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Secretary Hegseth Delivers a Message to the American Warfighter and the American Taxpayer, Feb. 21, 2025

February 21, 2025 · Department of War · 0:08:06

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

The Department of War published this direct address on February 21, 2025, in which Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shares his priorities of strengthening the military by cutting fiscal fraud, waste and abuse at the Department of Defense while also finding ways to refocus the department’s budget, according to the department’s description of the upload.

Why it matters

This is the Secretary’s own early statement of his management agenda for the department — the warfighter-and-taxpayer framing he carried into the budget and reform record that followed, recorded here as the department published it.

Scoreboard watch

The address states a dated management commitment — cutting fiscal fraud, waste and abuse while refocusing the department’s budget — recorded here as the Secretary stated it, to be checked against the department’s subsequent budget record.

Sources: U.S. Department of War, “A Message From Defense Secretary Hegseth to the American Warfighter and the American Taxpayer,” February 21, 2025 (official upload, embedded above). No transcript is published with the upload; this page records the event as the department published it.