Defense Department Secretary Pete Hegseth apparently has a soft spot and a hankering for shellfish, specifically crab legs and lobster tails.
A new report finds that amid government cuts to food stamp benefits and other desperately needed programs for American children and families, Hegseth blew through $93 billion in one month alone last September, and most of the money had nothing to do with defense programs.
A new jaw-dropping report from the government watchdog Open Books finds Hegseth spent $2 million on Alaskan king crab, $6.9 million on lobster tails, and a whopping $15.1 million on ribeye steak for the department. Between March and October of last year, Hegseth OK’d more than $7 million in spending on crab.
Open Book also reported that the defense head signed off on a Steinway & Sons grand piano for the home of the Air Force chief of staff at a cost of more than $98,000, and on Apple products totaling more than $5 million.
The department splurges were the most in one month since 2008, according to news reports, and it didn’t end there. Open Books also documented $124,000 spent on ice cream machines, more than $139,000 on doughnut orders, and more on fruit baskets and furniture.
In fact, the watchdog says the Pentagon spent more on furniture last year, $225 million, than in the past 10 years, including $12,000 for fruit basket stands and more than $60,000 for Herman Miller recliners.
President Donald Trump’s nemesis, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, of course, weighed in on all this frivolous spending with an epic post on X and Threads showing a meme of a smiling Hegseth lounging back in a leather recliner, holding a lobster tail in one hand and napkins in the other.
He’s surrounded by steak dinners, fruit baskets and a piano. The caption reads, “HEGSETH BLOWING $93 BILLION OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS IN 1 MONTH !!”
The Pentagon spending in September occurred at the end of the department’s fiscal year, where the government operates on a use-it-or-lose-it policy. Any part of the budget not spent by the deadline would have to be returned.
Social media exploded in rage, pouncing on the expenditures and calling out Hegseth, framed by the Trump administration’s massive cuts in safety programs that had benefitted millions of low-income Americans.
Pennsylvania Congressman Malcom Kenyatta pointed out, “They say we don’t have money to fund SNAP.”
Trump slashed as much as $187 billion from the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, under his One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Republicans passed last summer. It includes stricter work requirements, reduced benefits, and increased financial burdens on states.
“Remember when they defunded food for hungry children a few months ago?” podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen questioned on X.
Others chimed in, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, “Hegseth spent $93 billion in one month – roughly the cost of extending the ACA tax credits for THREE YEARS … A true grifter in every sense of the word.”
Schumer is referring to the expiration of COVID-era subsidies for health insurance premiums at the end of 2025, which Republicans refused to extend, causing millions of Americans to lose medical care.
X user Jerry Rig Everything declared, “People on food stamps aren’t the problem. Its the insatiably greedy rich dudes.
