Pete Hegseth's Defense Department blew $22M on steak and lobster in a single month, watchdog claims
Source: msn/MEDIAite
12h
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s Defense Department allegedly blew through $22 million on lobsters and ribeye steak as part of a wild September 2025 end-of-year spree. According to an analysis by nonprofit watchdog Open the Books, Hegseth’s DoD spent $93.4 billion on grants and contracts in Sept. 2025 alone — nearly 50 percent of which was expended in the last five business days of the month.
Open the Books, run by the American Transparency charity founded in 2011, collects and publishes government spending data, including expenditures down to the lobster tail.
Per the analysis by Open the Books, in September, the Pentagon spent $2 million on Alaskan king crab, $6.9 million on lobster tail, $15.1 million on ribeye steak, and $1 million on salmon. Dessert included 272 orders of doughnuts for $139,224 and ice cream machines for $124,000.
While the Pentagon does not technically have to spend all its congressionally allocated funds, “use-it-or-lose-it” policies often push it to do so. Any leftover funds could be removed from the budget the following year. So, extravagant sprees are not unusual at the end of a fiscal year.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pete-hegseth-s-defense-department-blew-22m-on-steak-and-lobster-in-a-single-month-watchdog-claims/ar-AA1XWiT8
Link to Open the Books REPORT - Pentagon Should Focus on Defense Priorities, not Lavish Dinners, After Historic $93.4B “Use-It-or-Lose-It” September
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Botany
(77,117 posts)Department of Government Efficiency
jfz9580m
(16,960 posts)Botany
(77,117 posts)people in the world as Hegseth was spending 26 million $s on rib eye steaks, lobster, crab, and salmon.
* the total of dead could be > 10 million
jfz9580m
(16,960 posts)Traumatized and fired by Vought and Doge types must be struggling..
A society of robber barons and pirates..
Botany
(77,117 posts)Because a lot of them are black. A good federal job is the ticket to being middle class.
jfz9580m
(16,960 posts)It was actually an attack on the black middleclass.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-federal-job-cuts-trump-musk-dei-middle-class-rcna191704
For the last several decades, federal jobs helped Black workers find stable work with guardrails to prevent bias, but mass cuts are threatening decades of upward mobility.
For decades, the federal government provided both reliable jobs and guardrails to offset systemic racial bias in hiring and promotions, offering an alternative for Black workers who might be overlooked or ignored in the private sector. They played a crucial role in helping Black workers like Verdine join the middle class and thrive. But vast cuts by the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, are threatening to close down that once-dependable path to financial stability.
The government, which has about 3 million employees, is the largest employer in the country. At least 75,000 of them accepted buyout offers and thousands were fired in the last several weeks. Many of the workers fired were either newer hires or told they were let go for subpar performance.
“The federal workforce was a means to help build Black middle class. It hired Black Americans at a higher rate than private employers,” said Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents the Education Department employees.
As a part of his efforts, President Trump is angling to shut down the Department of Education, a move that will have dramatic repercussions around the country. Nearly 30% of Education employees are Black according to a 2024 report by the department.
Smith said 74 workers at the department had been let go so far, 60 of whom are Black.
And all for what? This type of “growth” by guys like these, all of whom assiduously hump this administration:
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-era-of-the-business-idiot/
We live in the era of the symbolic executive, when "being good at stuff" matters far less than the appearance of doing stuff, where "what's useful" is dictated not by outputs or metrics that one can measure but rather the vibes passed between managers and executives that have worked their entire careers to escape the world of work. Our economy is run by people that don't participate in it and our tech companies are directed by people that don't experience the problems they allege to solve for their customers, as the modern executive is no longer a person with demands or responsibilities beyond their allegiance to shareholder value.
I, however, believe the problem runs a little deeper than the economy, which is a symptom of a bigger, virulent, and treatment-resistant plague that has infected the minds of those currently twigging at the levers of power — and really, the only levers that actually matter.
The incentives behind effectively everything we do have been broken by decades of neoliberal thinking, where the idea of a company — an entity created to do a thing in exchange for money —has been drained of all meaning beyond the continued domination and extraction of everything around it, focusing heavily on short-term gains and growth at all costs. In doing so, the definition of a “good business” has changed from one that makes good products at a fair price to a sustainable and loyal market, to one that can display the most stock price growth from quarter to quarter.
This is why the poorest people (disabled veterans, people on social security etc) are treated contemptuously and the black middleclass is destroyed while venture welfare for some parasites whose jobs no one is clear on and who attack people like Lina Khan with the blessing of flatulent and imperious billionaires like Vinod Khosla is glossed over:
https://www.businessinsider.com/real-reason-silicon-valley-hates-lina-khan-figma-ipo-exits-2025-8?op=1
"A great reminder that letting startups grow into independently successful businesses, rather than be bought up by existing giants, can generate enormous value," Khan wrote on X. "A win for employees, investors, innovation, and the public."
Further down it describes how venture welfare works.
That ass Khosla was here in India recently, encouraging our corrupt and parasitic local ai industry and speaking contemptuously to Cisco employees with 20 years of experience about how ai is the future. I would take those employees any day over the type of social climbing, parasitic and sycophantic garbage start up with no real produce or service who is the pet of a prolifically flatulent arse like Vinod Khosla. That man is a pathetic ass surrounded by bootlickers and should focus on taking down his nudie pics instead of trying to hog all spaces because his bootlickers give him the impression he is a king, rather than a very bloated and gassy old man. I don’t think that is libel and anyway Trump and Bill Maher’s orangutan dispute might make it unwise to sue du over such posts..I have had defamation, slander and libel laws on my mind a lot lately.
These are the kings and our media is a disgrace writing about “freebies” for the poor as these bloated and overrated narcissists bleed the place dry and break the planet selling shit no one wants or needs like those LLMs and agents. Our fatuous media gushed about that grotesque Ambani’s son’s wedding which cost 17000 times the average Indian’s annual income. The guy has gold toilets.
And with garbage tech it is easy to unleash these stalkerish and criminal mobs of predatory henchmen lower down
A criminal lawsuit is the only way forward here in India based on. I have no idea what you guys will do over there.
The time for a muscular democratic public pushback that is serious and avoids the errors of the past could not come a day too soon.
FakeNoose
(41,272 posts)
jfz9580m
(16,960 posts)I cannot take much credit because I owe everything I have ever learnt to people like you and other DUers FakeNoose, Ed Zitron, Andy Nikiforuk, Yasha Levine, Christopher Ketcham and many others.
(A tribute to you all - yes from sleazy old YouTube, but the least offensive thing on there unlike the various conspiracy theory spewing garbage channels, Blippi etc):
I can say that our ugly sleazy billionaires have never given me anything but a headache..
I have never been angrier in my life. 14+ years of seeing these asinine parasites gambling our lives away so they can fart into gold toilets and lay waste to everything of value (including my mom’s health and my own life) has filled with me a sort of slow burning, incandescent rage I did not know I had in me.
I thought I had anger issues and would repress it and try to carry on dully and then have it explode. I used to find (and truth be told, were I to stop to think still would) anger embarassingly histrionic and skirting close to whatever kayfabe is, except when it explodes out of control.
But that is not the correct way to manage entirely legitimate anger.
Chasstev365
(7,630 posts)Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(135,045 posts)
Irish_Dem
(80,913 posts)What are they doing behind the scenes and in secret.
How much money are they stealing and wasting??
JudyM
(29,785 posts)If only...
Irish_Dem
(80,913 posts)
choie
(6,888 posts)purchasing lobster pans filet mignons. I’d rather my tax money go to SNAP!
bluestarone
(22,038 posts)Soda and candy was from the poor?
pcdb
(108 posts)I don't have a problem with the DOD providing a nice meal for troops every now and then. Do people think Hegseth ate all the lobster and steak? 22 million to feed troops isn't even a drop in the bucket.
Are you for real?
DetroitLegalBeagle
(2,496 posts)For 2nds and 3rds at least. Was generally seen as a sign that we were about to get screwed somehow and likely facing a diet of mre's for a while shortly after.
pcdb
(108 posts)My guess is the DOD has budgets where they use it or lose it and ended up with 22 million they had to spend choosing to splurge on troops.
The outrage over this doesn't make much sense to me.
Oneironaut
(6,284 posts)I bet. Hegseth knows that their base is full of a bunch of morons who would excuse anything he and Trump do, where as, their base has been expertly trained to hate poor people (a group that many of them are in too).
bucolic_frolic
(54,847 posts)Puniest lobster tails I ever saw, about the size of a small chicken leg ..... $9-10 in the super last week
Goonch
(4,801 posts)
chouchou
(3,095 posts)pcdb
(108 posts)Do you actually believe Hegsesth ate 22 million worth of steak and lobster in a month?
chouchou
(3,095 posts)
SergeStorms
(20,459 posts)had budgeted for steaks and deep-sea scallops (we're not fans of sea bugs) last month too. 
It's nice to see Hogsbreath and crew can stick to a tight budget with The People's money. 
MLWR
(980 posts)Timeflyer
(3,741 posts)JT45242
(4,011 posts)If these were budget monies for food -- it would seem like a huge MRE order, nonperishables, etc would make a lot more sense.
The tales of $500 hammers and $1000 toilets have been used for 50 years to bemoan government waste.
When I was a teacher and department, if we had title money that would expire we might order a variety of things:
tech money: order extra computers, monitors, software
PD money: conferences or training that had been denied earlier all of a sudden opened up
reading funds: could become books or some sort of literacy training software license
But never was it high end surf & turf
NewLarry
(147 posts)our big end-of-the-fiscal-year splurge was raingear for all the troops in the squadron.
3825-87867
(1,918 posts)!
3825-87867
(1,918 posts)Really?
I guess that's something that's taken for granted? Old boys network stuff.
Odd that that particular item is not being reported!
Must have just slipped the reporter's mind as the story was written, or maybe the reporter had some head problems trying to remember.
I think we get the idea, media. Booze report would make Pete look...bad?
Waiting for follow-up.
10-9-8...
Billsdaughter
(141 posts)
PatSeg
(53,150 posts)I would have thought it was a lot if they said $22,000.
TBF
(36,423 posts)That's a lot of money for lobster, ribeyes, and salmon. I think we could find him some deals at Aldi.
And this "use it or lose it"?!? How about use it properly, subject to review, and move the remainder of the money so we can actually fund programs for American citizens. Social Security, medicare, etc.
LetMyPeopleVote
(178,789 posts)
area51
(12,648 posts)
Abnredleg
(1,258 posts)And has been for decades. My Dad had it in Vietnam and I had it in Iraq. The Navy will always have a "steel beach" BBQ at least once on a long deployment.
People need to take a deep breath and focus on what is important.
flvegan
(66,196 posts)
JustABozoOnThisBus
(24,663 posts)... but, they're in there.
Blue Owl
(58,906 posts)
DetroitLegalBeagle
(2,496 posts)And those about to be deployed. Was the food kept in DC or was this a bulk order and then distributed to dfacs all over?
rlexx
(69 posts)There were 1.34 million service members in 2025 that averages out at $16.42 per service member. Golden Corral costs $17-22 per dinner. Red Lobster is $30-60 for steak and lobster. I've been deployed and have had shipboard galley surf and turf - it's not a luxurious dining experience even in the officers' wardroom.
twodogsbarking
(18,449 posts)That seem like a fuckin' bunch.
PCB66
(109 posts)they served us steak and lobster.
When I returned from Vietnam in 1970 they served us a ribeye steak dinner prior to discharge.
Of all the things to complain about nowadays the food that is served to our troops should be pretty low on the list.
For every great meal served to someone in the military it is likely they will get 300 meals that are not so great.
BumRushDaShow
(168,773 posts)was not the "steak and lobster", but the sheer QUANTITY of EOY spending by DOD in 2025 that was unprecedented. From the report -
Open the Books has tracked the annual September spending bonanza for nearly a decade. Military spending has spiked every year, regardless of which party controlled the White House.
However, there has never been anything quite like September 2025, when $93.4 billion was spent on grants and contracts. Since at least 2008 — and presumably in history — no federal agency has ever spent so much on grants and contracts in a single month.
In the last five working days of September alone, the DoD spent $50.1 billion on grants and contracts. That’s more than the annual defense budget of countries like Israel and Italy. In fact, there are only nine foreign countries that spend that much on their military in an entire year!
These amounts only include money sent to entities outside the government, not salaries for service members and scores of other expenses. Instead, the shopping spree encompasses luxury food items like lobster, high-end furniture and rushed IT purchases.
(snip)
As a retired fed, I know all about that EOY rush, while during the year, we were restricted by GSA to some % of spending of our appropriated funds per quarter and then per month, where there were times that we couldn't even buy photocopy paper. And it always ended up that by July/August, there was all this unobligated money that we had to spend, down to the penny, and the race was on to get the quotes and bids, and all the various government contract suppliers were ready and waiting.
But with respect to DOD, I know that one of my former coworkers, who was an Army reservist before we both retired, would bemoan her 2 week "summer camp" service where she said that they either didn't have enough, or had no ammunition to even train with.
So years later, there is a deep problem that persists and it was obviously made worse by the current occupant who heads up DOD.
timms139
(534 posts)christian buffoons think God made them more deserving of food than the poor and elderly in this country. 22 million dollars worth and I would like to know how much of that ended up as waste .