By Helene Cooper,Shawn McCreesh

Copyright nytimes

“These are our generals, our admirals, our leaders, and it’s a good thing, a thing like this has never been done before, because they came from all over the world,” the president said. “And there’s a little bit of expense, not much, but there’s a little expense for that. We don’t like to waste it. We’d rather spend it on bullets and rockets.”

The generals and admirals assembled were mostly quiet during the remarks by Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Trump. It is tradition for the military to present a nonpartisan posture.

When Mr. Hegseth summoned the senior officers last week, he gave no reason for the meeting, which has no precedent in scope and scale in recent memory. The military leaders were told to expect a speech from the secretary heralding a so-called war-fighter culture he has championed since taking office, but they were given little other information.

The event took a new twist on Sunday when Mr. Trump said he would attend. That raised alarm among military specialists over his tendency as commander in chief to use U.S. troops as political props and visits to bases as occasions to bash political rivals, Democrats and the news media. During a speech at Fort Bragg, N.C., in June, Mr. Trump led troops to boo journalists and Mr. Biden.

Mr. Trump has sought to downplay the gathering, telling NBC News on Sunday, “It’s just a very nice meeting talking about how well we’re doing militarily.”