Gallagher: "Defund the Military" is the New "Defund the Police"
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This morning, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) joined Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business to discuss the President’s defense budget and how progressive priorities are hurting the military.
Click here to watch the full interview, or read highlights from the conversation below.
On the glaring disparity in the Administration’s view of deterrence:
“It is appalling to me that certain senior Pentagon officials are spiking the football and celebrating the success of integrated deterrence at the same time that, under oath, the generals will admit, as General Walters did admit to me, that deterrence failed in Ukraine. And so the question is: why that disparity? I think it’s because the generals are under pressure from their political bosses, and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party does not want to invest in defense. The same people that brought you defund the police want to defund the military, and integrated deterrence is a fancy phrase that covers for that fact.”
On Biden’s progressive priorities hurting our military:
“McKinsey just released a report suggesting that if inflation continues at the current rate, that overall number in the President’s budget of approximately $780 billion, actually works out to more like $600 billion in what they’re actually able to purchase with that money. So this is a cut to defense. They’re attempting to cut conventional hard power, while at the same time elevating progressive priorities like climate change, and diversity, equity and inclusion in the military. After all, these are the same people that keep lecturing us and telling us that diversity is our strength. Well, I’m sorry, as someone who served in the military, actual strength — physical strength, mental strength, overall end strength — is our strength. Integrated deterrence and this budget are not about strength. It is about abandoning peace through strength and laundering weakness into American foreign policy.”
On lessons we need to learn for Taiwan:
“In order to deter the Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which I think is increasingly likely within the next three years, we must put hard power in place now before it’s too late. We must arm the Taiwanese with asymmetric capabilities, missiles, things that are capable of preventing the invasion in the first place. That’s the lesson. But it’s a lesson that I don’t think we have learned yet. We’re not moving with a sense of urgency, and we must before it’s too late.”
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