Sec. Hegseth: ‘I Am Standing Right Here, the Warfighters Are Behind Us, Our Enemies Know They Are on Notice’

TRANSCRIPT:

HEGSETH: "They’ve come after me from day one, just like they’ve come after President Trump. I mean, I’ve gotten a fraction of what President Trump got in that first term. What he’s endured is superhuman. It's not hard for me to do this job. I know exactly why I’m here: to bring warfighting and the warfighting ethos back to the Pentagon, to rip out the insidious ideologies and not compromise and not back down, to bring in new press voices into Pentagon, which we’ve done, to reestablish standards and accountability, to not tolerate leakers, 100% operational control of our border, to get rid of trans lunacy in the military. We haven’t backed down. So here’s the thing. A lot of people come to Washington and they just play the game and they punch their ticket and get along to go along and start doing 'Meet the Press' and going to the Council on Foreign Relations and spending time with all the new cocktail-sipping crowd. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here because President Trump asked me to bring warfighting back to the Pentagon every single day. That is our focus. And if people don’t like it, they can come after me, no worries. I’m standing right here. The war fighters are behind us, our enemies know they’re on notice. Our allies know we’re behind them. And that, in this dangerous world for the American people, is what it’s all about."