Everything was great until THIS bombshell dropped

[00:00:00]Welcome back to The David Pakman Show, everybody.

[00:00:01]I'm Pat Ford filling in for David today.

[00:00:03]He'll be back with us tomorrow.

[00:00:05]Well, the US Defense Department, they say that they're running out of money, despite the fact that they have this $1.5 trillion annual budget.

[00:00:13]They can't seem to afford this war.

[00:00:16]That's also not a war with Iran.

[00:00:18]The ongoing conflict with Iran has severely depleted military funds, leaving critical operations at risk of running out of money within a matter of weeks, is what they tell us.

[00:00:28]Apparently they are running out of money, and we have to give them $67 billion in emergency defense funding, although the House is willing to apparently give them even more.

[00:00:37]$73 billion.

[00:00:39]So lawmakers from both parties, but especially Democrats, obviously are frustrated by the Pentagon's failure to provide an accurate cost assessment of this war.

[00:00:48]We were told that this was going to cost a fraction of what it's already cost us, and we know that this thing could end up going on for not only months and months, but years and years, and who knows how many trillions it could end up costing us when it's all said and done.

[00:01:01]So in comes Pete Seth, the former Fox News Weekend host turned defense secretary and I guess now war secretary, as he wants to be referred to, he is there to do Trump's dirty work and to beg Congress for more money so he can ramp up the war machine.

[00:01:22]Here is Pete Seth opening up his testimony by presenting the idea of giving the Pentagon more money as something that's really an existential question for the United States.

[00:01:32]We face the greatest threat today to the nation if we decide not to give the Pentagon more money, is what Pete argues in this clip.

[00:01:41]Let's take a look at it.

[00:01:42]We know what that means, that that means 1.5 trillion given the world that we live in and the disaster of what the Biden administration budgets gave us, not funding this department at 1.5 trillion, I believe is the greatest threat that our nation faces.

[00:01:57]Either we invest in our warriors at this moment of step change on the battlefield, and growing threats of this is all just talk.

[00:02:07]Yeah.

[00:02:07]So feels as though if we talk about crap, we got to be able to back it up.

[00:02:12]Well, you know, regardless of if that's the case, Trump and you certainly didn't have to talk all that crap to begin with.

[00:02:19]Maybe you could have just not done that and then we wouldn't have to follow through, in your view with military action.

[00:02:25]Next up we have Georgia Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff just absolutely tearing in to Pete Seth using his own words against him, because Trump and Seth and all these Trump administration officials love to have it both ways.

[00:02:39]But if you just play back their own words from a few weeks ago, a few months ago, then they end up looking like fools because they're constantly contradicting themselves.

[00:02:49]Here is John putting on a masterclass, really cornering Pete Seth here.

[00:02:55]their secretary lowest level.

[00:02:57]You stated that on day 14 of this conflict, in the second week of the conflict, you stated that Iran's military had been, quote, destroyed and quote made combat ineffective.

[00:03:09]Was that an accurate statement, yes or no?

[00:03:12]Iran's ability to challenge the United States of America at the level at which we're capable of.

[00:03:16]That's not what I asked him.

[00:03:17]As secretary, you said on day 14, Iran's military had been, quote, destroyed and, quote, made combat ineffective.

[00:03:25]Yes or no?

[00:03:26]Was that an accurate statement?

[00:03:29]What the American military has?

[00:03:31]You answered the question. Military is a historic military.

[00:03:33]Will you answer the question in that context?

[00:03:36]So Pete is so obviously in a pickle here because he can either decide to stand by his statements from before and go along with this narrative of where we're crushing Iran, and they have no Navy left, they have no air force left.

[00:03:50]And, you know, we're just completely dominating them, and they're begging for mercy.

[00:03:55]He can stand by all that stuff, but then it's really hard to make the pitch that you need $67 billion to fund the war effort.

[00:04:01]So that's why he's trapped between a rock and a hard place.

[00:04:05]And so he's trying to get his clever as he possibly can with it.

[00:04:08]But John Ossoff is just not letting him get away with it, making it clear that it's obvious that Pete Seth is not answering the question.

[00:04:16]And then there was this glorious moments from the testimony involving Connecticut's Chris Murphy, who asked about Trump's private jet that he got from Qatar, the bribe that he got from guitar, really, because this thing is supposed to end up in Trump's presidential library once he has a presidential library.

[00:04:32]And here is Pete Seth being asked about it.

[00:04:36]Chris Murphy has a bunch of questions about it, including, can we ensure that this does not just end up being something that Trump privately owns?

[00:04:43]And Pete Seth scurries around this question yet I think there are two really important questions here. One.

[00:04:51]Will you make public the amount of money that you are spending to upgrade this plane?

[00:04:55]And two, can you commit to this Congress and this committee that the president isn't going to take this plane with him when he leaves office?

[00:05:04]The only thing more insulting to the taxpayers of spending money on a jet they don't need would be for the president to take it with him, to take it out of our military inventory when he leaves office to the Air Force has done an incredible job making that a capable jet that ultimately but its capabilities and investment are classified and shouldn't be.

[00:05:28]Talk about considering the security.

[00:05:30]The president disclose the amount of money publicly, I would imagine, as part of the regular budget process.

[00:05:37]That's something that we would look at.

[00:05:38]And will you commit that the president will not take?

[00:05:41]But you have to look at the classification level of certain things that are not devolved for reasons of national security.

[00:05:46]Will you commit that the president will not take this jet with him out of federal inventory when he leaves office?

[00:05:52]That's not a decision for necessarily me to make.

[00:05:54]And ultimately, we're grateful to have it in the fleet for the Air Force to protect the president.

[00:05:58]United States, that's senator to the American Yes, of course, it's a matter of national security whether a president can take personal ownership of a plane that was gifted to him from a foreign government once he's no longer president, whether he can take that military jet with him, that the taxpayers put a bunch of money into, make it so that it could be used as Air Force One to begin with?

[00:06:21]Yeah, that that is convincing to absolutely no one.

[00:06:24]But this is the get out of jail free card that they often use the it's classified excuse.

[00:06:29]And, you know, it's perfect for these Pentagon officials who are trapped in a corner.

[00:06:34]They act as though, oh, I'll tell you about this later, Senator.

[00:06:37]Behind closed doors, but just not right now, not in this very public setting.

[00:06:42]It's a national security issue.

[00:06:44]Whether Trump can take private ownership of this plane when he's no longer in office.

[00:06:48]He can't answer the question, folks.

[00:06:50]He can talk about trans people and how he doesn't want them in the military.

[00:06:54]He can talk about all these things die and testosterone levels for young men in the military and how they should be on TRT if they need it.

[00:07:04]But he can't talk about anything having to do with the Iran war, and he can't talk about Trump's new Arab force.

[00:07:12]One, he doesn't have the answers to those questions, but all those other culture war things he's willing to talk about.

[00:07:19]Thanks for watching!

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