At today's Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) questioned Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth about cuts to medical research.
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00:00My turn.
00:08We're just going to have to get the gentleman from Kansas o'clock.
00:12I thought it meant I had four minutes and 55 seconds left.
00:17Mr. Secretary, I was surprised to learn that medical research has discovered the possibility,
00:24probability, that men and women who serve our nation develop certain cancers more prevalent
00:33among them than the general population.
00:36Are you aware of this?
00:38That men and women in uniform may develop certain different cancers than civilians?
00:43More frequent and the like.
00:46I'm not familiar with the particular study that you're referring to, but I'd be interested to see it.
00:50Also, I learned at the same time that brain injuries are particularly prevalent among some members of our military.
01:00And understanding the violence of that experience, it's not a surprise.
01:04But it does have long-term impact.
01:07Were you aware of that?
01:09Yes, sir.
01:10Do you know why?
01:11Well, decades of deployments to places where explosions, large and small, happen on the regular basis
01:21and certain people are right next to small explosions on a regular basis or big explosions in one incident.
01:27Or they have a duty MOS, like you're an artilleryman, where the constant thud of that alters the physical aspect of your brain
01:39in ways that we don't fully understand but we know are caused by that service.
01:44So we're very aware of that.
01:46Do you feel a special responsibility as Secretary of Defense representing these services
01:50and the men and women who are part of them to make sure that we get as quickly as we can to the bottom of this
01:56and figure out what we can do, if anything, to reduce the likelihood of additional cancers or brain injuries?
02:04Senator, I serve with a lot of men who are affected by, in a lot of ways, by those types of symptoms,
02:12including symptoms that led to the taking of their own life.
02:16This is a deadly, serious issue.
02:17We are committed to getting to the bottom of who it affects and why, and making sure we do right by it.
02:24So let me tell you what I've done about it.
02:26As chairman of this subcommittee at one point in time,
02:29we have dramatically, dramatically increased the medical research to protect the men and women in uniform.
02:37As we learn these things, we want to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible.
02:41It is enough for me that they risk their lives for our country.
02:44We shouldn't make it a more dangerous situation, and we ought to understand what's going on in their minds and their bodies when they serve.
02:52And as a result of that, we have dramatically increased defense medical research.
02:58I think we owe it to the men and women in uniform.
03:01Your budget cuts two-thirds, two-thirds of that amount for defense health research.
03:07How can that be consistent with our mutual goal of making the military life a safer life for our men and women in uniform?
03:15Well, Senator, I would take issue with your characterization that all two-thirds of that whatever was reduced is focused on the issues that you just spoke about,
03:23because those are issues that, as a secretary who's very close to these issues and knows people close to these issues,
03:29my team knows that's exactly the type of research that we would fund.
03:34But we did find lots of other research inside the Defense Department to the tens and millions,
03:40and in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars, that was a boondoggle for the American people.
03:45Why?
03:45We were proud to get rid of it.
03:47Give me an example of a boondoggle in medical research.
03:49There are multiple.
03:51I mean, we're talking about some stuff I shouldn't say in public.
03:55You know, marbles in the rear ends of cats, tens of millions of dollars, things that don't have a connection to what you're talking about.
04:06Is this like the 350-year-old Social Security check that the president told us?
04:11Senator, I respect completely the issue that you're speaking with, and this department couldn't be more sympathetic to that and ensure that it's funded.
04:17But the Defense Department has been a place where organizations, entities, and companies know they can get money almost unchecked to whether or not it actually applies to things that happen on the battlefield.
04:31That's what we worked very hard to find in ways that other secretaries have not.
04:35Let me tell you.
04:36This committee and others talk about waste, fraud, and abuse all the time.
04:39We have actually gone after waste, fraud, and abuse because every dollar that's spent is a dollar we can pour into the world.
04:45Eliminating two-thirds of the money for defense health research, put that next to the decision to cut NIH medical research by 40%.
04:54Does that make America great again for these military families?
04:58I don't think so.
04:59$45 million for a parade, for God's sake.
05:02Money should be put in defense medical research instead of wasted on some pomp and circumstance for the president.
05:08This is not consistent with what the men and women in uniform deserve.
05:15Senator Hovind, then Senator Schatz, Senator Bozeman.
05:19Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
05:20I want to thank you for being here.
05:23And I want to thank you for your...