ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA — The Department of Defense (DOD) has been meeting its military recruiting goals months ahead of schedule after barely scraping by and sometimes falling short under the Biden administration, prompting Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell to attribute the recent success to the “leadership” displayed by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Parnell announced that both the Air Force and Space Force hit their recruiting goals three months early, just a month after the Navy and Army accomplished the same. 

“Thanks to President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s leadership, enthusiasm to serve is at an all-time high. Since November 5, 2024, the U.S. military has seen the highest recruiting percentage mission achieved in 30 years,” the DOD official said. 

When asked what factors have contributed to the better recruitment under Trump and Hegseth compared to under former President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Parnell said the Pentagon “recently stood up a recruiting task force here a couple of weeks ago to analyze and look at just these types of questions.”

He continued, “Recruiting is a constellation of different things … To answer your question directly, I believe that with President Trump as a commander-in-chief and Secretary Hegseth at the helm here in the DOD, leadership matters — and certainly their leadership and moral clarity as it pertains to certain issues, not just here within the department, but all around the world, has inspired people to want to join and serve this country in great numbers.”

“I think the Secretary is looking at a constellation of different things to sustain the momentum that we have now, but the reality is that leadership matters, and the president and the secretary are inspirational leaders,” Parnell added.

In June, former Breitbart News Pentagon correspondent and current chief spokesperson for the Department of the Navy, Kristina Wong, said there were “50 percent more new recruits” by March 2025 than in March 2024 across the entire military. 

“Also, for the Navy specifically, in April 2023, the Navy met only 60 percent of its goal by April,” she explained in an interview on Breitbart News Saturday. “In April 2024, it was only 65 percent, so this past April it was 101 percent, so that is a huge jump. That is a big difference, and it points to major progress under the Trump administration.”

In March 2022, the Army announced it was reducing its size due to recruiting difficulties — the first time that has ever happened.

In a May 2022 hearing, Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jim Inhofe (R-OK) called it “more serious than any recruiting challenge that I’ve experienced in the years that I’ve been here.”

Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.