Ranking Member DeLauro Remarks at the Department of Defense Oversight Hearing

WASHINGTON — CongresswomanRosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the Defense Subcommittee’s oversight hearing for the Department of Defense:

Thank you, Chairman Calvert and Ranking Member McCollum, and always to again my dear friend, the Chairman of the committee. We have worked together for many years in producing bipartisan appropriations bills and it’s our attempt to be able to do that this go-round as well. 

Thank you for holding this oversight hearing on President Trump’s Department of Defense. 

To our witnesses, Secretary Hegseth, Chairman Caine, Ms. MacDonnell, welcome to the House of Representatives. Thank you for appearing before us today. 

Defense is the largest portion of our discretionary budget, yet you have still not sent this committee a complete budget request. We are in mid-June, Mr. Secretary. We are marking up a Defense funding bill in a few hours. Yet we have no idea what your department actually needs. We have no details as to how you want to implement your plans. 

We should be discussing how you plan to get our submarine programs in order; how the Blackhawk platform will be utilized into the future; and how you plan to improve our service members and their families’ quality of life.

It is unacceptable for us to move forward with a Defense funding bill without this information, and it is regrettable that the Administration has put us in this position. 

If we cannot complete this process on time, we risk yet another continuing resolution, which is wasteful, inefficient, and detrimental to our military readiness.

Already, your methods for funding our nation’s defense programs are as unwise as they are unprecedented. Particularly, Defense has always been opposed to moving in that direction because of the uncertainty that a continuing resolution portends. You backed the first-ever full-year continuing resolution for the Department of Defense. Now you are relying on a risky and partisan budget reconciliation process instead of regular appropriations to fund vital programs. The appropriations process is wherein lies the power of the purse, according to the U.S. Constitution. 

However, this is still an essential opportunity for oversight, and the Department of Defense, under your leadership, is in desperate need of it. 

Your tenure as Secretary has been marked by endless chaos. Your first day in office, the Inspector General – whose job is to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse – was fired, and weeks later, you dismissed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and five other admirals and generals. 

Your careless sharing of military secrets in a non-secure Signal chat, which could have placed American airmen in danger, led to the firing of former National Security Adviser Waltz. 

You have directly fired several of your top advisors, and the ranks of civilian staff have been decimated within key agency posts, including the Defense Health Agency and Missile Defense Agency. 

Mr. Secretary, of all the cabinet departments, stability at the Department of Defense is the most critical for Americans’ safety and security. Going after waste in defense and an audit among contractors is long overdue. As is a fresh look at defense after what we learned in Ukraine. But that requires thoughtfulness and cooperation, not rash and reckless purges of leadership and rank-and-file staff. And firings based on political loyalty are an affront to what our Constitution, and our military, stands for and depends on.

Meanwhile, this Administration has done seemingly everything possible to alienate America on the world stage and turn our back on our allies, particularly Ukraine. 

Our belligerent trade wars and the dismantling of our humanitarian mission all have implications for our national security. 

Why would anyone trust us – or partner with us – when we are busy undermining our allies’ economies, and encouraging China to fill the vacuum we are leaving by abandoning our humanitarian mission? The bags of flour that I have seen on foreign soil that say U.S.A.I.D. – product of the United States of America – will be gone. And instead will be replaced by China, or Russia, or Iran.

Conflicts around the world that President Trump promised he would resolve overnight are only escalating. While we need to focus and prepare for threats to freedom and democracy worldwide, the Department of Defense is mired in controversy and chaos. 

The American people expect, deserve, and demand better from their military leadership. And the lawlessness across the government must end. This Administration has unlawfully dismantled agencies and stolen funding across the government to give billionaires a tax break. 

America’s future soldiers are learning in our public schools. Our future sailors might rely on Medicaid to see a doctor. Our future airmen and women might only have a meal to eat because of SNAP or food stamps, or they may live in subsidized housing. 

If tomorrow’s service members are worried today about having their most basic needs met, then they are being held back from their fullest potential – and that weakens our national security. 

National security is not just machines and munitions. It requires a whole-of-government approach. Which is why this Administration must provide us an acceptable and complete budget as soon as possible so we can conduct proper oversight, and why this Administration must cease the lawless stealing of appropriated funds.

I thank the Chair and Ranking Member, and I look forward to your testimony. I yield back.

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