Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s testimony before the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday took an unexpected twist when he mentioned cats, marbles, and medical research.
Hegseth was facing questions from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) about cuts to the Defense Department’s medical research budget when he made a startling claim: “We’re talking about some stuff I shouldn’t, shouldn’t say in public, you know, marbles in the rear ends of cats, tens of millions of dollars,” Hegseth told Illinois’ senior U.S. senator.
Hegseth referred to the research as a “boondoggle.”
Durbin immediately fired back, asking whether Hegseth’s claim was similar to unproven tales told by President Donald Trump and his DOGE team about people hundreds of years old still receiving Social Security checks in their name.
The research Hegseth appears to be referencing was money awarded in 2020, during President Trump’s first term, to reimburse the University of Pittsburgh $10M for research to “develop revolutionary new treatment approaches for spinal cord injuries.”
The contract award is available on the Department of Defense website.
Hegseth’s claim about marbles being inserted into the rear ends of cats is correct, but lacks all context. Soldiers — or anyone else — who suffer severe spinal cord injuries can lose control of their bowels. The study used anesthetized cats as test subjects to study the impact of a new procedure to restore functionality in the sphincter and rectum. The marbles were meant to simulate defecation and determine whether a procedure restored control in test subjects.
The results were encouraging, according to the American Journal of Physiology.
“[The] study indicates the possibility to develop a novel … device to restore defecation function after spinal cord injury using a minimally invasive surgical approach.”
Durbin said Hegseth’s proposed budget cuts two-thirds of funding for the Defense Department’s medical research. Hegseth countered that his team was targeting “waste, fraud, and abuse” and would not cut funding for programs that benefit members of the military. He previously announced $5 billion in cuts across the entire Department of Defense.
“The Defense Department has been a place where organizations, entities, and companies know they can get money almost unchecked, whether or not it actually applies to things that happen on the battlefield,” Hegseth told Durbin. “That’s just that’s what we worked very hard to find in ways that other secretaries have not.”
After the hearing, a spokesperson for Sen. Durbin told Nexstar’s WGN:
“While Secretary Hegseth attempted to distract from the larger issue with his comment about marbles and cats, here are just a few examples of DoD research contracts that have been canceled or frozen under this Administration: new breast cancer and prostate cancer therapies, which would help afflicted service members; improved protective gear to defend soldiers against projectiles and chemical threats; advanced materials for more durable and lightweight aircraft parts — and the list goes on. Do these sound like ‘boondoggles’ to you?”
