‘We Are Taking a Sledgehammer to the Oldest DEI Program in the Federal Government’: Pete Hegseth [WATCH]

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced a sweeping overhaul of the federal government’s long-running 8(a) contracting program, describing it as a system that has evolved into race-based contracting riddled with fraud and misaligned with the military’s core mission.

The announcement marks one of the most significant changes to small-business defense contracting in decades.

Hegseth said the action fulfills commitments he made upon being appointed by President Donald Trump, including eliminating what he described as corrupt and unconstitutional practices while redirecting resources toward strengthening the armed forces.

“When President Trump appointed me as your secretary of war, I made you a series of promises,” Hegseth said.

“I promised that every single one of your taxpayer dollars would go toward one thing and one thing only, building the most lethal fighting force on the planet. And I promised we would gut the corruptive, unconstitutional, non merit based DEI programs that have weakened our military and distracted us from our primary mission. And I promised we would hunt down the waste, the fraud and the abuse that has run rampant in this department for decades, and to instead redirect that money to President Trump’s America first priorities.”

Hegseth said the Department of War is now acting on those promises by dismantling what he described as the federal government’s oldest diversity-based contracting initiative.

“Well today we are once again taking action on these promises,” he said.

“We’re actually taking a sledgehammer to the oldest DEI program in the federal government, a program few people outside of Washington have ever heard of that I hadn’t heard of. It’s called the eight a program.”

This Could Be the Most Important Video Gun Owners Watch All Year

The 8(a) program is administered by the Small Business Administration and is intended to assist small businesses owned by socially disadvantaged individuals or tribes.

Hegseth acknowledged the original intent of the program but said it has changed significantly over time.

“Eight a refers to the Small Business Administration’s program to assist, quote, small disadvantaged businesses owned by a socially disadvantaged individual or tribe. End quote,” he said.

“Providing these small businesses with opportunities is a laudable goal, but over the decades, as it happens, the eight a program has morphed into swamp code words for DEI, race based contracting.”

Hegseth said many firms participating in the program do not perform the work themselves.

“And here’s the worst part, in many, many instances, these socially disadvantaged businesses, they don’t even do work,” he said.

“They take a 10% 20% sometimes 50% fee off the top, and then pass the contract off to a giant consulting firm, commonly known as beltway bandits.”

According to Hegseth, federal investigations have already uncovered extensive fraud linked to the program.

“For decades, this program, eight A has been a breeding ground for fraud, and this administration is finally doing something about it,” he said.

“The Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi recently exposed half a billion dollars in eight a fraud Treasury led by Secretary Besant found another quarter billion, and their investigation is just beginning.”

He said the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, and the Small Business Administration are actively investigating 8(a) contracts. Within the Pentagon, he said, the scale of the program is substantial.

“Now in the Pentagon, $100 million sole source contracts go out the door to these eight a firms, almost every day,” Hegseth said.

“$100 million sole source contracts go out our door to these eight a firms almost every day without any competition or opportunity for anyone else to bid.”

Hegseth said the Department of War is legally required to award nearly $100 billion annually in contracts to small businesses, including 8(a) firms, but said that does not justify pass-through arrangements.

“We’re not required to pay enormous brokerage fees only to have these firms pass those contracts along to giant consulting companies, and we won’t,” he said.

“We’re not doing this anymore.”

Effective immediately, Hegseth ordered a comprehensive review of existing contracts.

“So effective immediately, I’m ordering a line by line review of every small business sole source, eight, a contract that is over $20 million and we’ll look at everything smaller than that, too,” he said.

He described the effort as a two-stage mission.

“First, if a contract doesn’t make us more lethal. It’s gone,” Hegseth said.

“We have no room in our budget for wasteful DEI contracts that don’t help us win wars, period full stop.”

“Second we’re doing away with these pass through schemes,” he added.

“We’ll make sure that every small business getting a contract is the one actually doing the work, and not just some shell company funneling your money to a giant consulting firm.”

Hegseth said the changes are not intended to harm legitimate small businesses.

“This approach is, of course, not meant to hurt small businesses, and that’s not the point,” he said. “America is full of great, amazing small businesses.”

He said the overhaul is part of a broader push to modernize military acquisition and strengthen the defense industrial base.

“Our goal is to spend your money to build our defense industrial base with businesses large and small that share our mission not to line the pockets of beltway fraudsters or to advance the agenda of DEI apologists only lethality, and we’re going to look at every single contract you,” Hegseth said.

WATCH: