00:00Discipline, accountability, and transparency.
00:04These are the basic fiscal standards that every American taxpayer should demand from their government.
00:10It's what you deserve, but also what the Pentagon has historically failed to execute on time and time again.
00:19We need to be brutally honest with ourselves.
00:21For far too long, this department's financial reporting has been nothing short of a disaster.
00:27Today, that changes, as it has during this administration.
00:31The era of excuses is over.
00:34We're taking a sledgehammer to the broken bureaucratic systems of the past to finally provide the rigorous fiscal responsibility this
00:43building so desperately needs.
00:44Under President Trump, we will secure a clean, unquestionable audit on our 2028 financial statements.
00:52And it is a top priority for the Pentagon, has been since day one.
00:58To achieve this, I'm proud to announce the launch of the Joint Task Force Audit, JTF Audit, a relentless unified
01:07team of service members, civilians, and private sector experts.
01:11We will steward every taxpayer dollar as if it belongs to the men and women who earned it, because it
01:17does.
01:18I've tasked Jay Hurst, who is performing the duties of OSW Comptroller, to lead the charge on this critical initiative
01:25and manage the priorities of the task force.
01:27The mission is simple.
01:29Break down bureaucratic barriers to get you, the taxpayer, concrete results, a full audit.
01:36To run this operation with maximum efficiency, the Office of the Inspector General, the IG, will bring in a world
01:44-class accounting firm as our group auditor.
01:46We're ending the wasteful process of agency-by-agency opinions and slashing the number of disjointed separate audits by two
01:53-thirds.
01:53We are also unleashing American innovation through a modernized hybrid approach.
01:58Where our legacy system controls work, we will leverage them.
02:02Where they don't, we will deploy the full overwhelming power of artificial intelligence and advanced automation to resolve our remaining
02:10financial vulnerabilities.
02:12I want to take a moment to thank the leaders of every defense agency that have already achieved a clean
02:17opinion and retained them for years.
02:20The Marine Corps led that charge, becoming the first military service to achieve a clean opinion, and has sustained that
02:27excellence for three consecutive years.
02:30The Defense Logistics Agency for the National Defense Stockpile and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency have also achieved two consecutive
02:38clean audits.
02:40These teams are the vanguard.
02:42They set the standard for the rest of the department to emulate.
02:44We now expect every single branch to match this same urgency and treat financial discipline as their primary mission.
02:52Going forward, the War Department is laser-focused on achieving our next critical milestone.
02:58A clean opinion on the 2026 Navy Working Capital Funds statements, followed by the 2027 Defense Working Capital Fund statements.
03:07And ultimately, a clean, agency-wide audit for the Department of War in 2028.
03:15That's been our goal from day one.
03:18These are ambitious, highly aggressive targets.
03:21But under this administration, under the leadership of President Trump, we will stop at nothing to best serve the American
03:28taxpayer.
03:29We will do what is necessary to win.
03:31The world's most lethal fighting force requires an unshakable financial foundation.
03:35We're no longer simply asking for the trust of the American people.
03:40We're going to earn that trust back.
03:43Dollar by dollar and victory by victory.
03:47Now let's get back to work.
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