Rep. Matt Gaetz on Wednesday questioned whether the U.S. military is facing a purposeful “recruiting collapse” because of the Biden administration’s embrace of left-wing wokeism in racial and sexual issues.
“America’s top military leaders have brought misery to almost every part of the globe they have touched,” the Fort Walton Beach Republican told Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, citing military flubs such as allowing Iran to operate in Iraq with attacks on U.S. troops, arming ISIS goons in Syria, and handing Afghanistan to the Taliban with deaths of U.S. troops and no reprisal.
“Now, you see them trying to bring the misery and the ruin home to our country through this embrace of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’” as well as drag queen “story hours” on military bases, he told Carlson.
Watch: VIDEO: Rep. Matt Gaetz Gets Commitment From Gen. Milley To End Military Base Drag Queen Story Hour
Carlson led the segment by recounting Gaetz’s questioning earlier on Wednesday of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley about DEI programs and drag events on military installations.
Gaetz told Carlson he wondered whether Pentagon leaders have “any sense of reality” when they deny the obvious proof, which he showed them, that DEI and drag shows are ongoing with Defense Department approval and funding.
“Is the pain the point?” he noted to Carlson of the Biden administration’s DEI programs and COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
“We are in a recruiting collapse … and they don’t realize that the people offended by their conduct aren’t going to take their stupid [employee] survey [about whether DEI and drag events are a problem],” said Gaetz.
In the news: Rep. Gaetz Finds Another Country To Bring American Troops Home From: Somalia
“A great share of the people who fight in our military come from the American South, and when you embrace these values that are so antithetical to the part of the country I represent, you are really putting a downward pressure on the people we need to volunteer and fight,” Gaetz said.
“You have to wonder if it’s incompetence or a purposeful purge.”
Gaetz added that “Gen. Milley maybe didn’t go to the drag queen show because he was too busy getting in touch with his ‘white rage,’ but he gets credit for saying he wants to shut [drag shows] down,” Gaetz added.
Gaetz was referring to comments Milley made in 2021, when he defended instructing senior troops on Critical Race Theory so they could better understand “white rage.”
“Even if he never passes a bill, it’s worth having him there for moments like this,” Carlson said of Gaetz after showing his encounter with both Austin and Milley.
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