Hegseth launches bizarre plea for 'morally bankrupt' $1.5 Trillion Pentagon budget; uses animated Trump to pitch ‘Arsenal of Freedom’
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Hegseth launches bizarre plea for 'morally bankrupt' $1.5 Trillion Pentagon budget; uses animated Trump to pitch ‘Arsenal of Freedom’")
Pentagon’s ‘cartoons for cash’: Hegseth uses animated Trump and green screens to pitch $1.5 trillion budget Photograph: (Screenshot/Video/X)
Pete Hegseth is now using animated jets, cartoon dealmakers and even a thumbs-up Trump cameo to sell a staggering $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget, after Congress pushed back. All you need to know.
US President Donald Trump's Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has resorted to using cartoons to justify the US Department of Defence's $1.5 trillion budget proposal. Hegseth on X posted an over two-minute video plea for funding after lawmakers turned down the Trump administration's bid to boost the Pentagon's budget by a staggering 50 per cent from this year. This comes as the conflict between the US and Iran continues, with Tehran launching fresh strikes on three American vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday (May 7).
Cartoon jets and animated Trump plead for a higher Pentagon budget
The two minutes and 35 seconds long video shared by Hegseth shows him standing awkwardly in front of a green screen as animated graphics play in the background. Pitching the massive $1.5 trillion proposed budget as a "generational investment" in America's "Arsenal of Freedom," Hegseth claims that the "investment will secure and protect the homeland and ensure America's military remains the most lethal fighting force on earth for generations to come".
Sticking to the Trump administration's script of blaming Trump predecessors, Hegseth claimed, "A broken Pentagon bureaucracy was doing the same thing for decades. When our warfighters needed more weapons, aircraft and ships, the Department of Defence allowed contractors to double dip at your expense. They charged you, the taxpayer, to build their factories and then charged you again for the final product."
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At one point in the bizarre video, an animated Trump makes an appearance, giving a thumbs up as one negotiator from his team dubbed "Deal Team Six" blows smoke at imaginary businessmen, the War Secretary accused of "delays in production or cost overruns". Watch it here:
Moving from "bureaucracy to business"
The video carries the caption, "Thanks to President Trump’s $1.5 trillion defence budget, this War Department has moved from bureaucracy to business." Earlier, Trump on Truth Social had argued that the $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget will "allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to". However, the proposed budget faces an uphill battle from both sides of the aisle.
Notably, to offset the funding increase in defence, Trump is proposing to cut domestic spending by $73 billion. Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, while denouncing the proposed budget, described it as "morally bankrupt," and said she would ensure Congress wrote a new one instead.
