Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth got into a tense exchange with CBS’s Margaret Brennan over U.S. military stockpiles — which Hegseth has said could take years to rebuild.

In an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, Brennan confronted Hegseth about the stockpiles.

“Let me ask you before you go about what is going on with U.S. munitions and stockpiles here,” Brennan said. “Ukraine’s President Zelensky was on this program a few weeks ago. He made a plea not just for more interceptors, but for the ability to produce them, for friendly governments to be able to produce patriots. Some Republican lawmakers support this idea. Do you?”

Hegseth insisted concerns about the U.S. stockpiles are overblown.

“Nobody makes better and more munitions than the United States of America, and we are open to co-production wherever we can,” Hegseth said. “And because of this administration, we’re supercharging our arsenal of freedom, building more, building faster, opening up the Pentagon, ripping through the Pentagon bureaucracy to force industry to move faster. So our stockpiles are strong, and it will only get stronger in the future.”

Brennan followed up.

“There is a crisis with those stockpiles right now in private industry,” Brennan said.

“That is a manufactured story that the media wants to peddle!” Hegseth interjected.

“You have testified to it in front of Congress,” Brennan said.

“Ultimately our stockpiles are great and they only get stronger because of the way this president has,” Hegseth said.

“You testified under oath that it would take years to rebuild those stockpiles,” Brennan noted.

“You don’t have to read back to me what I testified,” Hegseth shot back. “I speculated some munitions take more time than others. We’ve got lots of them, we’re building more than ever before. The Biden administration gave away hundreds of billions to Ukraine. And so President Trump had to refill, and he has, and we have in real time.”

In May 1 before Congress, Hegseth said it could take “months and years…depending on the weapon system” to rebuild the U.S. military stockpile.

“So the answer to Zelensky’s request is a no or a yes?” Brennan asked.

“Ultimately, we’ve worked with them, and Ukraine is buying munitions that Europe pays for,” Hegseth said. It’s great to see Europe finally step up and pay for those.”

“OK, well, he was asking for the ability to produce, but I’ll leave it there,” Brennan said.

Watch above, via CBS.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!