0:00

If you had at your command all the resources of

0:02

the Congress to investigate the

0:04

Chinese Communist Party, what would

0:06

you learn? We're about to find

0:08

out. Congressman Michael Gallagher

0:11

of Wisconsin on Uncommon Knowledge Now.

0:24

Not yet 40, Republican Congressman

0:26

Mike Gallagher has earned

0:29

an undergraduate degree from Princeton, a

0:31

master's degree from the National Intelligence

0:33

University, two master's

0:35

degrees from Georgetown. Is that right? You hold three

0:38

masters? Yeah, one doesn't count. One you

0:40

sort of get en route to a PhD, so it's

0:42

sort of fake. But technically,

0:45

yeah. All right.

0:46

But you and a doctorate from Georgetown, served

0:49

seven years in the United States Marine

0:51

Corps and has been elected four times to

0:53

the House of Representatives from Wisconsin's 8th

0:56

District, which includes Appleton and

0:58

Green Bay. I should note

1:00

that the last time he ran for re-election,

1:02

the Democrats did not even put up an

1:05

opponent. I should also note

1:07

that Congressman Gallagher does pretty well on his feet.

1:10

For the last six years, he has competed in the Three

1:12

Mile Capital Challenge and

1:14

won fastest House rep

1:17

all six times. In this, his

1:19

fourth term in Congress, Congressman Gallagher is

1:21

chairing the House Committee on the

1:23

Chinese Communist Party. Mike

1:26

Gallagher, welcome. It is an honor to be here.

1:28

All right. Just save that. Well,

1:31

you covered for Tom Cotton by qualifying

1:33

it as fastest House rep. But I beat

1:35

him, so it's just fastest member of Congress.

1:38

He's very sensitive about this. We'll give

1:40

him an opportunity to respond at the

1:42

end of the show.

1:43

This is you writing in the Wall Street Journal, quote, America's

1:46

greatest threat is the Chinese

1:49

Communist Party, close quote. Could

1:52

I ask a question to try to establish what's

1:54

at stake? If the

1:56

Chinese Communist Party gets

1:59

everything it wants. If President Xi Jinping

2:02

attains every last one of his goals, how

2:05

does life change in Green Bay or

2:08

Appleton? What difference does it make to us?

2:11

Well, first of all, I think any honest assessment

2:13

of Xi Jinping's goals has to conclude.

2:16

And even members of the Biden administration

2:18

like Rush Doshi, who's the lead on the National

2:21

Security Council for China in his book,

2:23

The Long Game, basically gets to this point that

2:25

their goal is to, he would say, displace

2:28

America from its position of primacy

2:30

in the world, I would say a bit more provocatively,

2:33

to destroy American global leadership.

2:36

So how does this affect someone who lives in Green

2:38

Bay? Well, in at least two ways. Two

2:40

ways I think this competition is existential.

2:43

When I use that term, I get a lot of blowback and people

2:46

can't even, I'm hyping the threat. One

2:49

is that if we come to blows with China

2:51

over Taiwan, if they try to take

2:53

Taiwan by force and I think the odds of that are increasing,

2:56

this could quickly spiral into a conflict

2:59

that's so severe, that has the potential

3:01

to make the current wars in Ukraine

3:04

and in the Middle East and even previous world wars

3:06

look tame in comparison. It could even escalate

3:09

to the level of a nuclear exchange, which

3:11

would be devastating. But the second

3:14

and more insidious threat

3:16

posed by the CCP is,

3:19

how do I describe this? Take every instance

3:22

of a major American company

3:24

or corporation like Disney or

3:26

the NBA silencing

3:29

or self censoring for fear of angering

3:32

Chinese Communist Party officials, for fear of

3:34

losing market access. If China

3:36

were to attain its goal of displacing

3:39

us from the region and ultimately becoming the

3:41

dominant global power, you can multiply

3:43

that by 20 in terms of the economic

3:46

coercion that they would wield.

3:48

And it would amount to a fundamental

3:50

loss of what it means to be not

3:52

only American, but a member

3:55

of the free world. Gone would be concepts

3:58

like free expression. freedom

4:01

of religion. Maybe I guess I'll add a

4:03

third which is that particularly in the industrial Midwest

4:05

over the last two decades a lot of people have lost their jobs.

4:08

Entire industries have been destroyed because

4:10

of the Chinese Communist Party's predatory economic

4:12

practices. Its failure to abide by the

4:15

promises it made when it is ceded to the WTO.

4:17

So for a military reason, for

4:19

an economic reason, and for what I would call an ideological

4:22

reason, the CCP is our greatest threat.

4:25

Can I... so you're chairing the...

4:28

what is the full title? House Committee on the Chinese Communist

4:31

Party.

4:32

Can you give me a sentence? What's the main takeaway?

4:34

What

4:34

have you learned?

4:36

They're worse than you thought? What have you

4:38

learned? Well that it is

4:41

related to your previous question. It's not a distant

4:44

over there problem, right? It's

4:46

not something that solely concerns the

4:48

Taiwanese or the Japanese or Asian

4:51

countries. It is a right here at

4:53

home problem. And as someone who entered this conversation

4:55

primarily from the perspective

4:58

of a former military officer who worked on

5:00

the House Armed Services Committee and spent a lot of time

5:02

thinking about the future of the Navy and the Marine Corps and

5:04

how do we deter a PLA invasion of Taiwan, I've learned

5:07

so much about what they're doing here domestically

5:10

in order to undermine American

5:13

sovereignty and really to put a pit Americans

5:16

against Americans. That's sort of the title of

5:18

a book by Wang Huning who's one of the most powerful members

5:21

of the Politburo and I think accurately describes

5:23

the CCP's strategy. For example, the

5:26

first event we did on the

5:28

committee and it was myself and a Democratic member

5:30

of the committee, Richie Torres, worked very

5:32

hard to make this committee bipartisan. And that really

5:35

was the vision that former Speaker McCarthy and

5:37

minority leader Hakeem Jeffries had for the

5:39

committee. We're not gonna grant everything but to the extent

5:41

possible Congress can speak with one voice when it

5:44

comes to how we successfully compete with

5:46

our greatest national security threat, that is a good thing.

5:48

But we did a rally with a bunch of human rights activists

5:51

in front of an illegal Chinese Communist

5:53

Party police station in the heart of Manhattan.

5:55

And three years ago I was completely unaware

5:58

of that phenomena. I now learned

6:01

what was in Manhattan, an illegal CCP

6:04

police station registered to an

6:06

innocuous sounding nonprofit

6:08

group. They had their police in

6:10

Manhattan? It was being used to surveil,

6:13

harass, and in some cases physically assault

6:16

people on American soil, Chinese

6:18

Americans, members of the Chinese diaspora,

6:20

et cetera. The FBI has since made a series

6:22

of arrests in connection

6:25

with this case. We've learned about similar

6:28

things happening on American campuses where

6:31

Chinese student groups linked to the Chinese

6:33

Student Scholars Association are being

6:35

used to intimidate Chinese

6:38

students who are criticizing the regime, Taiwanese

6:40

students. So the extent of what's called

6:43

united front work, which is what she refers

6:45

to as a magic weapon of influence

6:47

and coercion, was something that I didn't

6:50

fully appreciate until I took on this job

6:52

and I continue to believe there's more we need to do

6:54

to shine a light on it. Okay.

6:57

Military stuff. Mike

6:59

Gallagher in the Wall Street Journal, this is an

7:01

interview you gave about a year ago. The

7:03

United States is facing, quote, a window

7:06

of maximum

7:08

danger. Explain that.

7:10

Well, there are various people,

7:12

most famously probably former Indo-Pecom commander,

7:14

Admiral Davidson, who said that Xi

7:17

Jinping may make

7:19

a move on Taiwan within the next five years. This

7:21

then became known as the Davidson window after

7:24

a hearing we held with him in the Armed Services Committee. There's

7:26

other analysts at the Naval War College like Andrew Erickson,

7:29

who have pointed out in light of Xi Jinping's

7:31

massive demographic and economic

7:33

challenges, which become most acute in the

7:36

2030s, it's increasingly likely that

7:38

he will try to achieve his lifelong ambition,

7:40

which is to take Taiwan by force if necessary

7:43

to use Xi's phrase in this decade.

7:45

I think the window becomes most acute, starting

7:48

with the election in Taiwan that's going to happen in January

7:50

of 2024, particularly at the DPP,

7:53

the Democratic Progressive Party wins as seems

7:55

likely. Xi will conclude that he cannot

7:57

achieve this ambition via political warfare. So

8:00

he will resort to actual kinetic warfare

8:02

in order to absorb Taiwan. OK,

8:04

hold on. You're saying things that are—I

8:07

thought I was prepared for this, but you're saying things that are shocking

8:09

me. First of all, Chinese police in Manhattan.

8:12

Now you're saying that the window could open in

8:15

January—not years from now, not

8:17

months from now, as you and I sit here, that's

8:19

weeks from now that the Taiwanese

8:21

election will take place. All

8:24

right. Can you take me through—because

8:27

this gets a little bit—it's not that confusing.

8:30

But it gets confusing.

8:32

South China Sea, what have they already done there?

8:34

And then because Americans are going to be hearing more and more and

8:36

more about this, there's a thing called the

8:38

first island chain. And then there's the thing

8:41

called the second island chain. And to follow

8:44

the military situation in the Pacific, you

8:46

actually have to know what they are, correct? Yes.

8:49

OK, so give me the South China Sea. Well, it's

8:51

actually very interesting. I think when, you know—

8:53

You have all these degrees. Teach

8:55

me. Yeah, it's—as

8:58

Eisenhower said of academics, they're men who take more

9:00

words than necessary to tell you more than they know. And

9:03

I'm about to prove that case. Historians

9:07

continue to debate like when the first Cold

9:09

War began, right? Was it when Orwell first

9:12

used the phrase? Was it Soviets

9:14

detonating a nuclear weapon in 1949? Was

9:16

it the invasion of Korea in 1950? They

9:19

will also debate for decades to come when this new

9:22

Cold War with Communist China began. And

9:24

I think you at least have to date it prior to

9:26

Xi Jinping when China started to make all

9:28

these claims for territory in

9:30

the South China Sea. They unsuccessfully

9:32

petitioned for recognition of

9:35

various expansive claims in multilateral fora.

9:38

And when that failed, they just started building islands.

9:40

They just started literally— Why? Why

9:42

did they want them? Because, well, they, A, historically

9:45

believed that they belonged to China, and

9:47

B, in order to project power throughout the rest

9:50

of the region. Right now, we're seeing Chinese

9:54

maritime militia and navy vessels harass

9:57

Philippine ships in the second—

10:00

If you have an in fact in place aircraft

10:03

carriers, which is what these little islands are going to do, isn't

10:05

it? I guess you can land planes on them,

10:07

then you're putting pressure on Vietnam, the Philippines.

10:10

Yeah, and I think, again, even like

10:12

center or left analysts would say their interim

10:15

goal is to push the US Navy out

10:17

of the Indo-Pacific. And so these claims

10:19

and the island building campaign and the really

10:21

unprecedented militarization

10:23

of the South China Sea is all in pursuit

10:26

of that goal. And they sort of- Shoving

10:28

us out. Yeah, and the Kaler built a military

10:31

designed to shove us out

10:33

over the last 20 years. So we can say our military

10:35

is more capable overall, but they're

10:37

fighting a home game and they've gone

10:39

to school on how they can best frustrate our

10:42

goals in the Indo-Pacific. For example, in

10:44

some ways even more important than the fact that they

10:46

built the world's largest Navy and they

10:48

have, right? They have more ships than us. Our ships on

10:50

balance are, on average, are more capable, but quantity

10:53

has a quality all of its own. They've really invested

10:55

in something that I like to call the anti-Navy, which

10:57

is the PLA rocket force. So for

11:00

relatively low cost,

11:02

they can stockpile missiles

11:05

that are designed to sink our

11:07

ships and make it very difficult for us to

11:09

bring a carrier anywhere close to Taiwan. Okay,

11:11

so you tell me if this makes sense. I

11:14

did a show ages and ages and ages

11:16

ago with Bill Perry, who was then a former

11:19

secretary of defense. And he explained

11:21

that during the Clinton administration, he, Bill

11:23

Perry, secretary of defense, had

11:26

decided to send a carrier

11:28

through the Strait of Taiwan to show our support

11:30

for Taiwan. That's item one. Item

11:33

two, I spoke not long ago to

11:35

a retired admiral who didn't know I was going

11:37

to quote him, so I won't name him. And I

11:39

said, if things get rough

11:41

with Taiwan, how

11:44

close can our carriers get?

11:46

Now that they've built all of these ship-killing

11:50

weapons, it's essentially what they are, isn't it?

11:53

And the admiral said, oh, well, that's very simple. Our

11:55

aircraft carriers must stay 1,000 miles away from Taiwan.

12:01

Is it, they pushed us out already.

12:04

Is that true, not true? Well,

12:06

I still think we have an opportunity. We have advantages

12:08

in certain areas, right? So our largest

12:10

advantage, I would say, is in the realm of

12:13

undersea warfare, our submarines, right? That's the

12:15

ultimate stand in force. The Commandant of the Marine

12:17

Corps has a very innovative vision for the previous

12:19

Commandant and the current Commandant for

12:22

another stand in force, which would be small teams of Marines

12:25

in the southern Japanese island, part of the first island

12:27

chain, as well as northern Philippine islands, using

12:30

autonomous joint-like tactical vehicles and naval

12:32

strike missiles to be able to sink their ships.

12:34

So there are things we can do, and perhaps

12:36

the most important, is to arm Taiwan

12:39

itself so that it becomes a porcupine, and

12:41

thus becomes very hard to conquer territorially. Can

12:43

I just say one thing about your historical example,

12:45

right? So we've had three Taiwan Strait

12:48

crises. You've alluded to one of them. This

12:50

was the biggest show of force since

12:52

the end of the Vietnam War. In the

12:55

previous two- By us. By us, right? And

12:57

that's when China was- I mean, this was post-Gulf

13:00

War. China had not yet- they'd

13:03

started to embark on this military buildup, but nothing

13:05

like we've seen today. We were leagues

13:08

ahead of them in terms of military capability. And

13:10

even in the 50s, when we had the first two Taiwan

13:12

Strait crises, what did Eisenhower have to do in order

13:14

to deter the CCP? He

13:17

went to Congress to get an advanced authorization

13:19

for the use of military force. Some would

13:21

say he actually threatened to use nuclear weapons.

13:24

He put matador cruise missiles on Taiwan

13:26

itself. These were dramatic moves,

13:28

and that's what was necessary. That's the level

13:31

of presidential intestinal fortitude

13:33

and display of hard power that was necessary

13:35

to diffuse crisis one, two, and three. It

13:38

would acquire just as much, if not more,

13:41

presidential courage and display of hard power

13:43

to diffuse the fourth Taiwan Strait crisis when

13:45

it comes.

13:47

Okay.

13:48

So another couple of questions. You're

13:51

in teaching mode. I'm in student mode. All

13:53

right, I think I understand what the Chinese

13:55

are attempting to do. First Island chain is

13:57

closest to China. It includes Japan.

14:00

in Taiwan itself, second island chain further,

14:02

got it. Why

14:04

do we care about the Pacific anyway? Suppose

14:07

they do push us back to the second island

14:09

chain. Who cares

14:11

who's watching this program in Appleton,

14:14

Wisconsin? What difference does that

14:16

make? Who said we get to run the

14:18

Pacific when China is... Why

14:21

shouldn't they have at least regional hegemony?

14:24

Almost everything in your house, whether

14:26

you live in Appleton, Green Bay,

14:28

or God forbid you live in Washington, D.C., or even

14:30

worse, California. If

14:33

it has an on and off switch, it probably

14:35

has a chip that

14:37

is made in the Indo-Pacific and in Taiwan

14:40

specifically. So if we abandon

14:42

our treaty commitments to countries

14:44

like Japan and the Philippines and

14:47

our...the Taiwan Relations Act, whereby we commit to

14:49

help Taiwan defend itself and

14:51

allow China to take over Taiwan,

14:54

they will be able to hold the rest of the world economically

14:57

hostage. And that economic coercion that we

14:59

hate, again, it will multiply by 24. When

15:02

it comes to our military commitments, it would render

15:04

our ability to fulfill treaty commitments, the

15:06

ones I mentioned, almost impossible,

15:09

right? And that would...we would take a massive hit in

15:11

terms of the credibility of our commitments everywhere

15:13

else. Put differently, Las Vegas

15:15

rules would not apply. What happens in the first

15:18

island chain or the second island chain would

15:20

not stay there because ultimately I do believe

15:22

that Xi Jinping is not just content

15:25

to export...to perfect

15:27

his model of techno-totality control

15:30

within China's borders or inside

15:32

the Xinjiang autonomous region. Increasingly,

15:34

it appears to me that he's trying to export that

15:37

model of governance around the world in

15:39

order to prove that it works better. Can I say one more

15:41

thing? Of course you can. You know, I know we've had this

15:43

bruising debate about the

15:46

extent of our international commitments,

15:49

you know, so-called forever wars and

15:51

things like that. To me there's

15:53

something fundamentally different, let's say,

15:55

between a war to

15:57

democratize a no

16:00

experience with democracy and you can say

16:02

that Afghanistan and Iraq were

16:04

part of that and there was mission creep involved. There's

16:06

something different between that and helping

16:09

an existing flourishing

16:11

democracy that at least according to Taiwan,

16:14

by some metric is actually freer than our own society,

16:18

defend itself against a

16:20

totalitarian government that is trying

16:22

to extinguish its ability to

16:24

exist as a democratic society.

16:26

Very moving, very moving. Let me tell you about

16:29

two little countries in hostile neighborhoods.

16:31

Taiwan is one, Israel is another. Israel

16:35

spends 5% of GDP on defense. Taiwan

16:39

spends a little under 3% as I recall. Why

16:43

should we? By the way, we spend 3.6% of

16:45

GDP. We

16:47

spend more GDP on their defense,

16:50

so to speak, than they do themselves. How come?

16:53

How come? Well, it's in our interest for the three

16:55

reasons I laid out before, but I will say this

16:57

about the Taiwan's. By the way, there's this debate

16:59

among actual Asia

17:01

specialists, which I am not one, I just play one

17:03

on TV, about whether to call them the Taiwanese

17:06

or the Taiwan's. That could be the subject of a separate podcast.

17:09

Taiwanese just sounds easier to me. We'll do an hour on

17:11

that one. Yeah, exactly. You will lose all your listenership.

17:15

They have made significant reforms, increased

17:17

overall spending, trying to invest in asymmetric

17:20

weapons systems, and increasing, notably, the

17:22

length of conscription and mandatory

17:25

service requirements in Taiwan. Exactly. They're

17:28

headed in the right direction, but I think they will go as far

17:30

as we are willing to lead. By

17:32

the way, for years we've been hammering them to invest more

17:34

in asymmetric defense and things like harpoon

17:37

missiles as opposed to fourth

17:40

or fifth gen fighters that are likely to get blown

17:42

up on day one of the invasion. But if we

17:45

can't actually provide the asymmetric

17:47

weapons that they purchase and

17:50

then get delayed for decades, then

17:52

I'm not sure how much our criticism has in effect.

17:54

We have harpoon missiles that were

17:57

purchased in 2015, approved by Congress.

18:00

and are still not going to be delivered until 2027, 2029, because

18:03

our foreign military sales process is

18:05

totally broken here. So if we fix

18:08

that, or if we took the harpoons that were

18:10

about to spend money demeilling and putting into deep

18:12

storage and gave them to Taiwan,

18:14

then I think you would see more

18:17

effort to reform on Taiwan

18:19

itself. Okay. We,

18:22

at the end of the Reagan period, the

18:24

number of battle force ships in the United States Navy

18:27

was just under 600. Today

18:29

it's 294. By source on this is you. 294. Might

18:35

be 291 now. It's hard

18:37

to keep track. We deep somewhere. It's

18:42

shrinking that fast, and the Biden administration,

18:44

the most recent budget calls for it to shrink even

18:46

further. Now there are arguments

18:48

that each one of these vessels is much more capable than

18:50

a vessel was 40 years ago. There

18:52

are arguments about this,

18:54

but as you said a moment ago, quantity

18:56

has equality all its own. Two years

18:58

from now, the Chinese are expected to have 400 battle

19:02

force ships in their Navy. That's

19:04

item one.

19:06

Item two, Army, Air

19:08

Force, Navy, Marine

19:11

Corps.

19:12

Only your Marines met their

19:14

recruiting goals last year.

19:16

The other three missed, and the Army

19:19

missed its recruiting goal for the 10th time

19:22

in 10 years. We

19:24

have a superpower projecting

19:28

its power, doing the things that you, Chinese

19:31

police in Manhattan, and we

19:33

have permitted the United States Army to fall 10% below

19:37

full strength. What

19:39

is going on? You've hit on the two biggest

19:41

issues facing DOD right now, which

19:44

is shipbuilding and a recruiting

19:46

crisis. On the first, if

19:48

you look back at the story of the 600 ship

19:50

Navy, I think you guys got to 595. I've

19:53

heard tales about this decade called the 80s. But

19:59

really, what What allowed that effort

20:01

to be successful against extreme

20:03

bureaucratic resistance, by the way, was

20:06

Reagan himself prioritizing

20:09

it, selling it to the American people, and

20:11

empowering John Lehman as

20:13

Secretary of the Navy to implement

20:16

a shipbuilding program that was informed first

20:18

and foremost by a strategy

20:21

for projecting sea power. And

20:23

in this administration and in the Trump administration, we

20:26

haven't had that, right? We've had a promise to get

20:28

to a 355 ship navy, but we've had

20:30

internal fighting between the services. We've

20:33

had, I think, mostly the defense enterprise

20:35

run by former army officers, a lot of whom I

20:37

like and respect, but it's fair to say that

20:40

unless the president himself

20:42

makes it a priority and forces the Secretary

20:44

of Defense and the Secretary of Navy to wake

20:46

up every single day to push the five-sided

20:49

building and the shipbuilding industrial base

20:51

to deliver on time and on budget, it's

20:53

simply not going to happen, right? Because the

20:55

workforce is so advanced

20:57

that you can't just turn the spigot on and

20:59

off. And we've had an inconsistent

21:02

demand signal. We have multiple shipbuilding plans

21:05

that don't interact with each other. And by the way, Biden's

21:07

shipbuilding plan, as China builds the

21:09

largest navy in the world, as its ships start to

21:11

get more capable than ours, by the way, it by some measures

21:13

has the three biggest navies in the world, if you count their Coast Guard

21:16

and their maritime militia, under

21:18

the Biden plan, the US Navy is going to bottom

21:21

out at about 280 ships at 2027.

21:25

2027 is the date that Xi Jinping has set for

21:27

the People's Liberation Army to be ready to

21:30

take Taiwan. So this is the worst possible

21:32

time to have your priority force in

21:34

your priority theater, the United States Navy,

21:36

to be at its weakest point. We could be weakest when

21:39

they're strongest. We'll continue with China

21:41

in a moment. But listen to this. Raphael

21:43

Cohen, director of strategy and doctrine

21:46

program at RAND, quote, for

21:48

years, American defense strategy argued

21:50

that the United States should have sufficient military

21:53

capability to fight and

21:55

win two simultaneous

21:57

wars in different theaters over the last

21:59

decade. Though as America's military shrank

22:02

and its adversaries grew increasingly capable

22:05

the Pentagon has backed off such

22:07

aspirations So we have

22:09

forces that are designed to operate

22:11

in two theaters at best

22:15

Ukraine and the North Atlantic Taiwan

22:18

and the Pacific and Now

22:21

the Middle East and the Med that

22:23

makes three. Yeah How

22:25

dangerous is this moment? I think

22:28

we're at our most dangerous moment since

22:30

I Mean you could go back

22:32

to 1962 you go back to 1950 It's

22:36

increasingly looking like the interwar period though

22:38

where we sort of fall victim to a variety of utopian

22:41

delusions We disarm or politically

22:43

divided and also we stumble into war

22:46

on someone else's terms. That's what concerns me Maybe

22:48

the better case is that it's the late 1970s

22:51

and you know, we have an economic crisis We have

22:53

an empty crisis is the greatest nation in the world

22:55

sleepwalk indeed We go through the cycle though

22:57

in America, right? By the way, Rafi Cohen is brilliant I went to

22:59

grad school with him. It was infuriating to have he like actually

23:01

understood things and I was just like struggling to

23:03

get by We

23:06

we go through these periods right? It's why defense spending looks

23:08

like a sign curve, right? because we like win

23:10

a Cold or hot war and

23:12

then the sentiment in America is to bring the boys home

23:15

because we are what Colin de Weck has called Reluctant

23:17

Crusaders, right? We like to think of ourselves as crusading

23:21

for a noble global cause the defender of the

23:23

free world But we're reluctant to pay the cost

23:25

and ultimately then we have to pay more money Ironically

23:27

and tragically when we have to rearm when

23:29

we find ourselves In a kinetic

23:32

confrontation so the challenge in the present day and it

23:34

really kind of gets in my mind to the paradox

23:36

of deterrence is If we want to if

23:38

we want to prevent a war with

23:41

China if we want to prevent World War three

23:43

We have to convince Xi Jinping

23:45

that we're actually willing to go to war and

23:47

we have to put the Pentagon on a war

23:50

footing To maximize the production

23:52

of ships and long-range precision

23:54

fires, which we have yet to do Okay, so you're

23:56

in your one of two four six

23:58

year in your seventh year in the house representatives. You've

24:01

been in this town for seven years, you've been in this institution

24:04

for seven years, what's

24:06

your feeling about the temper of Washington

24:08

and the temper of Congress? Are people now

24:11

with his attack on Israel? Is everybody

24:14

started walking around saying, fellows

24:16

maybe we ought to pull ourselves together? Or

24:18

do you still feel, I mean the

24:22

Republican majority in the House just took three

24:24

weeks to elect a new speaker. It just

24:27

feels as though you're talking about extremely serious

24:29

things and there's a lack of a connection

24:33

between what you're talking about and the way this town

24:35

feels. Yeah. Honestly there's a lack of

24:37

connection between what you're talking about and the way the press

24:39

reports the situation. I know.

24:41

The amount of good military

24:44

or strategic reporting is very thin in

24:46

this country, at least at the present. Sorry,

24:48

that I gave a speech. What I wanted to is get

24:50

to a question. Have things changed over your

24:53

seven years in town? I think there

24:55

is a growing awareness of

24:57

the threat posed by the

25:00

Chinese Communist Party in particular, but more generally

25:02

by what I call sort of the anti-American

25:05

access, right? A recognition that increasingly

25:07

this looks like a proper access

25:10

arrayed against our interests and our

25:12

allied interests. China is of course the dominant

25:14

partner in this arrangement. Putin is

25:17

his junior partner. He is to quote

25:19

my good friend Tom Tuginhat, Putin's

25:21

tethered goat in Europe and

25:24

Iran increasingly looks like a partner in this. I

25:26

think there's a growing awareness

25:28

of the threat, but honestly we have yet

25:30

to translate that awareness and

25:32

its bipartisan into action, into

25:34

the things that would actually make a difference. And obviously

25:37

when it comes to things like revitalizing

25:40

our munitions industrial base and building a

25:42

ton of missiles that can sink

25:44

Chinese ships, doing to them what they've done to us,

25:46

like flipping the script and building our own anti-navy,

25:50

that's not a massive investment of money.

25:52

All you need is certainty over the course of

25:54

the five year defense plan. And it's my

25:56

hypothesis that for the sum of about 10 to $15 billion

25:59

a year. for the next five years,

26:01

we could massively turbocharge

26:04

our munitions industrial base and pre-position

26:06

those weapons in the Indo-Pacific. Because

26:08

if they're not pre-positioned, and this is the lesson of Ukraine,

26:11

we're not gonna have the luxury of sort of like surging

26:14

them forward. Because the very things that make Taiwan

26:16

hard to conquer, i.e. it's an island, make it very difficult

26:19

to resupply, unlike Ukraine. So we're struggling,

26:21

and the Republican Party admittedly is divided

26:23

on national security. That division has always

26:26

existed, right? It goes back to Taft

26:29

versus Eisenhower, right? Eisenhower

26:32

settled the debate for a while, but it reemerges,

26:34

right? We haven't nominated a true isolationist,

26:37

I think, since Alf Landon in 36. So

26:41

we tend, on balance, to be conservative internationalists.

26:44

But there's a real divide in the Republican

26:46

Party right now. It's going to take a president, I think, to

26:48

resolve that divide. Back to matters here at home.

26:51

You wrote not long ago, you hear

26:53

what I talked about, global strategy. And

26:55

here's what you're writing about. TikTok,

26:58

I'm quoting you, TikTok, which is controlled by the Chinese

27:00

Communist Party, is close to becoming the dominant

27:02

media company in the US. This is untenable.

27:05

Close quote. TikTok?

27:09

You're taking your time with TikTok? I know.

27:11

Persuade me that it matters. I'm supposed to. I

27:14

was the youngest member of Congress, I think,

27:16

when I got elected. So I'm supposed to be the cool young

27:19

guy who is friendly to social

27:21

media, but I'm not. I'm like the lead school.

27:24

I'm the old man yelling, get off my lawn most of the time.

27:27

Fun little problem with TikTok. Put aside just the

27:30

problem with social media use in general. And I think

27:32

people like Jonathan Haidt have convincingly

27:35

demonstrated that it's strongly correlated

27:38

with rising rates of anxiety,

27:40

depression, and suicide. And it's having an incredibly

27:42

negative effect on the next generation. But

27:45

that's true of all social media apps. The

27:47

problem with TikTok in particular is that it

27:49

is owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance.

27:51

And ByteDance, like all Chinese companies,

27:54

but particularly their champions, is

27:56

effectively controlled by the CCP.

27:59

You have. CCP members embedded

28:01

in their corporate governance structure. You've had bite

28:03

the officials having to apologize for failing

28:05

to follow appropriate political

28:08

direction and so given that tick-tock

28:10

is Quickly becoming the go-to

28:12

news source for the next generation We

28:15

have to ask ourselves if it is a wise

28:17

decision to allow a CCP controlled

28:19

company to be the dominant news Platform

28:22

in America. I don't know what the right Cold War

28:24

analogy would be But it would be as if

28:27

at the height of the Cold War we allowed KGB and Pravda

28:29

to buy You know the New York

28:31

Times CBS ABC

28:34

and that probably understates the stupidity

28:36

of it Because how

28:39

insidious tweaking the algorithm

28:41

could be it's not an easy to solve I

28:43

was about to say yeah, how do you ban that without running into

28:46

problems with the First Amendment? I see at least

28:48

three paths for right I mean I think there's you

28:50

can you can address foreign ownership

28:52

of a company without stepping on First

28:55

Amendment issues right so you can either ban it and

28:57

I think there's a legal way to ban it you would you

28:59

know You're 14 year old might be upset with

29:01

you, but I mean such as the price of national

29:03

security You could force

29:06

a sale to an American Company

29:09

and done right all the American investors who

29:11

own a ton of bite dance would not necessarily

29:13

lose money if the Chinese Communist Party Were

29:15

to allow a sale and as long as that new company

29:18

had control the algorithm that would satisfy

29:20

my concerns So there essentially to be a fork in the road

29:23

between Chinese tiktok doyin which by the

29:25

way They only they restrict the amount of

29:27

time their own kids have access

29:29

to it in China And the content is restricted

29:31

to educational content which proves the point that

29:33

they understand This is digital fentanyl, but

29:35

it's highly addicted and ultimately starts in China or

29:38

the third thing

29:39

Would be just to insist on reciprocity

29:41

and say okay We will consider allowing

29:44

tiktok to continue to operate in the United States

29:46

if you allow our social media companies to operate

29:49

in China Because of course your average Chinese citizen

29:51

doesn't have access to Twitter or

29:54

X Facebook YouTube

29:56

and what makes it even more absurd is that

29:58

their officials their wolf warrior diplomats,

30:01

their propagandists are all over those

30:03

same platforms in America, spreading

30:06

anti-American propaganda and disinformation

30:08

like the fact that the pandemic came

30:10

from an American lab and not the Wuhan Institute of

30:12

Virology. Okay, a moment ago you mentioned American

30:15

investors in what is it called? ByteDance.

30:18

In ByteDance, which leads me to another

30:20

of your proposals for dealing

30:23

with matters here at home. I'm quoting

30:25

you again. Wall Street is funneling US capital

30:28

into Chinese companies on at least

30:30

six different US government blacklists.

30:34

American capital into Chinese

30:36

companies that our own government has identified

30:39

as trouble.

30:42

What

30:44

do you want to do? You're

30:45

taking on Wall Street now? TikTok, you can

30:47

almost see, but now you're going to go charge up. Take

30:50

the SL up to Manhattan and start

30:53

shouting at those offices. How

30:55

do you want to handle this problem? Promise me if I pass

30:58

away and the explanation is

31:00

that I fell from a balcony or that you

31:02

will not accept the official explanation.

31:07

Listen, I should be clear. I'm not alleging that any of these

31:10

asset managers or venture capital funds

31:12

that are invested in China have done anything illegal. In fact, I think

31:14

what this illustrates is the problem. They're just looking

31:16

for the highest return. Exactly. It's the

31:18

same reason Dillinger robbed banks because that's where

31:20

the money is. Although increasingly it looks like China is a bad investment,

31:23

we can come back to that. The problem

31:25

is we have these various lists that you referenced. These

31:27

lists don't talk to each other. And so it's

31:30

hard for us to enforce the lists. And

31:32

I can use your State Department. Who puts this stuff

31:35

together? There are Treasury lists, their

31:37

State Department lists. There's incidentally, there

31:39

were usual bureaucracy in 1999. We

31:41

I wasn't in Congress at the time, but

31:44

we passed a law saying the executive branch had to come

31:47

up with a list of communist

31:49

Chinese military companies. They ignored

31:51

the requirement and it wasn't until Schumer

31:53

Cotton, myself and a Democrat

31:56

in the House, sent a letter to the previous

31:58

administration that they actually published a list 20

32:00

years too late. So there's confusion about

32:03

the list. And I think people are now starting

32:05

to understand that we are in some

32:07

meaningful sense funding our own

32:09

destruction, right? We're American dollars,

32:12

including retirement dollars from American military

32:14

service members are going to Chinese military

32:16

companies that are building things designed to

32:18

kill Americans in a future conflict. This situation

32:21

is totally absurd. Or technology companies that are being used

32:23

to facilitate a genocide of Uyghur Muslims

32:26

in Xinjiang. So again,

32:29

it's not an easy problem to solve because we're

32:31

trying to unwind over 20 years

32:33

of just relentless integration of China into

32:36

the global economy. And I'm not saying,

32:38

and I'm fine with a sector-specific

32:41

approach that isn't a complete cutoff, but

32:43

at least when it comes to Chinese military

32:46

companies and technology companies,

32:48

we need to cut off the flow of US capital

32:51

so we don't allow them to, we don't help

32:53

them achieve their goals, which involve the destruction

32:55

of American global leadership.

33:03

Ukraine.

33:05

There are fights about Ukraine, fights

33:07

about what we should be doing in Ukraine.

33:12

Our involvement is escalated. That seems to be the

33:14

way the Biden administration wants to do it first. We will

33:16

send them then, we won't send them this. Now we're up to

33:19

tanks, Abrams tanks, and now he's talking about

33:22

cluster bombs. So it's just

33:24

been creeping up, creeping up. We

33:26

have this strange feature that on the ground, we

33:28

were all told there was going to be a Ukrainian summer offensive.

33:32

It got essentially nowhere. Yeah. All

33:34

right.

33:35

And you have

33:36

foreign policy analysts, such as Elbridge Colby,

33:39

arguing that this is a terrible

33:41

sink of American resources

33:44

and of limited American mindshare.

33:47

In this town, people who should be concerned

33:50

with China are instead concerned

33:52

with Ukraine. And

33:54

we are now, as I understand

33:57

it, this is the amount that's attributable to Ukraine.

34:00

We are now $19 billion

34:02

behind in delivering

34:05

to Taiwan weapons and equipment

34:07

that they have already paid for. The other

34:10

argument is we let

34:13

Ukraine go and Xi Jinping says, oh, that's

34:16

how you stand up for the little guys. So

34:19

do you subscribe to the argument that

34:22

the defense of Taiwan runs through

34:24

Ukraine? I do.

34:27

Again, first let me say, well,

34:30

I guess let me try and unpack that a little bit. I'm

34:33

not unbiased when it comes to Bridge, Colby, because I

34:35

consider him a friend and I think his book, Strategies

34:38

of Denial, is one of the best books written in recent

34:40

years. And though we disagree about this issue, he's

34:43

right that China remains our foremost national

34:45

security threat and that we have to prioritize the Indo-Pacific

34:47

theater and we have to find a way to deal with all these crises.

34:50

More to the point, he wrote an article in

34:52

Time recently that I actually thought was a thoughtful

34:55

attempt to strike a middle ground between these two

34:57

positions. So sometimes I think he's unfairly

35:00

characterized as never Ukraine,

35:03

Taiwan only, which is actually not

35:06

his position. If you

35:08

accept the fact that the most important thing we can do to

35:10

help Taiwan is to turn it into a porcupine

35:13

and increase our hard power in the Indo-Pacific, I still

35:15

do think that the outcome of

35:17

the war in Ukraine has an effect on

35:19

deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. Or

35:21

certainly Xi Jinping is at a minimum paying

35:24

attention to whether or not we allow

35:26

Vladimir Putin to succeed in Ukraine.

35:29

And as I alluded to before, I think

35:32

that Russia and China have been waging

35:34

a cold war against us for quite some time and

35:36

we are just now waking up to that fact. And

35:39

if you disagree with all of that, if you talk

35:41

to any of our closest allies in the Indo-Pacific

35:44

or partners like Taiwan, they certainly

35:46

believe that the outcome in Ukraine matters

35:48

for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.

35:51

The Japanese believe that. Yeah,

35:54

the Japanese is a perfect example. Japan is

35:56

embarking on a historic defense build-up right

35:58

now, not just because of the war, but because of the war. because of the threat from China,

36:00

but what they're seeing in terms of Ukraine.

36:03

I think we don't have the luxury of making this an either

36:05

or choice. I actually think this represents

36:08

an opportunity to fix some of the problems

36:10

we talked about before. The fragility of

36:12

our munitions industrial base. If we were

36:14

to make a generational investment in

36:17

things that are relevant for both Ukraine and

36:19

Taiwan, we wouldn't have to make

36:21

this agonizing decision of, okay,

36:24

we only have one harpoon. Does it go to Taiwan or

36:26

Ukraine? I'm simplifying for dramatic effect. Congressman,

36:29

I'll tell you a much cheaper, much quicker solution

36:31

to the whole problem. It's the CHIPS Act. For $50

36:34

billion, we

36:37

subsidize Intel and maybe two or three

36:39

others to start producing all those

36:41

super sophisticated chips right here

36:44

in this country. And Vivek Ramaswamy,

36:47

when asked, I say Vivek Ramaswamy

36:49

as though he's an oracle, but he's certainly compelling

36:51

to a lot of, particularly young Republicans,

36:53

young kids. Vivek Ramaswamy,

36:56

when I don't have the quotation here, but he

36:58

would only commit to the defense of Taiwan

37:01

for five years. Because that's

37:03

about how long it'll take for us to build facilities,

37:06

to build these super sophisticated chips. And

37:08

once we do that,

37:11

then we don't need Taiwan. He didn't

37:13

put it quite that way, but he would only commit to defending

37:15

Taiwan for five years. So as

37:18

long as Congressman Mike Daller

37:20

says, listen, folks, we really need to decouple

37:23

our economy, at least in large measure,

37:26

at least from the Chinese military. Well,

37:29

actually, Joe Biden

37:31

is a step ahead of you. He's

37:33

spent $50 billion to build

37:36

our own super sophisticated chip industry.

37:38

And Congressman Gallagher responds, how? Well,

37:41

first, I should note, I told Vivek that I disagree

37:43

with this position because one, it reduces

37:45

our interest in Taiwan to just the fact

37:47

that Taiwan is a chip

37:50

superpower, which of course we have broader interest in

37:52

Taiwan. And two, you're basically saying to Xi, on

37:55

a date certain, just be patient for five years,

37:57

and then you can take Taiwan. have

38:00

the ability to hold the rest of the world economic hostage, even

38:02

if we meaningfully sort of weaned our self-offer

38:04

dependency on Taiwan for chip production,

38:07

which gets to the flaws, I think, in the ChIP SAC. Fifty-two

38:09

billion dollars is a lot of money, but

38:12

it's a drop in the bucket in terms of what TSMC spends.

38:14

TSMC is the semiconductor

38:17

company in Taiwan. In Taiwan, yes. There

38:20

are a lot of restrictions that the Biden

38:22

administration has placed on receiving

38:25

a CHIP's act grant, which I think are going

38:28

to increase the price and negate

38:30

our ability to have a CHIP fab

38:32

renaissance here domestically. So

38:34

to put a finer point on it, if we had

38:36

an extra fifty billion dollars, we

38:38

should have spent it on a CHIP's act,

38:41

not a CHIP's act, in order to actually build

38:43

a navy that can deter a

38:45

PLA invasion of Taiwan in the first place,

38:48

thus rendering the possibility of them disrupting

38:50

the CHIP global supply chain

38:53

move in the first place. And that would have been a wiser

38:56

investment of our resources. You

38:59

actually know this stuff. Well, or

39:02

you persuade me that you know it, which is

39:04

just for my purposes. I have good friends that

39:06

are actual smart China people,

39:08

and I just constantly am pestering them.

39:11

But what are the numbers? To build the defense that we need,

39:13

what are the numbers? The current federal

39:15

budget is up to 1.7 trillion. Is

39:17

that the number? Yes, that's right. Something like

39:20

that? Yeah. So what do we need?

39:22

Yeah. What do you need? An

39:24

extra hundred billion a year. Yes. And

39:27

let you spend it the way you want to spend it for the next

39:29

decade. That's a great question. Could

39:32

you do everything you wanted to do? What's the number?

39:35

Because it's not that expensive. By

39:38

the absurd terms of the size

39:40

of the federal budget, as

39:42

if for a great nation it's not that expensive

39:45

to build the military we need. Isn't that right?

39:47

Or am I dreaming? I've made the claim that for

39:50

ten to fifteen billion dollars, and

39:52

smart folks and I like Mark Montgomery have

39:54

made this claim too. You could fix the long

39:56

range precision fire munitions industrial base issue,

39:59

which is most bang for your buck. The Navy

40:01

would require more money over time, but more than anything

40:03

else the Navy or the companies

40:05

that build ships for the Navy just need

40:08

a consistent demand signal. That is, we're

40:10

going to get to X ships. In my

40:12

home state in Figantero, you're going to be producing

40:14

two frigates a year. We'll have a second yard that

40:17

gets us to four frigates a year. We're going to

40:19

get 2.5 Virginia class subs every year.

40:21

You can map out the plan, have that certainty,

40:23

and make that generational investment in

40:26

American shipbuilding. And then you can start to get

40:28

creative with things. In fact, the reason we

40:30

struggle, honestly, with the defense budget right

40:32

now is because the Defense Department reflects

40:35

the challenge we have in the rest of society,

40:37

which is that what's crowding out money for

40:39

hard power is money for entitlements, it's

40:41

retirements, and personnel

40:43

costs. You're really good on this. This is a good quotation.

40:46

The military crisis is the microcosm of the

40:48

broader societal crisis. We're

40:50

increasingly becoming a healthcare and

40:52

retirement organization that happens

40:55

to have guns. I said that.

40:58

Explain that. Well, somebody on your staff maybe.

41:00

Yeah, I write my own stuff. Of course

41:02

you do. Come on. Explain that.

41:05

Yeah. So I used to have the numbers at

41:08

hand. But if you compare,

41:10

if you compare, there's a

41:14

recent book that came out by Arnold Panaro, The

41:16

Average Drinking Fighting Force, which is great on this

41:18

subject. If you basically compare in inflation

41:21

adjusted terms, Reagan's defense

41:23

buildup, right, the heady days of the 600 ship

41:26

Navy, for which I give you all the credit, $5.95 or whatever, round of

41:28

the two,

41:55

it's going to be increasingly hard to spend

41:57

a defense dollar wide. Defense

42:01

dollars are increasingly not spent on procuring

42:03

actual weapons. They're going to fixed

42:06

costs largely for personnel that's

42:08

crowding out all our other investments. There's some

42:10

other areas where I think you could be pretty aggressive in terms

42:12

of reform, right? The

42:14

tooth-to-tail ratio, which is like the level roughly,

42:18

the amount of sort of bureaucrats we have in the Pentagon

42:20

versus people that are actually at the tip of the spear

42:22

has grown worse. The acquisition workforce

42:24

is about 175,000 people strong. That's

42:28

almost the size of the United States Marine Corps. The largest

42:30

military service branch is not

42:32

the Army, it's DOD civilians

42:35

at over 800,000 people.

42:39

That ratio has gotten work. And good luck trying to fire these

42:41

people. You'll get sued. It's almost impossible

42:44

for even the Secretary of Defense to fire people. So

42:46

that's a harder thing to fix. Oh, and

42:48

the Pentagon owns one of the largest property books in

42:51

the world. For the life of me, I don't understand why we can't force

42:54

the United States Navy to sell all the golf

42:56

courses and hotels that it owns and recycle

42:59

those assets and let's

43:01

plow that money, which may only be like $2 billion,

43:03

but $2 billion can buy you a lot of missiles

43:06

and maybe add

43:08

destroyer and have two frigates. Okay.

43:12

So one other question, although this is just occurring

43:14

to me. I'm forming it as

43:16

I speak, which means this will be a very

43:18

sloppy question. It

43:21

seems to me, I live in Silicon Valley. You're

43:23

quite right to make fun of California because

43:27

of the people who run the place. You cleaned it up in

43:29

preparation for Xi's. And Francisco cleaned

43:32

up because a big time communist was coming.

43:35

Not for the people who live there. But here's

43:37

what California does have.

43:40

Really smart kids. The tech

43:42

industry. And the tech industry

43:45

is in interesting regards becoming a

43:47

defense tech industry.

43:50

So Palantir, Andoril,

43:53

Epirus, there's

43:55

a new company called Mach, M-A-C-H. On

43:59

and on and on it goes.

44:04

Does it make sense, shrink

44:06

the Pentagon, just

44:09

have those 175,000 acquisition officers spend money

44:14

on these really bright kids? We can,

44:18

excuse me, I'll back it up. Here's the way it seems to me.

44:21

And you will know more. This is one place where you actually will

44:23

know more than I do. China is bigger

44:25

than we are. It'll always be bigger. China

44:28

is almost as rich as we are, taken as

44:30

a whole. Their economy is, depending on how you measure

44:33

it, some people think it has actually become bigger

44:35

than ours. A person in power barrier. Because if it's

44:37

a totalitarian state, it'll always be able to outspend us

44:39

on defense if it wants to. Our

44:42

only sustainable advantage

44:45

over a country much bigger and

44:48

as rich is

44:51

our ability to innovate. Yeah.

44:53

And so just somehow

44:55

it seems to me as though some big part of the solution

44:58

to this problem lies

45:01

in that five-sided building,

45:04

figuring out how to tap into the talent

45:06

that's bursting out everywhere in the country, not just in California.

45:09

Am I saying something sensible? I don't know how you translate

45:12

it into policy. No, I agree with what

45:14

I think is the premise of your question. I have two unoriginal

45:17

solutions for it. One

45:20

is ultimately- For an immodest guy, you're terribly

45:22

modest. There

45:24

was a great Churchill describing Clement

45:27

Attlee as a modest man with players

45:29

to be modest. Yes, exactly. Which

45:33

is as opposed to sort of doling out

45:36

what's called Sivers grants, Small Business

45:38

Innovation Research grants. These are relatively

45:41

small bets on these innovative companies that

45:43

don't ultimately allow them to become programs

45:45

of record and then transition into becoming the next

45:47

generation of new defense prime

45:50

companies. somehow needs to make a

45:52

smaller number of bigger

45:54

bets on promising

45:56

companies, which leads to the second thing I think where Congress

45:59

needs to come in. We need to allow the

46:01

Pentagon to fail, right? We need

46:03

to allow the Pentagon to make original

46:05

mistakes. And this gets to a cultural problem that's

46:07

harder to solve in an acquisition workforce.

46:10

If you're like a GS-15

46:12

or a Lieutenant Colonel or Colonel working

46:15

in the acquisition world, you

46:17

don't get promoted by taking risk

46:20

on an innovative company. You get promoted

46:22

on making sure you just reinforce

46:25

the status quo. So some way where we can encourage

46:27

the Pentagon, using the authorities we've

46:30

already given them, to make those bigger

46:32

bets and be okay if some of those bets

46:34

don't work out, to me is the path forward. I would

46:36

zoom out and say something at a sort of

46:39

national level that we need to do. And this will

46:41

get me in trouble, I think. One

46:43

of our advantages has to be the

46:46

way in which we attract talent, not only in the

46:48

defense industrial base, but

46:50

like globally, talent to the United States. To

46:53

me, the obvious path forward, and this

46:55

would be a massive win vis-a-vis

46:58

China, would be to fix

47:01

the unmitigated disaster that is

47:03

the southern border, but then modernize

47:06

our immigration system so we make it easier

47:08

for people that have critical skill

47:10

sets and critical technology to

47:12

come here. Maybe I'll put this in a more cartoonish

47:15

terms. In my alternative universe,

47:17

that will never exist. The next Republican president

47:20

would appoint a

47:22

Secretary of Homeland Security whose hardcore

47:25

on the southern border. Appoint Jocko

47:27

Willink, former Navy SEAL, and say you have 100

47:29

days to get 100% operational

47:31

control of the southern border. Come back with your shield

47:34

or on it, Jocko. But the

47:36

deputy is going to be a guy from your

47:38

world in Silicon Valley, like Paul Graham. And

47:40

Paul Graham's mission is going to be to go all around

47:43

the world on a recruiting mission. And

47:45

if you are particularly in an allied country like

47:47

Australia, the United Kingdom, or a critical

47:50

partner country like India, and you

47:52

have a skill set we need to modernize our

47:54

military, but also just to revitalize our innovative

47:57

scientific establishment, like we want you to be a part of the world.

49:42

I

50:00

started studying the Middle East and Arabic as an undergraduate,

50:02

and I really fell in love with the language and

50:04

the region, and the more I went down that sort of

50:06

intellectual rabbit hole, I started to think, okay, how

50:09

could I apply these skills? What does one do having

50:11

learned Arabic? In the military, I don't come from a

50:13

military family, but the military stood out as a

50:15

way to scratch the intellectual itch while

50:17

also serving my country, while also quite frankly

50:21

challenging myself to see if I had what

50:23

it took. I had always sort of taken

50:25

on academic challenges. I

50:28

wasn't the greatest athlete in the world growing up, but

50:30

I wanted something that would combine the academic challenge with

50:33

the physical challenge with the leadership

50:35

challenge, and the Marine Corps seemed like the hardest

50:37

crucible I could throw myself

50:39

into. And it was good to give you what you wanted? Absolutely.

50:42

It was besides marrying my wife, the best decision I've

50:44

ever made in my life, and it was phenomenal. And

50:47

honestly, on the private sector side, I think it opened up opportunities I

50:49

couldn't have conceived of. You mentioned

50:52

the fact that I wasted my GI

50:54

Bill in order to get these useless graduate

50:56

degrees, that would not have been

50:58

possible were it not for my service and the GI

51:00

Bill, and that was a huge

51:03

opportunity. So I kind of- You're

51:05

a young guy, you've already established

51:07

yourself as one of the bright lights here, or the former speaker

51:10

wouldn't have given you this committee to chair. So

51:12

that's a big deal by the standards of the House of

51:14

Representatives. That's the key phrase, the standards

51:16

of the House of Representatives. I'm being graded on a curve. So

51:19

how do you think about the next decade? I

51:22

would like to do, I've never thought of Congress

51:24

as a career, right? I'm a proponent

51:26

of term limits, I don't conceive of myself of staying

51:28

in politics for another decade.

51:31

I would ultimately like to have that balance between

51:33

a private sector career and extensive service.

51:36

I mean, my passion is national security. That's

51:38

always gonna be the case. I suspect if I'm

51:41

able to live until I'm 80, I'm

51:43

still gonna be tinkering on foreign

51:45

policy op-eds for the Wall Street Journal that

51:48

nobody besides you will read. So that's

51:50

always gonna be a big foundation of my life. I

51:52

will say now being married and having kids, being

51:54

away from my family is very difficult. And this

51:56

is a very difficult life. And

51:58

so people, I know it's easy to criticize. members

52:01

of Congress but your wife and the girls are back

52:03

in Wisconsin.

52:05

That's rough. Three in one. You don't

52:07

want to miss much of that. Indeed. Heroes.

52:11

John Paul II I think is one of your heroes. Both

52:13

John Paul II. Explain that.

52:16

When you taped a video, sitting member

52:18

of the United States Congress representing

52:20

Green Bay and Appleton tapes the

52:22

video and puts it up on YouTube with a few

52:25

words of advice to the current pontiff. Francis

52:27

may fear that he lacks the power to confront

52:29

the tyrants in Beijing but John Paul II knew better.

52:32

He saved Jewish people from Nazis, ministered

52:35

to the assassin who shot them and stood up

52:37

to godless communist tyranny. He repeated

52:39

those three earth-shaking words throughout

52:42

his homilies. Be not afraid. As

52:44

a Catholic, I pray that Pope

52:46

Francis may heed John Paul II's advice

52:49

in dealing with the Chinese Communist Party. Holy

52:51

Father, I implore you, be not afraid.

52:54

Mass has been awkward since I published that out and

52:57

did that video. I don't know

53:00

what that does for your time in purgatory, Congressman.

53:04

How does it come into your head to tape

53:07

a message to the Pope? I've been troubled

53:10

by the Catholic Church's

53:12

approach to China and Pope Francis in particular.

53:16

John Paul II's message in Poland was

53:18

be not afraid. I think he did

53:20

play a role as Peggy Noonan's

53:23

book on John Paul II, as the

53:25

more lengthy biography of John Paul II teases

53:28

out in the fall of the Soviet Union. Ultimately,

53:31

if you look at the contest between communism

53:34

and the free world, it is in some ways a spiritual

53:36

contest. Communism, to

53:39

paraphrase Whittaker Chambers'

53:41

book, is really a vision of

53:43

a world without God. It is

53:46

the idea articulated by the

53:48

serpent in the Garden of Eden that ye shall

53:50

be as gods. It's why Xi

53:52

Jinping can't tolerate the existence

53:55

of religion unless it's heavily

53:57

sinusized in China.

53:59

Francis has accepted this

54:02

deal whereby the Chinese Communist

54:04

Party gets to nominate but effectively

54:06

appoint Catholic bishops in

54:08

China which is not only a problem for the

54:10

Catholic Church but it's then allowed Xi Jinping to

54:12

apply pressure to other faiths in

54:15

China. Of course famously the

54:18

CCP wants to appoint the successor

54:20

to the Dalai Lama and there's

54:22

a cultural genocide underway in

54:25

Tibet as there's an actual genocide in

54:27

Xinjiang and I think interestingly

54:30

enough the CCP is rewriting the

54:32

Bible. The famous story in the Gospel of John

54:35

when Jesus defends the adulterous

54:37

woman when the Pharisees are trying to trap him and he has

54:39

the greatest comeback line of all time which is

54:42

he is without sin can cast the first stone and everybody

54:44

runs away. In the Chinese approved

54:46

the CCP approved translation of that story.

54:49

When it comes time for Jesus to

54:51

pick up the stone he says

54:54

to the woman I too am a sinner but if

54:56

the men were only executed

54:59

by those without if the law were only executed by

55:01

men without blemish the law would be dead and then he

55:03

stones the woman. So

55:05

for a Christian this is obviously

55:08

a radical on the nuance. A story of grace

55:10

and forgiveness

55:13

becomes a story about

55:15

a dissident challenging the power

55:18

of the state which is obviously

55:20

unacceptable for Xi Jinping and I think Pope Francis

55:22

has a massive opportunity to

55:25

help us with this spiritual battle and I can't help but

55:27

think the church would flourish if

55:29

he bravely stood

55:32

against the Chinese Communist Party but

55:34

instead he's instructed Catholics in China to

55:37

be good citizens which I read as a

55:40

you know don't rock the boat don't

55:43

challenge the the

55:46

party and we have a Catholic bishop

55:48

who's still in prison we have a practicing Catholic

55:50

Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong who's in prison and I

55:53

as far as I can tell the Pope has been entirely silent on those

55:55

cases which I think is a missed opportunity. There's

55:58

one question here that I hope you're really prepared.

55:59

for me. This

56:01

has been very hard. Three

56:04

and six. Does that sound like much of a season record

56:06

to you? Can

56:08

Jordan love six that or do

56:11

the Packers need to go

56:12

record? Okay,

56:17

I think this is actually like a very Catholic response

56:20

to your question. I've consoled

56:22

myself

56:23

with the following analysis. I

56:26

grew up in the, I mean, I was like my

56:28

formative years far was our quarterback. I got to

56:30

meet Brett Favre in the locker room because

56:33

my family had a pizza restaurant

56:35

and we delivered to the Packer locker room and

56:37

I got Brett Favre food. It

56:39

was like the, it was like as if this is now

56:41

I'm challenging the church. It was as if God himself

56:44

had come down and asked me to get him pizza.

56:46

And then we had Rogers, which

56:48

is two first ballot hall of famers.

56:51

We won a Super Bowl with both. My view

56:53

is that you're not allowed to complain if

56:56

you've had to first ballot hall of famers and

56:58

a Super Bowl in your lifetime for at least 15

57:01

years after the Super Bowl. So I have

57:03

a few more years where I'm not allowed to complain and

57:06

more to the point I convinced myself that

57:08

my daughters, it's healthy for them to

57:11

grow up in an era

57:13

when the Packers are terrible because it will

57:15

build character. And if they can demonstrate

57:17

that they stick with the team, even

57:20

when they have bad records and they will be true

57:22

Packers fans and they're both Packer owners. So

57:24

they have a vested interest in the team. Oh,

57:28

wow. Okay. Last question.

57:31

Diplomat George Kennan at the beginning

57:33

of the cold war. Milwaukee natives. Milwaukee

57:36

native. Spent many

57:39

years at Princeton. Two connections.

57:42

The decision, the decision between

57:44

the United States and the Soviet Union, the decision

57:47

will really fall in large measure in this

57:49

country itself. The

57:51

issue of Soviet-American relations is in essence

57:54

an overall attest of the overall worth

57:57

of the United States to avoid

57:59

the struck

57:59

the

58:01

United States need only measure up

58:03

to its own best traditions and

58:06

prove itself worthy of preservation as

58:08

a great nation."

58:11

We did.

58:12

We won that Cold War. Does

58:15

this country possess the moral resources

58:20

to win this new one? Yes. I

58:22

mean, I'm still long America. And

58:26

there's no question, if you were just betting right now,

58:28

you'd still bet on the United States. I mean,

58:31

our system of self-government is

58:33

superior to a totalitarian regime

58:35

where a group of nine people and increasingly one person

58:38

control everything. We are far more innovative

58:40

than the Chinese. We have major problems we

58:43

need to fix, but we have demonstrated a remarkable

58:46

capacity for self-renewal. And

58:48

to sort of paraphrase Kennan, the important

58:50

thing is as we compete to ensure that

58:52

we don't become like the state

58:55

we are competing with, to try and out China,

58:57

China in an effort to beat China. I

59:00

would also just point to even

59:03

on our worst day, even when it

59:05

is most dysfunctional here in Congress,

59:07

when we're deposing speakers of the House or

59:09

we have riots here in the Capitol,

59:12

people are still looking to

59:14

the United States of America for

59:17

leadership. When protests, thousands,

59:20

not millions of people in the streets of Hong Kong

59:22

protesting the CCP's absorption

59:24

of Hong Kong emerged,

59:27

a lot of those people were holding American flags

59:30

in their hand because they're looking to us for

59:32

leadership. Put differently, we

59:35

are the good guys. We're the

59:37

good guys. And part of our problem is we no

59:39

longer believe that. So with the right

59:41

leadership, with the spirit of service

59:44

where politicians in particular are willing to put

59:46

the interests of the country ahead of their narrow

59:49

parochial political careers, I

59:51

think our best days are still ahead of us.

59:59

the Hoover Institution and Fox

1:00:02

Nation. Thank you.