Thursday Update： June 12, 2025
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
181.13847
Summary
In his jaw dropping Senate testimony, Pete Hegseth says the Defense Department was spending tens of millions of dollars a year on sticking marbles in the rear ends of cats. In his exchange with Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, he calls for more money for defense medical research. Producer price inflation is weaker than expected, adding to the evidence that the president's tariffs are not putting upward pressure on inflation.
Transcript
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Hello everybody, I'm John Fawcett with this Great America Show midday update for Thursday, June 12th.
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Happy Thursday, folks. The weekend is almost here.
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Pete Hegseth on Capitol Hill today talking about the defense spending bill that he's going to need for his Pentagon,
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saying the DOD was spending tens of millions of dollars a year sticking marbles in the rear ends of cats
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Take a listen to his exchange with Marxist Dem, Dick Durbin.
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I'll tell you what I've done about it. As chairman of this subcommittee at one point in time,
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we have dramatically, dramatically increased the medical research to protect the men and women in uniform.
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As we learn these things, we want to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible.
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It is enough for me that they risk their lives for our country.
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We shouldn't make it a more dangerous situation, and we ought to understand what's going on in their minds
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And as a result of that, we have dramatically increased defense medical research.
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I think we owe it to the men and women in uniform.
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Your budget cuts two-thirds, two-thirds of that amount for defense health research.
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How can that be consistent with our mutual goal of making the military life a safer life for our men and women in uniform?
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Well, Senator, I would take issue with your characterization that all two-thirds of that whatever was reduced
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is focused on the issues that you just spoke about because those are issues that, as a secretary who's very close to these issues
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and knows people close to these issues, my team knows that's exactly the type of research that we would fund.
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But we did find lots of other research inside the Defense Department to the tens and millions,
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and in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars, that was a boondoggle for the American people.
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Why do you say, give me an example of a boondoggle in medical research.
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I mean, we're talking about some stuff I shouldn't say in public.
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You 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.
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Is this like the 350-year-old Social Security check that the president told us about?
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Senator, I respect completely the issue that you're speaking with, and this department couldn't be more sympathetic to that
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But the Defense Department has been a place where organizations, entities, and companies know they can get money almost unchecked
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to whether or not it actually applies to things that happen on the battlefield.
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That's what we worked very hard to find in ways that other secretaries have not.
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This committee and others talk about waste, fraud, and abuse all the time.
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We have actually gone after waste, fraud, and abuse because every dollar that we spent is a dollar we can pour into the world.
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Eliminating two-thirds of the money for defense health research, put that next to the decision to cut NIH medical research by 40%.
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Does that make America great again for these military families?
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Money should be put in defense medical research instead of wasted on some pomp and circumstance for the president.
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This is not consistent with what the men and women in uniform deserve.
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What can you expect from the Marxist Dems under the rule of Marxist Dem leader, Joe Biden?
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Or, as I guess I should say, puppet leader, Joe Biden.
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Bad news for those people who are tariff deranged.
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Rand Paul and Thomas Massey and all those folks against the tariffs.
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Producer price inflation comes in weaker than expected.
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That's right, the price of goods and services charged by the United States business rose less than expected in May,
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adding to the evidence that the president's tariffs are not putting upward pressure on inflation.
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The producer price index, the final demand, ticked up 0.1% last month, half of what economists had forecasted.
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Core producer prices, a metric which excludes food and energy, also rose 0.1%.
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One-third of 0.3% increase forecasted by economists.
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They told us the tariffs were going to kill the economy.
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And the Congressional Budget Office finds that that one big, beautiful bill raises household incomes by cutting taxes.
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Don't let Rand Paul lie to you or any of those other rhinos who are going to be voting against the bill.
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Not saying Rand Paul's a rhino, but he's a no on the bill.
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A report from the Congressional Budget Office finds that one big, beautiful bill passed by the House last month
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would increase household resources across most income distribution, driven overwhelmingly by a reduction in federal taxes.
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According to that CBO report that was out this afternoon, the average household income would rise from 2026 to 2034.
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Under that period, under the legislation, it extends key provisions of the 2017 tax reform law
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and rolls back various health care and climate subsidies.
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Some households expected to earn as much as $12,000 a year more than previously expected.
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Folks, please be sure to join us tonight and each and every night for The Great America Show, 6 p.m. Eastern Time.
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