JOSIAH LIPPINCOTT, MARINE VETERAN: When you hear him spouting MSNBC talking points that shows you the quality and the level of education and thought process that goes across all of the services. Laura, we have 906 admirals and generals in our Military, and it's increasingly a bloated group, and ideologically similar group as well.
These guys spent 20 years in Afghanistan, spent $2.4 trillion of American taxpayer money. We lost 2300 service members. And we left Bagram Air Force Base in the middle of the night. Americans should be angry, they should be demanding answers.
INGRAHAM: But sadly, the politicized wokification of our Military is becoming institutionalized. And you and I, every taxpaying American, we're funding this nonsense.
Now, last month at a house hearing, this Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley sounded more like a high-ranking BLM officer than an actual Military officer.
MARK MILLEY, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: I want to understand white rage, and I'm white, and I want to understand it. What is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?
INGRAHAM: Now, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, sensing the political landmines that all of this could trigger, he tried to claim that this was all just some big misunderstanding.
LLOYD AUSTIN, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: This is not something that the United States Military is embracing and pushing and causing people to subscribe to.
REP. MICHAEL WALTZ (R-FL): Can you agree at least that understanding whiteness and white rage presented to (inaudible) over 100 cadets, probably is something that we shouldn't be teaching our future leaders of the United States Army.
AUSTIN: As you have described it, it certainly sounds like that's something that should not not occur.
INGRAHAM: Well, should not occur? Well, you know what should occur? A complete top to bottom review in reform of our armed forces. The depressing truth is that we haven't won a war in decades. We couldn't defeat the Taliban. We didn't bring peace and stability to Iraq. The Military, of course, is filled though with courageous men and women who are basically being abysmally served by the leadership. So our romantic ideal of America's top Military leaders as selfless and heroic, lot of it comes from old movies and riveting history. But a lot of things have changed.
For instance, do we even really know how top commanders are chosen today? Don't you think we should? I think a cursory review of recent history would find that getting promoted through the ranks today has less to do with one's success on and off the battlefield than it does with how well one plays the current political game.
The Pentagon is under the spell of corporate America. And contrary to what Austin said in that hearing, it's gone totally woke. We need a Military led by men and women who stand above the political fray in focus on the mission of defending our national interests. Certainly, not leaders who are more focused on their post Military job prospects more than they are on improving our warfighting capabilities.
We're at a fork in the road for our top Military brass. We've seen what happens to the credibility of other institutions that forget what their original mission is. Just look at the eroding faith in the public health sector with all these idiotic stops and starts on COVID. A few years ago and most Americans would have listened closely to what the head of the CDC had to say about any given health threat. But now a lot of people are just tuning them out.
Fauci, by the way, has no one to blame but himself, ditto for the Capitol Police who testified on Wednesday. Despite the crowds they had known for weeks would show up at the Capitol on January 6, the Capitol Police couldn't hold the Capitol perimeter on that day. That itself is a scandal. And instead of examining why that happened, they turn to blaming President Trump, who they all obviously despise.
This officer who called Trump a hitman in his testimony is so unbiased, so professional, that last year he attacked me personally on Twitter. He deleted it. So brave. But we have it. Again, credibility of another institution gravely harmed. This is all terrible for America.
LIPPINCOTT: Instead of this January 6 Commission, I suggest we have a commission on the wars in the Middle East. Bring these guys before Congress and make them testify as to what they were doing. And this disconnect from reality has been there for a long time, and it needs to be held to account.
INGRAHAM: Well, we have planes that are billions over budget and still can't fly. And we have a Military with leaders like Patrick Donahoe, who probably spent more time last week thinking about how he was going to silence a vet on Twitter, than he was thinking about how maybe the Military would ultimately defeat China.
GENERAL JOHN HYTEN, VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: We played it in a war game in October of last year, and without overstating the issue, it failed miserably. An aggressive red team that had been studying the United States for the last 20 years just ran rings around us, and they knew exactly what we're going to do before we did it.
INGRAHAM: That doesn't send a chill up and down your spine, I don't know what will. Now, if we're going to spend more than 700 billions dollars a year on the Military, then we need a Military that can win a war and stay out of politics.
Taxpayers spend a lot on our national defense. And our recruits sign up because they love this country. Someone who plans to devote years of his or her life to serve the country deserves more than Vaccine bullying and diversity training. And that's THE ANGLE.
Back with me tonight is Josiah Lippincott, marine vet, and contributor to American Mind. Josiah, we had such a huge response to your appearance last night that we kind of had to cut short because of the nature of our breaks that I had to bring you back.
Some of the last bastions of traditionalism in our country, law enforcement, the Military, they're being transformed before our very eyes. What's the end goal here in your mind?
JOSIAH LIPPINCOTT, MARINE VETERAN: Absolutely. That's the perfect question, Laura. Just real quickly, just from the introduction, I am not a combat veteran, though I am a veteran. I served in the Marine Corps for four years. But my experience was with the peacetime Marine Corps that's emerged in the post really serious engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And you ask about what's the end state of what's happening right now, I think, for the Military today, it is to keep the money flowing, without having to confront the reality of the increasing obsolescence of many of our systems that are designed to win wars that America no longer is fighting. Now, insurgency is just a different type of conflict that our Military is not built to defeat.
INGRAHAM: When you heard that disturbingly frank assessment of our ability to respond militarily to China and you think we're spending time with generals, tweeting about how Hillsdale should come and get you, whatever that means, to silence you? Talking about critical race theory, whether we have it, or don't have it in the Military? China's got to be watching this. Are you kidding me? This is who we're up against?
LIPPINCOTT: Absolutely. So one of the difficulties that comes out of this is that our Military - a war with China, another nuclear power is not going to play out the way that our conventional Military is designed to address these kinds of conflicts. China is able to manipulate the United States in wage information warfare in a way that's way more effective than anything they can do conventionally. And I think at some level, our generals know this.
At the beginning of Obama's term, there were 100,000 Chinese students in American universities. By the end of his term, there were 300,000. That's really serious. If we're serious about confronting China, we need to address the industries that they've taken from us with the assistance of Wall Street, we need to address the fact that we're educating their elite.
Laura, every year 70,000 Americans die of opioid overdose. Those drugs, those fentanyl is made in China, and then it is shipped to Mexico and then smuggled across our border. If our Military is serious about addressing chemical warfare against the American people, then we need to concentrate on building a secure border, on defending our national sovereignty, and on restoring industry back to the United States. And that means Twitter spats with civilians and Veterans is not the way to go about accomplishing that mission.
INGRAHAM: This General Donahoe is a real piece of work. I mean, I got to say this is - it's embarrassing. It's completely embarrassing. Now, the head of the U.S. Central Command made an announcement over the weekend. Watch.
GENERAL KENNETH MCKENZIE, HEAD OF THE U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: The United States has increased air strikes in the support of Afghan forces over the last several days. And we're prepared to continue this heightened level of support in the coming weeks, if the Taliban continue their attacks.
INGRAHAM: Josiah, many are wondering whether the Military establishment is going to demand that Joe Biden reverse course on an Afghanistan withdrawal. Is that possibly what's going on here?
LIPPINCOTT: Absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of money involved in these wars, and that's flowing to line the pockets of these defense contractors. When Generals are done, where did they go? Straight to the boards of those firms. And so, again - and look, in - at the end of his term, the Military admitted publicly in the news that they had lied to President Trump about troop levels in Syria.
Our Generals absolutely would do the same thing to Joe Biden. And they probably already have. So what is needed is accountability. Congress has got to get involved, they need to start asking questions. What are these guys doing overseas? And are you telling the truth? Because that cannot be assumed.
INGRAHAM: Well, I think we're having all these committees on this or that issue, January 6, or it's - trying to impeach Trump for the second time. And yet, we've lost war after war, or at least haven't won war after war. And then we're supposed to be just continuing to write these massive checks.
LIPPINCOTT: Absolutely. It's absurd. I mean, Americans have paid a lot of money in taxpayer dollars, we've paid in blood. We need to have accountability on all these fronts. And I would say this to go back to General Donahoe, that's a guy who graduated from Harvard, or has a degree from, or won some kind of fellowship from there. And what I would say is, I am willing to challenge that guy to a debate on policy, on COVID policy, on foreign policy and on the Military budget. And I'll do it. If he wants to come get me, he can come to Hillsdale himself and come get me here.
And I'll extend that invitation to all of our Generals and Admirals. I will debate your budget in public with you any time, any place. I'll go to the War College, I'll go to Annapolis, I'll go to West Point. But it's just time, someone has got to hold these guys accountable. And if Congress isn't going to do it, then it needs to be everyday citizens on social media and in journalism, or in some of these publications, to just hold our leaders to account.
