Hegseth Now Supports Effort to Learn What Bureaucrats Do

Bob Hoge writes for RedState.com about the new defense secretary’s contributions to government efficiency efforts.

It’s been an email battle royale. First, Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk sent the chattering class into a tizzy by sending out an email to federal employees demanding that they actually specify what work they had done in the last week, then the legacy media salivated when Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director Kash Patel and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth among others ordered their people not to respond.

“Division in the Trump administration!” the media immediately cried.

It turns out it was more of a procedural issue than an ideological one, and on Sunday—after a second DOGE email was sent out—Hegseth is all-in.

Tell us what you’re actually doing at work, the defense secretary ordered. …

… [H]e is now directing all department civilian employees to respond to emails from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) asking for a recap of what they did the week prior.

“I am now directing each member of the department’s civilian workforce — just civilian — to provide those five bullets on what they accomplished in their specific jobs last week,” Hegseth said in a video posted to social media. “To reply to that email and CC their immediate supervisor.”

He went on to explain why he initially told his people not to respond to Musk’s demand:

“It’s a simple task, really, as Elon [Musk] said, as the president recognized in our first Cabinet meeting, just a pulse check — ‘Are you there out?’ — to DOD civilians,” Hegseth continued.

Hegseth said in the video that the Department of Defense (DOD) civilian workforce would soon get a second email outlining next steps “that they need to take in order to comply with this initiative.”

Pentagon officials initially instructed employees not to respond to the first OPM email sent on Feb. 22, but Hegseth said that was only a temporary pause to allow for “a review of Pentagon procedures and consultation with the Office of Personal Management.”