Trump Defense Hearing Goes In Stunning Direction — ‘Up The Rear Ends Of Cats’
Trump Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took his Senate testimony in a stunning direction when he cited the study of “marbles up the rear ends of cats” during a hearing.
Hegseth testified at several hearings this week, including a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing that produced several newsworthy and contentious exchanges.
One of the stranger ones featured Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) grilling Hegseth on the Trump administration cutting research grants, including two-thirds of the funding for defense health research.
When Hegseth insisted the bulk of the cuts were for “boondoggles” unrelated to defense health issues, Durbin asked for an example — and called BS on Hegseth’s response:
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Your budget cuts two thirds, two thirds of that amount for defense health research. How can that be consistent with our mutual goal of making the military life a safer life for our men and woman in uniform?
DEFENSE SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: Well, Senator, I would take issue with your characterization that all two-thirds of that, whatever was reduced, is focused on the issues that you just spoke about, because those are issues that, as a secretary who’s very close to these issues and knows people close to the issues, my team knows that’s exactly the type of research that we would fund.
But we did find lots of other research inside the Defense Department, to the tens and millions, and in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars, that was a boondoggle for the American people and we were proud to get rid of it.
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Why do you say–? Give me an example of a boondoggle in medical research.
DEFENSE SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: I mean, we’re talking about some stuff I shouldn’t say in public, you know, (PANTOMIMES MARBLE INSERTION) marbles in the rear ends of cats, tens of millions of dollars. Things that don’t have a connection to what you’re talking about. So I respect the–.
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Is this like three hundred and fifty year old Social Security check that the president told us about?
DEFENSE SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: I respect completely the issue that you’re speaking with, and this department couldn’t be more sympathetic to that and ensure that it’s funded. But the Defense Department has been a place where organizations, entities, and companies know they can get money almost unchecked to whether or not it actually applies to things that happen on the battlefield.
As strange as it sounds, the study Hegseth cited does exist — but that’s the only part of the story he got right. The cost of the study wasn’t “tens of millions,” it was $10,451,439.00 for the entire thing — not just the feline ass-marbles.
And Hegseth’s claim that the study is unrelated to “things that happen on the battlefield” is incorrect. The contract — available on Hegseth’s own DOD’s website — explains that the research is intended to “to develop revolutionary new treatment approaches for spinal cord injuries that integrate injury stabilization, regenerative therapy, and functional restoration.”
The marble experiments are real, but again they’re not simply done for giggles — as the study explains:
Balloon catheters were inserted into the proximal and distal colon to measure contraction pressure. Glass marbles were inserted into the rectum to demonstrate defecation by videotaping the elimination of marbles.
…
The results have significant implications for design of a novel neuromodulation device to restore defecation function after spinal cord injury (SCI) and for optimizing sacral neuromodulation parameters to treat non-SCI people with chronic constipation.
Watch above via the Department of Defense.
