US Division of Protection (DOD) Secretary Pete Hegseth mentioned Sunday that his division “does not do climate change crap,” however as a substitute focuses on issues like warfighting and coaching.
The secretary was responding to a put up from CNN’s Haley Britzky, who shared a narrative concerning the DOD and Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) reducing packages within the Pentagon that cope with local weather change.
“The DOD and DOGE have said they plan to cut climate programs in the Pentagon – but officials & experts are warning that climate efforts at DOD are directly linked to military readiness, and say cuts could put troops and military operations at risk,” Britzky wrote.
CNN reportedly reached out to the Pentagon with a listing of questions on navy readiness, Britzky added.
“…Pentagon Spox John Ullyot said ‘Climate zealotry and other woke chimeras of the Left are not part’ of DOD’s mission,” Britzky posted.
After seeing the put up, Hegseth weighed in.
“John is, of course, correct,” the protection secretary wrote. “The @DeptofDefense does not do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting.”
DOGE, which is being led by billionaire Elon Musk, and the DOD have been working collectively to slash wasteful spending, DOD spokesman Sean Parnell mentioned in a video posted to social media final week.
He listed a number of the preliminary findings flagged by DOGE, which consisted of tens of millions of {dollars} given to help varied variety, fairness and inclusion (DEI) packages, together with $1.9 million for holistic DEI transformation and coaching within the Air Pressure and $6 million to the College of Montana to “strengthen American democracy by bridging divides.”
Additionally, among the many findings was $1.6 million to the College of Florida to review the social and institutional detriment of vulnerability in resilience to local weather hazards in Africa.
“This stuff is just not a core function of our military,” Parnell mentioned.
“This is not what we do. This stuff is a distraction from our core mission.”
“We believe these initial findings will probably save $80 million in wasteful spending,” he added.
Hegseth mentioned his company would work with DOGE, which has carried out opinions of the Treasury, Labor, Schooling and Well being departments, in addition to on the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau, Workplace of Personnel Administration and Inner Income Service (IRS).
He added that many DOGE employees are veterans, and it’s a “good thing” that they are going to discover deficiencies.
“They care just like we do, to find the redundancies and identify the last vestiges of Biden priorities — the DEI, the woke, the climate change B.S., that’s not core to our mission, and we’re going to get rid of it all,” Hegseth mentioned.
Fox Information Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
