Pete Hegseth Cites Jesus And Jenny As Reason He Became Secretary Of Defense At Swearing In. 

Video from yesterday. 

Adding about this:  

New US Secretary of Defense Hegseth issued a message to the US force (https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4040940/secretary-hegseths-message-to-the-force/) where he outlined his vision. Apparently, it's the good old "peace through strength", defending the country, even though nobody is attacking them, and fighting China. 

The President gave us a clear mission: achieve Peace through Strength. We will do this in three ways — by restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence.   

➡️We will revive the warrior ethos and restore trust in our military. We are American warriors. We will defend our country. Our standards will be high, uncompromising, and clear. The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose. 

➡️ We will rebuild our military by matching threats to capabilities. This means reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisition process, passing a financial audit, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies. We will remain the strongest and most lethal force in the world. 

➡️ We will reestablish deterrence by defending our homeland — on the ground and in the sky. We will work with allies and partners to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific by Communist China, as well as supporting the President's priority to end wars responsibly and reorient to key threats. We will stand by our allies — and our enemies are on notice. 

All of this will be done with a focus on lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards, and readiness. 

Adding: 

American diplomats have demanded that aid to Ukraine be urgently excluded from the order of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to freeze aid programs to other countries for 90 days.

Officials from the State Department's Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs asked Rubio to rescind the order for USAID staff responsible for aid to Kiev to stop their work.

“We don’t yet know whether this request will be approved in full or in part, but so far there are positive signals from Washington,” the agency noted.