United States Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks was knocked off her game when Jon Stewart spoke toughly with her during an interview.
The Blaze News reports that Stewart pressed Hicks on the $850 billion budgetary hole in the Pentagons budget.
Continuing their report, The Blaze News notes that the Department of Defense has been federally mandated to audit its budget since 1994. However, the Department of Defense ignored this mandate until 2017, when it performed its first audit. Since then, it has performed five audits of its budget, and it has failed every audit.
The Government Accountability Office reported earlier this year that it estimated that the Pentagon has at least $220 billion in unaccounted-for government-furnished property. That said, the GAO noted that the estimate is probably significantly understated.
The Thursday interview between Stewart and Hicks started to get heated when Stewart began to turn the conversation toward waste, fraud, and abuse within the department.
Stewart asked Hicks: Do you feel like these are unfair questions of somebody within a department of that size and scope?
Hicks used an edgy tone for most of her answers, including: I think you have a particular thing you really want to talk about, and youre asking me other questions, but I dont think that its unfair to ask me about the audit.
Stewart then asked: But dont you think that that does speak to the larger point that were trying to get at, which is good journalism uncovers corruption?
Hicks laughed at this and stated: Good journalism does uncover corruption, but Im not sure these two things are linked. Stewart replied: Oh, but they are.
Hicks continued with her condescending tone: You need to explain to me: Do you understand what an audit does? And the degree to which it is linked to the question that youre asking?"
Stewart continued to make the point that he believes that the military doesnt do enough to track its expenses or how it is balancing its budget. He also feels that this is not a dramatic statement to make. He feels that it is evident to everyone that has been watching the Pentagon fail its audits year after year. Hicks agreed with Stewart on this, saying: That is any audit. That is true."
Stewart followed up: But generally, those audits arent $400 billion for Raytheon and $1.7 trillion for a plane that doesnt seem to be doing there is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse within a system.
The two went back and forth about these Pentagon budgetary issues in a heated exchange.
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