments on the Ford strike group.
Fantastic work by incredible sailors, not just the Ford herself, but the other ships as well on a historic cruise doing incredible work for the nation.
Excuse me, how does that balance with the national city?
Yes, sir.
Happy to answer the way I think about this.
The national security strategy and national defense strategy are frameworks, but a president will employ national force and power based on the political and security situations that a president deems appropriate to use that military force.
There's always trade-offs in all of these things.
I'm confident that the president always carefully considers these readiness trade-offs, and I'm sure he has done so in this case based on the military options that we've presented with the associated risks and advice.
Make a trade going after a regime that's weaker and more vulnerable than it has been in decades, which is quote-unquote from the Defense Strategies Report.
It's not, in my opinion, common sense.
Gentlemen's time's expired.
As you can tell from looking at the dies, votes have been called.
So we are now going to stand in recess to the end of this vote.
I expect it to take 20 to 25 minutes, but we are now in recess.
And here on the House floor, the five-minute vote being held open now for more than three hours as Speaker Johnson holds talks off the floor with members of his own party who are angry over his handling of another measure, the Farm Bill, and issues with ethanol additives to gasoline or E-15 blend.
Punch Bowl News reporting that Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie says he doesn't know how much longer E-15 conversations will go on, saying hopefully something will break soon, noting that E-15 and small and large refineries are at issue, according to the congressman.
The Speaker has been meeting with Midwestern Republicans and Freedom Caucus members, stalling the Senate-passed budget resolution that would fund ICE and border protection here on the floor.
20 Republicans still have not voted, and several voting against the GOP bill.
The no votes include the chair of the Freedom Caucus, Andy Harris, of Maryland, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, and Victoria Sparts of Indiana, and Michael Cloud of Texas and Andrew Clyde of Georgia.
Connecting with Queen Camilla's Reading Room00:04:21
As the action remains in a holding pattern here on the floor, we'll take a look at some of the UK royal visit to the U.S. Queen Camilla was in New York City holding a literacy event.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Marks.
Your Majesty, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the cultural phenomenon that is the New York Public Library.
It is a pleasure to be with all of you today as we celebrate the state visit by Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
Like many of you, reading has been a constant in my life.
A North star.
For me, falling in love with the company of books was hereditary.
After all, I have a librarian as a mother whose cat was named Dewey after the Dewey decimal system.
My grandmother adored reading, so much that in the last years of her life, after her eyes had failed her, she and I laid in bed and listened to her beloved Jane Austen.
She also had a needlepoint pillow on her couch that read simply, reading is sexy.
And I think we all can agree with that statement.
This afternoon with Her Majesty is even more meaningful because books are part of her DNA too.
It was her beloved father who read to her every night.
He not only read, he brought the books to life.
She has said, my father read to me and that sparked my love of reading.
It is something I have carried with me all of my life.
We know that finding the right book at the right time can change lives, which is why it is more important than ever that we protect books at all costs.
Yeah, y'all can claw.
It has been part of my life's work, my life's purpose to celebrate authors and the worlds that they create through my book club, Read with Jenna, and I'm thrilled that some of those authors are here with us today.
I had the pleasure of connecting with the Queen's Reading Room in 2021, and it has been a great delight to share a common love of books with the Queen and a shared determination to make room for them in as many hearts and homes as possible.
Today is a celebration of literature, of the art of storytelling, and of our amazing book communities.
Our sincere thanks to the CVC for their support today and for their commitment to education and literacy, which sits so closely alongside the charitable mission of the Queen's Reading Room.
I am so thrilled to this afternoon to introduce a great friend for all of us who love literature, and exactly the kind of friend we all wish could be a member of one of our book clubs.
Please welcome Her Majesty, Queen Camilla.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm hoping my voice isn't going to conquite before the end of this speech, but as you can imagine, I have been talking quite a lot over the last few days.
Anyway, it's a huge pleasure to be with you all today at the New York Public Library, one of the world's greatest libraries and somewhere I've always wanted to visit.
A Lifelong Passion for Literature00:02:34
Now, it was exactly 85 years ago a kind of cultural exchange took place when the British journalist Alastair Cook fell in love with the city and became a citizen of the United States.
For 58 years, he hosted the radio programme Letter from America with the aim of explaining American life to a British audience.
He did much to deepen the precious friendship between our two countries, perhaps because, as he said of himself, after all these years in America, I become bilingual.
Now, Alastair Cook was a genuine Wordsmith with a profound passion for books.
He once quoted the poet Donald Hall, who said, When we read great literature, something changes in us that stays changed.
If this is true, and I for one believe it is, then this library, through its old alchemy, changes its visitors for the better.
We might even describe it as an enchanted place, in that it has similarities with the hundred-acre wood where Winnie the Pooh and his friends lived before they began their pilgrimage to set up home in this very building in another cultural exchange.
Of course, we in Britain have benefited enormously from those who have crossed the pond in the opposite direction, including, amongst many others, the literary giants Henry James, T.S. Eliot, and Sylvia Plaff.
More recently, you lent us the wonderful writer Bill Bryson, who listed a few things he loves about the UK: Marmite, village fates, country lanes, people saying mustn't grumble, although we grumble all the time, milk in bottles, beans on toast, and a hot water bottle, which is a necessity.
He might have added that another necessity, wherever we are from, is literature.
The brilliant Joan Didian, whose papers I believe are safely stored here, said it best: we tell ourselves stories in order to live.
Hallowed Rooms Inspiring Learning00:02:58
We all need stories, therefore we all need books.
This is something I've always known to be true, thanks in large part to my papa, who inspired in his three children a lifelong passion for reading.
Indeed, the first Americans I knew and loved were the characters I met in my treasured childhood novels, Little Women, What Katie Did, Charlotte's Webb.
I knew even then that books are the best friends you can have in good times and in bad.
For that reason, five years ago during the global pandemic, I decided to launch my own informal book club on Instagram, simply recommending books I'd enjoyed in hope that others might enjoy them too.
Happily, the club, which I call my reading room, took off and grew and grew beyond my wildest dreams.
Twelve American authors have featured thus far, including Paul Gallico, Buddy Garmas, Anne Pratchett, Ming Jin Lee, and Donna Tart.
And we've been lucky enough to welcome three to our festivals: Harlan Cobin, Julia Quinn, and Christine Hammer.
Our online content now reaches more than 12 million people in 183 countries across the world.
Three years ago, we became a charity, encouraging the joy and value of reading and helping to get books to people who really need them, including survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
As we undertake research and we undertake research, one of our studies has established that even five minutes of reading per day can reduce your stress levels by almost 20% and enhance your mental well-being.
Many of us have long suspected, books really are good for us.
They also have a magic way of bringing people together with our ability to transcend any barrier.
It's for that reason that I already feel at home with you here in these hallowed rooms, where your mission is to inspire lifelong learning, advance knowledge, and strengthen our communities.
I would be delighted if my reading room could join the grand tradition of cultural exchange between our two countries, and if we might all work together to spread the word that, as Alastair Cook and John Steinbeck said, there are never enough books.