Retired Green Beret Colonel, Congressman Mike Walsh, and retired Navy SEAL turned congressman, Derek Van Oorden. Thanks, guys, for being here. First off on this huge, multimillion dollar investment in DEI. Derek is a congressman, I should say. Are we already paying the price for that?

Brian, we are. I want to put this into perspective for people over six years. The Biden administration wants to spend $280 million on DEI initiatives, which are something people should be... You do it already. You just treat people with respect and uniform and out of uniform. I never recall asking anybody what political party they're affiliated with or what their sexual proclivities were. We're in the military, we're there to fight. But if you look at the standing of the United States military across the globe right now, we're being mocked because the leadership in the Pentagon, and it's led by Joe Biden, has led us down a road where we have actually decreased our lethality, and that's made the world a more dangerous place.

Congressman, on top of that, the DEI approach to try to get recruits in, is it making it harder to keep people in? Is it hard to get people in? Does that have a lot to do with the numbers?

Look, you can have the most capable military in the world, but if our enemies don't believe it is lethal and focused on defeating them, and they don't believe you have a commanderand chief that's going to unleash them, then that's one of the reasons you see the world on fire. Derek and I served together in Afghanistan. We were on missions together. Never once were we counting how many Hispanics, African Americans, Jewish, Christian, race, religion, any of that in the black helicopter in the middle of the night. We were focused on mission. We were focused on putting bullets on foreheads of the bad guys and defending this great nation. That's where we have to get our military leadership. This isn't the soldiers. This is the political leaders in our Pentagon that are literally putting out goals like having a carbon neutral army, renaming bases, getting them on Chinese-made solar panels, rather than dealing with the recruiting crisis, the fact that our submarines don't work, or that many of our barracks are full of mold and feces. It's just misplaced priorities, period. It's coming from the top, and it is the progressive liberal ideology that has taken over Biden's political appointees, and it's promulgating all the way through the force.

I think we're going to have to change leadership for anything to change. Derek, I want to switch now, and if we can talk about building our military-industrial complex that everyone feared, we're not able to build these tanks quick enough, the submarines, the planes quick enough. We're not able to get it to our allies even when they want to pay us for it. How do we change this? How do we do what America does best? And let's build stuff again.

Well, you know what? You do what President Trump said years ago. You bring manufacturing back to the United States of America. That's what needs to happen. We do need to invest in this. The world is becoming a much more dangerous place, and if we can't defend ourselves and help our allies defend themselves, then we're just going to spiral down into a global conflation and have World War Three going on. So yes, am I a big government guy? Absolutely not. But do we need to invest in our military-industrial companies? Resident? Yes, we do, because as the good Colonel said, when people don't understand or take the threat of the United States military first and foremost, then they actually want to get engaged in combat. We have to understand that the goal of war is peace, and the best way to win a war is to never get involved in it to.

Begin with. I'm a little worried, Congressman Walts, that we don't see the merit in helping Ukraine beat Russia and get them the weapons that they need. How do we do that when most of the burden is on our shoulders and our allies are telling us more and more to do it on our own, how should we handle that request?

Well, Brian, first we need a strategy, and that has to come from the White House. What does success look like? What's the strategy to achieve it? Are we giving the Ukrainians exactly what they need to win? We don't need to be paying their teachers or first responders as humanitarian aid. We need to give them what they need to win. What's so frustrating is you're seeing Iran now providing missiles, drones, and all kinds of equipment to Russia to use in Ukraine. At the same time, you're seeing our European partners say the United States needs to dig deeper, ask your taxpayers to pay more. Yet the Biden administration isn't turning around right back to the Europeans and saying, Wait a minute, put pressure on Iran yourself because all of this is linked. The Chinese the Iranians, the Russians, it's all linked to our energy policy and it's all linked to our industrial policy. As long as Iran is full of cash, then they're going to be free to support terrorism and Russia. We're fighting against ourselves and it's just bad diplomacy and bad policy out of the White House.

Because the Europeans, Derek, are customers of Iran. And if we put pressure, if they don't want to write the checks for Ukraine, then get them to stop doing trade with Iran. Wouldn't that help? Right.

Yes, it would. Listen, Iran has attacked our soldiers, and their proxies have attacked our soldiers, what, 60 times in the last three weeks, and we blew up a warehouse in the middle of the desert? No. The mixed messaging out of the Biden administration is making the world a more dangerous place. Iran needs to know this. If you harm a single American citizen, you're a dead man walking. And if you're holding one of our people in Israel right now and you don't help us right now, you're going to get added to that list. Cut and dry, period, end of story. You mess with Americans, it's game over from today, tomorrow, into the future. But unfortunately, the Biden administration is incapable of projecting a single message of strength. Half the problem with public relations stuff and money going to Ukraine. They just fumbled their way through this. They don't explain it. You have to have a goal. In order to attain the goal, you need to get funds. If we don't know what the goal is, how do we know what level of fund you for? It's amateur hour in the White House.

Congressman, thanks to question. It seems all correctable. It is within our wherewithal to correct all of this. Do you agree?

Look, Brian, this is just bad policy. This isn't a tsunami that came from nowhere or some type of act of God. It's bad policy out of the White House. It's energy policy, their attack on American oil and gas that has kept Russia flush with cash, Iran flush with cash. By the way, as Derek said, Penprick attacks on proxies in the middle of the desert rather than raising costs and inflicting harm on Iran itself. At the end of the day, that has not deterred anyone. Our enemies are on the march because they smell weakness in this White House and they see bad policy and bad priorities being imposed on the greatest military the world has ever seen and one that should be feared by our allies and our adversaries, and right now is not respected worldwide.

Yeah, hold on tight, guys. It's going to be a rough year and then hopefully we'll be able to correct this thing. Thanks for fighting our wars and now fighting for us in Washington. Congressman Mike Wall, it's Derek Van Oorden. Congressman, thanks so much, guys.

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