{"id":210659,"date":"2026-02-06T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/06\/fdr-had-the-arsenal-of-democracy-hegseth-has-an-arsenal-of-freedom\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T10:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T15:00:15","slug":"fdr-had-the-arsenal-of-democracy-hegseth-has-an-arsenal-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/06\/fdr-had-the-arsenal-of-democracy-hegseth-has-an-arsenal-of-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"FDR had the \u2018Arsenal of Democracy.\u2019 Hegseth has an \u2018Arsenal of Freedom\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

FDR had the \u2018Arsenal of Democracy.\u2019 Hegseth has an \u2018Arsenal of Freedom\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/02\/06\/politics\/hegseth-arsenal-of-freedom-defense-spending<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-06 06:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.cnn.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\n A version of this story appeared in CNN\u2019s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.\n<\/p>\n

\n When Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted Americans to join the fight against the axis of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan in 1940, without actually entering the war, he called on Americans to pivot their economy to equip democracies around the world.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe must be the great arsenal of democracy,\u201d Roosevelt said in a famous fireside chat, calling for a complete reordering of the US economy at breakneck pace. \u201cFor us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\t\tFDR Fireside Chat 16: On the Arsenal of Democracy<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Eighty-six years later, the United States is, again, not technically at war, but Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth is echoing the arsenal idea with a key a shift in word choice. The arsenal Hegseth is pitching in a series of speeches at defense contractors around the country is for \u201cfreedom\u201d rather than \u201cdemocracy.\u201d He wants to reform the \u201cdefense-industrial base\u201d and enable the Pentagon to buy weapons much faster.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the past few weeks Hegseth talked rockets alongside Jeff Bezos at a Blue Origin facility. He talked about artificial intelligence alongside Elon Musk at a SpaceX facility in Texas. He\u2019s talked about space in Los Angeles and Navy ships in Norfolk, Virignia.\n <\/p>\n

\"Defense<\/p>\n

\n But unlike Roosevelt\u2019s call to build up arms, the Trump administration\u2019s America First mindset is more focused on material gain for the US than on defending democracy in other countries.\n <\/p>\n

\n After the US military snatched former Venezuelan leader Nicolas…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FDR had the \u2018Arsenal of Democracy.\u2019 Hegseth has an \u2018Arsenal of Freedom\u2019 https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/02\/06\/politics\/hegseth-arsenal-of-freedom-defense-spending Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/01-gettyimages-2259072859.jpg?c=16x9&q=w_800,c_fill","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-210659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210661,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210659\/revisions\/210661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}