President Donald Trump defended Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s rare decision to summon U.S. military generals from around the world to a meeting about “spirit” on Tuesday.
Trump said despite there being a “little bit of expense,” it is worth summoning generals to the Pentagon to listen to Hegseth and himself speak about military culture. He also warned ahead of his speech that he will “fire” generals “on the spot” if he does not like them.
“But 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. And there’s a little bit of expense, not much, but there’s a little expense to that. We don’t like to waste it. We’d rather spend it on bullets and rockets, frankly,” Trump told reporters before departing on Marine One to give remarks at the Pentagon.
“But this was the one time we had to do a great spiritizing. It’s going to be great,” Trump said.
He then suggested he would fire those he did not believe were “warriors.”
“We have our real warriors over there, and when they’re not good, when we don’t think they’re our warriors, you know what happens? We say, ‘You’re fired! Get out,’” he said.
Trump said he would “fire” military leaders “on the spot” if he did not like them.
“I’m going to be meeting with generals and admirals and with leaders, and if I don’t like somebody, I’m gonna fire them right on the spot,” Trump told reporters.
Hegseth summoned hundreds of generals to an in-person meeting on Tuesday to speak about military standards and declare an end to “woke” culture. Hegseth addressed the generals at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia before Trump’s speech later that morning.
Trump returned to his regular rhetoric during his speech, claiming that he has solved eight wars, complaining that he may not receive a Nobel Peace Prize and criticizing his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
Trump stated that it would be a “big insult” to the U.S. if he does not receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
“It would be a big insult to country, I will tell you that. I don’t want it, I want the country to get it. We should get it,” he said