Our troops fighting overseas and risking their lives are being fed too well. That is the message that some Democrats are fielding ahead of the midterm elections and 2028 presidential cycle. If the Democrats are looking for a trial balloon for winning issues, this one is sure to pop.
On Tuesday, X erupted with liberal commentators such as Molly Jong-Fast, Jemele Hill, Thomas Chatterton Williams, and Mehdi Hasan, among others, sharing a TMZ story about the Pentagon “blowing billions on shellfish,” including $2 million for Alaskan king crab, $6.9 million for lobster tail, and $15.1 million for ribeye steak. TMZ, best known for covering celebrities, not geopolitics, even had a photoshopped picture of War Secretary Pete Hegseth smiling and holding a crab.
Pete Hegseth blew billions on shellfish, steak, fruit baskets and furniture.
Read more: https://t.co/eh8qa4CODH pic.twitter.com/F4NVYRXWUn
— TMZ (@TMZ) March 10, 2026
Democrats had a field day with the report. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) even joined in the fun. The governor’s press office shared a photoshopped image of Hegseth, on a leather recliner with a lobster in his hand, a steak at his feet, and a buffet next to him.
The truth, of course, is something else entirely. Hegseth isn’t the one eating surf and turf. The troops are.
Indeed, it has long been customary for soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines entering harm’s way or on extended deployment to have special meals. This is to give a much-needed morale boost. And it has been a tradition that stretches back decades, even prompting dark jokes about a “last meal.”
U.S. Marines readying for combat in Fallujah, Iraq, a city that would soon enter the annals of military history for savage house-to-house fighting, had steak and lobsters. And shortly before that war in Iraq commenced, in March 2003, the fabled 101st Airborne received a similar meal. Indeed, so did U.S. military personnel aboard naval carriers waiting off Iran’s coasts in late February 2026.
Generations of fighting men and women know that a good meal often foreshadows long and difficult days and nights. This has been in countless movies, books, and, yes, news stories.
Do the chattering classes think that only they are entitled to good meals? Newsom, who infamously dined out while his state closed down restaurants and instituted draconian lockdowns, might think so. And liberal pundits, from the safety of their couches, might feel entitled to weigh in on what troops should be eating. But this isn’t going to be a winning message for most people.
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To be sure, there is, and has long been, wasteful spending at the Pentagon. It is, after all, the government. Yet, much of that is the result of a procurement process that has long been broken, as Palantir’s Shyam Sankar and Madeline Hart highlight in their new book, Mobilize. But Hegseth and others have been looking to change that process, instituting a bevy of reforms to both how the Pentagon spends money and on what.
But tackling wasteful spending isn’t really what left-wing pundits and politicians such as Newsom care about. Rather, they’re looking to score cheap points with cheaply made photoshopped images. Instead, what they’ve really signaled is how little they know about those who serve or the dangers that they face.