2 months ago
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PULSE POINTS:
❓What Happened: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announces plans to partially reopen the “Jungle School” in Panama, a former U.S. jungle warfare training site in the Panama Canal Zone, dormant since 1999.
👥 Who’s Involved: Pete Hegseth, U.S. troops in Panama, President Donald J. Trump.
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📍 Where & When: Panama, during Hegseth’s trip for the Central American Security Conference (CENTSEC), April 8, 2025.
💬 Key Quote: “I should never put you in a fair fight. My job is to put you in a fight where you are overwhelming.” – Pete Hegseth
⚠️ Impact: Signals a U.S. military push to revive jungle training and reassert influence over the Panama Canal Zone, once American territory.
IN FULL:
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said he intends to partially reopen the “Jungle School,” where up to 9,000 troops a year trained in jungle warfare from the 1950s to 1999 in the former Panama Canal Zone. Secretary Hegseth made the announcement to U.S. troops in Panama amid an ongoing trip to the Central American country, where he will attend the Central American Security Conference (CENTSEC).
Thanking the troops for their service, Hegseth said, “We will have your back; President Trump has asked me to share that with all the groups of troops I talk to,” stressing the importance of the military’s “warrior ethos” to the administration and its determination to rebuild the military.
“I should never put you in a fair fight. My job is to put you in a fight where you are overwhelming… First of all, hopefully, deterring the enemy, [but] if it comes to conflict, overwhelmingly closing with and destroying the enemy,” said Hegseth, himself a decorated former infantry officer.
The Defense Secretary is joined on his Panama trip by Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, providing exclusive coverage and commentary to Pulse+ members as the trip unfolds.
The Panama Canal Zone was under U.S. sovereignty in perpetuity until its surrender to Panama in 1979 under the late Democratic President Jimmy Carter. The canal was largely American-built and funded, and incumbent President Donald J. Trump has expressed a desire to regain control over it, lamenting its handover as one of his predecessors’ worst-ever deals.
“The purpose of our deal [with Panama] and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated,” he said during his inaugural address, noting Chinese involvement in the canal now and vowing, “We’re taking it back.”
NOW: @SecDef @PeteHegseth addresses U.S. troops at the Pier on the Panama Canal, tells them that he intends to reopen parts of the JOTC aka “Jungle school” which closed in 1999. pic.twitter.com/SnOCv09Qzz
— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) April 8, 2025
PULSE POINTS:
❓What Happened: President Donald J. Trump wants a substantial increase to the Pentagon’s budget, raising it to $1 trillion.
👥 Who’s Involved: President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
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📍 Where & When: The announcement was made in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, DC, on April 7, 2025.
💬 Key Quote: “We have to build our military, and we’re very cost-conscious, but the military is something that we have to build, and we have to be strong because you’ve got a lot of bad forces out there now,” said Trump.
⚠️ Impact: This budget increase would be the largest in U.S. military history, reflecting a significant shift in defense spending priorities.
IN FULL:
President Donald J. Trump stated plans to approve an unprecedented increase in the U.S. military budget, elevating it to $1 trillion. This figure represents the most substantial military budget in the nation’s history. During an announcement in the Oval Office on April 7, 2025, Trump highlighted the necessity of enhancing military capabilities, citing rising global threats.
“We rebuilt the military during my first term, and we have great things happening with our military. We also essentially approved a budget which is in the vicinity… of a trillion dollars, $1 trillion. And nobody’s seen anything like it,” he told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We have to build our military, and we’re very cost-conscious, but the military is something we have to build, and we have to be strong because you have a lot of bad forces out there now. So we’re going to be approving a budget, and I’m proud to say actually the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military,” he continued, adding: “We’re cutting other things under DOGE. When you look at a woman getting $2 billion for environmental, and it had nothing to do with the environment, and they had $100 in the bank, and they gave her $2 billion, many, many of those cases.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth praised the budget announcement and thanked President Trump. “President [Trump] is rebuilding our military—and FAST,” Hegseth wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter), while emphasizing that the Pentagon will “spend every taxpayer dollar wisely—on lethality and readiness.”
The National Pulse understands that in recent weeks, Elon Musk lobbied for the halving this budget, in a move that caused consternation amongst top MAGA figures at the Pentagon, especially given the precarious global security situation as well as the efforts to secure locations such as the Panama Canal which requires convincing nations that America is investing and expanding its strength harder and faster than the Chinese Communist Party.
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English (US) ·