Media Research Center comedy cop Alex Christy did Trump Regime Media duty in a March 11 post:
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel and CBS’s host of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert, attacked what they described as wasteful and extravagant Pentagon spending by Secretary Pete Hegseth on their Tuesday shows. However, neither man seemed aware that when it came to the fancy food part of this spending, the food in question is a long-standing tradition meant to boost morale among service members.
[…]He then moved on, “But he is getting paid, and he’s spending a lot of money. There was a report from a government watchdog group that says Pete Hegseth blew through $93 billion in September of last year alone. Again, just in September, he spent $2 million of taxpayer money on Alaskan king crab. He spent $6.9 million on lobster tail. $140,000 on doughnuts. $124,000 on ice cream machines. $26,000 on sushi preparation tables. And $15.1 million on rib eye steak. What is this, My 600-pound Defense Department?”
[…]Meanwhile, over at CBS, Colbert tried to make the same point, “Hegseth also went all-out on the buffet. Reportedly, the Pentagon spent $2 million on crab legs, $6.9 million on lobster tail, and over $15 million on rib eye steaks.”
As the clueless audience booed, Colbert continued, “No, no, no, no, no boo! They’re just harkening back to our founders. As Paul Revere declared on his famous ride, ‘One if by surf, two if by turf!’ It wasn’t all high-class food. They also spent $140,000 on doughnuts, $124,000 on ice cream machines, and $3,160 on stickers with characters from Dora the Explorer, Frozen, and Paw Patrol. And despite all that, no one came to Pete Hegseth’s birthday party.”
One imagines Colbert and Kimmel are not opposed to feeding the troops well, but they and their writing staffs are too lazy to see if the narrative that so neatly aligns with their preconceived notions might actually be false. Perhaps they need new and better fact-checkers.
Christy offered no evidence that such extravegant spending actually boosts military morale. Still, he raged about it again the next day:
NBC’s Seth Meyers joined Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert on Wednesday’s Late Night on the list of clueless late night comedians who confidently attacked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for allegedly wasting taxpayer money on steak and lobster while not knowing that such surf and turf meals are a military tradition meant to boost morale ahead of significant events.
A sarcastic Meyers tried to set the table, “But back to Hegseth, you heard the man, the department is laser-focused on warfighting, and that includes the budget. No more frivolous spending on woke BS. This administration’s gonna be a vigilant steward of taxpayer dollars. They will not tolerate waste, fraud, and abuse… They said they would cut wasteful programs like cancer research, food for children, and they kept their promise. From now on, the government will only spend money on stuff we absolutely need.”
[…]In the clip, MS NOW host and former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki got in on the culinary cluelessness, “Today, we got reports that initial estimates showed Trump’s war cost American taxpayers $5.6 billion in just the first two days. At the same time, a new report from an external government watchdog finds that Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon was already on a massive spending spree before the war began, dropping $15 million on—wait for it, if you haven’t seen this story, look it up—steak and another 6.9 million on lobster tail in just the month of September.”
Again, Christy failed to explain how this extravegant spending comports with Hegseth’s purported fight against waste and fraud.
The same day, Christy raged over Kimmel’s “wildly misleading monologue about Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon spending millions of dollars on fancy food. In a March 13 post, he groused that Colbert returned to the subject with guest Wanda Sykes:
Sykes was ready with a bunch of new nicknames for Hegseth, “I mean, it was like $96 billion they wasted on, like, crab legs, steaks, lobsters. He’s supposed to be secretary of War. I think he’s secretary of Red Lobster. That’s what I’m going to call him now. Don’t make any sense.”
Colbert chimed in with, “The Battle of Cheddar Bay. There you go. Yeah. I like a crab leg, though. I love a crab leg.”
Sykes then continued, “I love a crab leg too. That’s what I’m calling him now. Crab Leg Hegseth. That’s his name. Crab legs. The Secretary of Crustaceans.”
Since the comedy shows keep repeating this talking point, it must again be noted that the fancy food is part of a decades’long military tradition of giving service members a morale-boosting surf and turf meal before something significant such as a deployment, extended mission, or combat operations.
Again, Christy did not eplain how dropping millions of dollars on such meals helps military morale, especially when Hegseth said he was cutting waste and fraud.