Massive cost of Trump's military meeting shocks The View hosts: 'Can do it all on Zoom'

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered more than 800 top military leaders to Virginia, where he gave a speech that could have been done over Zoom or in an email, quipped the co-hosts of "The View."

It cost a fortune — hours before a government shutdown looms and Republicans demand sweeping budget cuts.

In their Tuesday show, which began as Trump was still giving his widely panned speech, Trump's former White House communications director, Alyssa Farah Griffin, complained that it had become a Republican Party position that somehow the military was "weak."

"We're the best fighting force in the history of mankind," she said.

"I don't get it. There's an estimated $6 million that taxpayers paid for their travel, lodging, and security when we all learned a few years ago, you can do it all on Zoom," said co-host Sara Haines. "So, I don't know because some of the messages, as Joy mentioned — don't be fat, shave your beard, go back to hazing people."

USA Today reported that the likely cost of the transportation, housing and stipends for daily meals and incidentals of the military members to attend the meeting stretch into the millions.

"They could host a video teleconference and not have to cost taxpayers millions of dollars," Virginia Burger, senior defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, told USA Today.

Retired Marine Col. Mark F. Cancian, senior adviser for the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, calculated that it would cost a minimum of $6 million.

"The DOD has not released any cost information. One calculation put the cost at $3.4 million, but that may be low," wrote Cancian. "My rough estimate would be higher, $6 million, calculated as follows: If there are 1,000 visitors (400 senior officers and 600 support personnel), and each costs $4,000 for air travel, ground transportation, and lodging, then the total travel cost would be $4 million. Extra base costs for overtime, food, and security might be another $2 million, bringing the total to $6 million. That does not include opportunity costs for diverting DOD assets from other activities. There might be lost training at Quantico for the hundreds of military personnel at the base’s schools, military aircraft might be diverted to ferrying VIPs, and events might be canceled because of the senior officers’ absence."