Secretary Hegseth says the DOD does not do 'climate change crap'

The secretary was responding to a post from CNN's Haley Britzky, who shared a story about the DOD and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cutting programs in the Pentagon that deal with climate change.

"The DOD and DOGE have said they plan to cut climate programs in the Pentagon - but officials & experts are warning that climate efforts at DOD are directly linked to military readiness, and say cuts could put troops and military operations at risk," Britzky wrote.

CNN reportedly reached out to the Pentagon with a list of questions about military readiness, Britzky added.

"...Pentagon Spox John Ullyot said 'Climate zealotry and other woke chimeras of the Left are not part' of DOD's mission," Britzky posted.

After seeing the post, Hegseth weighed in.

He listed some of the initial findings flagged by DOGE, which consisted of millions of dollars given to support various diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, including $1.9 million for holistic DEI transformation and training in the Air Force and $6 million to the University of Montana to "strengthen American democracy by bridging divides."

Also, among the findings was $1.6 million to the University of Florida to study the social and institutional detriment of vulnerability in resilience to climate hazards in Africa.

"This stuff is just not a core function of our military," Parnell said. "This is not what we do. This stuff is a distraction from our core mission."

"We believe these initial findings will probably save $80 million in wasteful spending," he added. 

Hegseth said his agency would work with DOGE, which has conducted reviews of the Treasury, Labor, Education and Health departments, as well as at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of Personnel Management and Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

He added that many DOGE workers are veterans, and it is a "good thing" that they will find deficiencies.

"They care just like we do, to find the redundancies and identify the last vestiges of Biden priorities - the DEI, the woke, the climate change B.S., that's not core to our mission, and we're going to get rid of it all," Hegseth said.

Fox News Digital's Louis Casiano contributed to this report.