Jesse Watters Challenges Marco Rubio on ‘Corrupt’ Defense Spending: ‘Do You Have Any Idea Where the Money Goes?’

Fox News host Jesse Watters and Senator Marco Rubio engaged in a discussion during Monday's broadcast of "Jesse Watters Primetime" about wasteful spending by the Department of Defense.
Screenshot: Senator Marco Rubio YouTube Channel

Fox News host Jesse Watters and Senator Marco Rubio engaged in a discussion during Monday’s broadcast of “Jesse Watters Primetime” about wasteful spending by the Department of Defense.

“The Pentagon’s budget is more than China, India, Russia, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan, and South Korea combined,” Watters told viewers.

The analysis comes as the Pentagon failed its fifth consecutive audit back in November, unable to account for more than half of its assets.

Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord dismissed news of the failed audit – they’ve failed every single one that has ever been conducted – as a “teachable moment.”

“We give our military almost a trillion dollars a year. So where does the money go?” demanded Watters.

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Jon Stewart Takes on Pentagon Corruption and Defense Spending

Watters referenced a recent viral video of comedian Jon Stewart interviewing Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks about the Pentagon’s $858 billion budget.

Stewart challenged Hicks continually on alleged corruption at the Pentagon resulting in her repeated condescending responses to his accusations.

The video went viral, amassing over 10 million views.

“The ability to pass an audit or, the fact that the DoD has not passed an audit is not suggestive of waste, fraud, and abuse,” Hicks insisted.

“If I give you a billion dollars and you can’t tell me what happened to it, that to me is wasteful,” countered Stewart.

Stewart blasted Hicks noting that the Pentagon’s massive budget isn’t preventing our military servicemembers from being forced to work off of food stamps, something The Political Insider has covered extensively.

“We got out of 20 years of war and the Pentagon got a raise,” Stewart pressed. “I can’t figure out how $850 billion to a department means that the rank and file still have to be on food stamps.”

“To me, that’s f***ing corruption.”

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Watters Challenges Marco Rubio

Jesse Watters then brought Senator Marco Rubio into the discussion claiming “someone’s getting rich,” and asking the Florida Republican, “Do you have any idea where the money goes?”

Rubio contends that the process of bidding itself opens up the Pentagon to wasteful spending, as they get locked into certain contractors who then alter their prices as the project speeds along.

“Oftentimes in the process of developing it, they’ll come back and say, ‘Hey, this is gonna cost more than we thought when we put that bid out, when we offered that bid. So we’re gonna have to increase the price,'” Rubio explained.

“And then if you don’t fund it or you don’t pay for it, then it’s like, ‘Oh, you’re against national security or national defense.'”

Rubio was one of 83 senators who voted in favor of the $858 billion National Defense Authorization Act in December.

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Rubio also suggested the defense contractors can essentially charge any amount of money they want.

“There’s very little competition on these contracts, so they can virtually almost charge us anything they want.”

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Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox... More about Rusty Weiss

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