The Charlie Kirk Show - The Decline (and Resiliency) of the American Military with Fmr Acting Def Sec Chris Miller

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:01.000 Is our homeland under attack?

00:00:03.000 Is it aliens?

00:00:03.000 Is it the Chinese?

00:00:04.000 Something's not right.

00:00:05.000 Or is it a false flag operation from our government?

00:00:07.000 We entertain all of these theories and more.

00:00:11.000 Support our program directly at charliekirk.com/slash support.

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00:00:18.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:21.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:24.000 Buckle up, everybody, here.

00:00:25.000 We go.

00:00:26.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:28.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:30.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:33.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:36.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:38.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:39.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:40.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:00:46.000 Turning point USA. 0.65

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00:01:11.000 Joining us to help explain, from the best of his knowledge and experience, what is going on with these unidentified flying objects and balloons and Ukraine is former acting Secretary of Defense and Green Beret Colonel Christopher C. Miller.

00:01:28.000 He is also the author of a new book, Soldier Secretary: Warnings from the Battlefield and the Pentagon about America's most dangerous enemies.

00:01:38.000 And Chris joins us now.

00:01:40.000 Welcome to the program.

00:01:41.000 Charlie, holy cow, I'm honored to be here.

00:01:44.000 It's good to be with a fellow Midwesterner.

00:01:46.000 You know, I'm from Iowa City, Iowa.

00:01:48.000 Dude, I'm in Denver right now because in my book, well, I'm not independently wealthy.

00:01:52.000 So in my book, I talk about how we need to transform the defense industry.

00:01:56.000 So I put my money where my mouth is and I'm out here.

00:01:59.000 I'm not going to do shameless promoting.

00:02:01.000 I'm not going to say the name, but it's this incredible tech startup that does counter-drone work.

00:02:05.000 I'm just sitting off the shop floor.

00:02:08.000 We got technologists out there.

00:02:09.000 We got people bending metal.

00:02:11.000 It's just the greatest thing in the world.

00:02:12.000 So my backdrop, it's all industrial, my friend.

00:02:16.000 So thanks for having me on.

00:02:18.000 Most importantly, hey, you're in the arena, and I really respect that.

00:02:22.000 Well, if you're from Iowa City, Iowa, then you know all about why college campuses need to be turned to love America.

00:02:30.000 So I know that town very well.

00:02:33.000 So, Chris, tell us about your book, and then I have a ton of questions to ask you.

00:02:37.000 But first, introduce our audience to your biography and also your book.

00:02:42.000 Yeah, left government on 1201 on the 20th of January 2021 with no work, no opportunity.

00:02:52.000 I enlisted in the Army in 1983 in Iowa City, Iowa.

00:02:56.000 I'd served until 2014 as a Green Beret, an Army Special Forces guy.

00:03:01.000 Then I worked at the Pentagon a bunch more and met President Trump.

00:03:06.000 I really got really focused on defeating Al-Qaeda.

00:03:10.000 And President Trump had the same idea.

00:03:13.000 And I worked with a guy named Kash Patel who was also with me on that journey.

00:03:18.000 And we just got really, really obsessed with killing off the rest of Al-Qaeda and defeating them and ending that war.

00:03:26.000 And when I left government, didn't have a lot of opportunities.

00:03:30.000 I was fortunately given the chance to write this book.

00:03:33.000 And what I wanted to do with the book was make it really accessible.

00:03:36.000 I didn't, you get these people like the DC people, and you know them, Charlie, that they write those big phone book-looking things where nobody reads them, you know.

00:03:44.000 They just name, you just name-check yourself, right?

00:03:46.000 You're like, hey, then I always name-check myself, and it's always some snide remark about, you know, this unqualified guy, which nothing could be further from the truth.

00:03:55.000 So I decided I needed to, well, I got the opportunity to put my thoughts down.

00:04:01.000 So I tell a lot of war stories from my time in the service in Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq, 2003, and then, you know, basically was part of that war for the remainder of the time.

00:04:13.000 And then talk about my time in working for President Trump.

00:04:18.000 Key takeaways on this thing is I wanted to make it accessible.

00:04:21.000 You know, 7% of our population are veterans, 93% aren't.

00:04:25.000 I want to try to close that gap between, you know, those that serve and those they serve because I saw a lot of confusion.

00:04:32.000 That's not a criticism.

00:04:33.000 It's a great problem to have, right, Charlie?

00:04:34.000 We're not an armed society anymore.

00:04:36.000 So that was kind of the idea and try to try to communicate in a way that was accessible and lighthearted in some ways, but serious in others and try to talk to each other and help bridge this gap between our society right now.

00:04:52.000 Well, I encourage everyone to check out the book.

00:04:54.000 And boy, there are a lot of questions about our military right now.

00:04:58.000 Not all of them are good.

00:04:59.000 It's Soldier Secretary by Christopher C. Miller.

00:05:02.000 Okay, so I want to ask you, let's just start with the urgent and pressing news.

00:05:06.000 I want you to tell me the rational explanation as to what are all of these unidentified flying objects coming into American airspace.

00:05:16.000 Is this normal in your experience as the head of the Department of Defense?

00:05:20.000 Is this something you saw?

00:05:23.000 No.

00:05:24.000 So, Charlie, thanks for bringing that up.

00:05:27.000 We found out, I guess it was a week ago, a week ago Sunday night, there were these claims that the Trump administration knew all about these Chinese spy balloons.

00:05:36.000 Do you recall that?

00:05:37.000 Yeah, I mean, I remember the story, but I certainly don't remember anyone telling me that.

00:05:42.000 I mean, look, this is the most preposterous thing.

00:05:44.000 The number one reason I knew this was a fake story was that if Donald J. Trump knew that there were Chinese spy balloons in the air, he would make sport out of shooting it down.

00:05:53.000 And by 7 a.m., he would call into Fox and Friends after tweeting about it, bragging about how quickly he was able to shoot it.

00:06:00.000 And then he would double the tariffs on China just for sport by lunch.

00:06:04.000 It's nice to be with the home team because that's exactly what would happen.

00:06:08.000 And so we had not, I didn't have a clue.

00:06:11.000 And I subsequently learned from other people I served with in the administration at high levels.

00:06:16.000 None of us had any idea that this was going on, which leads to the question of, well, who knew?

00:06:21.000 I think what we're going to find out, you just mark my words, Charlie.

00:06:24.000 If Congress finally starts to do their job and does some oversight on these things and asks the right questions, you know, the Department of Defense will do a study.

00:06:33.000 They'll do an investigation.

00:06:34.000 It'll last about what?

00:06:35.000 What do you think?

00:06:36.000 18 months, two years?

00:06:37.000 You know how?

00:06:38.000 Yes.

00:06:39.000 No, we should take, we should, we should have all our viewers.

00:06:43.000 Yeah, we should have a pool on this.

00:06:44.000 I say about 22 months.

00:06:47.000 It'll have to be tied with a slow news cycle.

00:06:50.000 And then it will be revealed that someone in the Department of Defense and in the intelligence community actually knew about these overflights for a long time.

00:06:58.000 But I suspect, I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect it'll be in the UFO files.

00:07:04.000 They call them something else now, anonymous.

00:07:07.000 I can't even pronounce the word.

00:07:09.000 But I think we'll find out that these things got bucketed in this kind of UFO file and wasn't brought to the attention of senior military officials or civilian officials that oversee the Department of Defense.

00:07:22.000 That's my bet that this has been going on for a long time, but it just didn't get reported out.

00:07:26.000 And that's, you know, I don't want to talk about Deep State and all that stuff, but that's kind of, you know, this is, I bet you this is going to be emblematic, right?

00:07:35.000 Yeah.

00:07:35.000 So then I suppose why now are we learning about it?

00:07:38.000 Is it just that some great citizen in Montana saw it?

00:07:41.000 That's what's strange to me.

00:07:43.000 Yeah, I think I've heard, I thought I heard a rumor that somebody was flying on a commercial aircraft and looked out the window and said, hey, there's a balloon out there.

00:07:54.000 Perhaps that's that does that does show the amazing beauty of flyover country.

00:08:00.000 Sorry, continue.

00:08:02.000 No, that's where we're from.

00:08:03.000 I know you're from Chicago.

00:08:04.000 I'm from Iowa City, which is also a fairly urban area in Iowa.

00:08:08.000 Well, 50,000 people, but yeah, that is flyover country.

00:08:12.000 But well, let's go there.

00:08:14.000 Common sense of the American people.

00:08:15.000 Yeah, seriously.

00:08:16.000 You know, it's like, so hey, why is there a balloon? 1.00

00:08:19.000 Shut up. 0.99

00:08:19.000 It's okay. 0.99

00:08:19.000 It's fine. 0.99

00:08:20.000 Just take the vaccine.

00:08:20.000 It's fine.

00:08:21.000 Just a side effect.

00:08:23.000 It's fine.

00:08:24.000 Right.

00:08:25.000 So, you know, I don't know the answer.

00:08:28.000 What I suspect we're going to find that this has been going on for a while.

00:08:32.000 I want to, you know, there's this, there's this adage in the military: don't question the guy on the ground.

00:08:38.000 Like, don't money money quarterback while they're in the fight.

00:08:41.000 But ultimately, you have to go back and do lessons learned, right?

00:08:44.000 And that's really what we have to do: how long has this been going on?

00:08:47.000 Why was it going on?

00:08:49.000 And clearly, now we've got our act together and we're not letting them violate our airspace.

00:08:53.000 But why did we let them fly all the way across the doggone continental United States before doing something last week?

00:09:01.000 So, you know, this is going to get this is going to get really, really interesting.

00:09:05.000 I think the administration just wants to go away, right?

00:09:08.000 Yeah.

00:09:08.000 They're like, oh man, can we just have the Super Bowl every night so we don't have to talk about stuff?

00:09:12.000 So just a minute remaining in the segment, though.

00:09:12.000 That's right.

00:09:12.000 Yeah.

00:09:14.000 But then now, this last weekend, the one over Lake Huron, they said it's an octagon.

00:09:19.000 I mean, with a with lateral propulsion abilities and it was hovering at 20,000 feet.

00:09:25.000 That doesn't sound like a balloon.

00:09:27.000 That's really going to be interesting because it's pretty advanced.

00:09:32.000 Everybody wants to laugh about it's just a balloon.

00:09:34.000 They have very sophisticated abilities to maneuver these things.

00:09:38.000 And as you know, satellites just go zipping across at whatever, you know, 200,000, what, 17,000 miles an hour, and these things just hover up there so they can really collect some intelligence.

00:09:48.000 I don't quite understand why China would keep on sending these unidentified flying objects one after the other.

00:09:55.000 It doesn't seem rational.

00:09:57.000 And I mean, I guess China is the only one to blame for it, but these are expensive pieces of equipment that after a couple, they would kind of believe that it's going to get shot down. 0.69

00:10:10.000 And so, what exactly do they think they're going to gain from this?

00:10:13.000 I something here doesn't make sense.

00:10:15.000 And maybe you can help clarify.

00:10:17.000 I need to hear somebody convince me of what is the self-interested angle of China to continually send expensive Chinese spy equipment that then gets shot down, which will only provoke more anti-China sentiment in the American homeland.

00:10:34.000 It doesn't make sense.

00:10:36.000 Can you just, from your expertise in geopolitics, why would China be doing this?

00:10:41.000 It does not make any sense.

00:10:44.000 This is expensive pieces of equipment.

00:10:46.000 Why would China be doing this?

00:10:48.000 Charlie, great question.

00:10:50.000 Here's, you know, these things aren't that expensive.

00:10:53.000 What do you think these balloons cost at tops?

00:10:56.000 Maybe 100K, maybe 200K.

00:10:58.000 What we're doing is we're sending up $100, $150 million jet aircraft, probably more than one, and we're shooting it down with a $400,000 missile.

00:11:06.000 And that's part of my book: the cost curves are all off.

00:11:10.000 You know, we got to get this right.

00:11:12.000 So they're sending something over for $200,000 high-end.

00:11:16.000 It's taken us $100 million plus to bring it down.

00:11:21.000 And we can't, Charlie, come on.

00:11:24.000 We spend a trillion dollars a year on defense and we don't have the capability to bring that thing down to a controlled descent.

00:11:30.000 There's some not unmanned drone that we can use.

00:11:33.000 That's the point of my book is that really bothers me that we should be in a better position.

00:11:37.000 But back to your question.

00:11:38.000 Sorry, you triggered me there.

00:11:40.000 I always get upset.

00:11:42.000 They're doing exactly, we're playing into their hands.

00:11:45.000 They're sending cheap stuff over and it's just costing us unbelievable amount of money to bring it down.

00:11:50.000 We should be able to do this relatively easily.

00:11:52.000 But back to your question, it doesn't take MacArthur, doesn't take Patton, doesn't take a military genius to know what they're doing.

00:11:58.000 They're probing our defenses.

00:12:00.000 You always do that.

00:12:01.000 We do it to everybody else.

00:12:02.000 They do it to us.

00:12:04.000 You want to find out where the weaknesses are.

00:12:06.000 I got a weird one for you.

00:12:07.000 Can I go there?

00:12:09.000 Remember how in the lead up to Ukraine last year, the administration presented all this pretty sensitive intelligence that they were gleaning about the Russians and what they were going to do.

00:12:23.000 Do you recall that?

00:12:24.000 I do.

00:12:25.000 And in the business, you know, those are sources of methods, and they decided that they would, you know, burn those sources of methods to try to deter this war, which it didn't work, as we all know.

00:12:38.000 I think the Chinese saw that and they're realizing, like, let's go ahead and push as much as we can at the U.S. right now to see how much they will reveal about their sensors and their intelligence networks to find.

00:12:52.000 I think they got the lesson from the Russians going, that's pretty easy. 1.00

00:12:55.000 It doesn't cost anything, or it's relatively inexpensive.

00:12:58.000 Let's go ahead and probe their defenses as much as we can and see what happens and see what we can what we can deduce about how they're doing their that that's my that's that's kind of my theory right now.

00:13:10.000 I think it'll be I agree with all that, but again, I'm just a layman here.

00:13:14.000 When you were head of DOD, are you familiar with any objects that could fly 20,000 feet that are in the shape of an octagon?

00:13:22.000 I don't know.

00:13:24.000 I don't, you know, balloons, I'm not an expert.

00:13:27.000 I don't know.

00:13:28.000 Yeah, the octagon thing was kind of weird, but probably, well, heck, I'm frequency hopping here.

00:13:34.000 That's a military term for just going all over the map.

00:13:37.000 You'll never have me on again.

00:13:37.000 I'm sorry.

00:13:39.000 If it's octagonal and it has flat panels, that's probably to keep radar reflections from, scatters radar reflections.

00:13:47.000 There you go.

00:13:48.000 That's my crazy piece.

00:13:49.000 No, I'm just, I'm just a layman here.

00:13:51.000 I'm not, I don't know military aviation well at all.

00:13:54.000 I just, you know, when I fly out of Sky Harbor in Phoenix, I don't see, you know, Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and then here's an octagon, like we're going to Vegas.

00:14:02.000 And I just doesn't, not something I see very often.

00:14:05.000 Okay, there's some breaking news I want to play for you here.

00:14:08.000 This is John Kirby talking about it's definitely not aliens.

00:14:12.000 Okay.

00:14:12.000 We could say whatever we want, but it is not the revenge of Neptune.

00:14:16.000 Play cut 25.

00:14:18.000 My understanding is that the top officials of the Pentagon, when asked explicitly if they were ruling out any kind of extraterrestrial presence, said they weren't ruling anything out.

00:14:28.000 And yet at the beginning of today's briefing, albeit with her usual winning smile, Ms. Jean-Pierre seemed to rule out any extraterrestrial activity.

00:14:37.000 I don't think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft.

00:14:42.000 Period.

00:14:42.000 I don't think there's any more that needs to be said there.

00:14:45.000 Chris, is this Independence Day?

00:14:48.000 John Kirby has the toughest job in the world right now, trying to tap dance between the raindrops that are just coming down like a deluge.

00:14:58.000 I don't know.

00:15:00.000 Why would we discount anything at this particular juncture?

00:15:05.000 I think it's terrestrial based.

00:15:08.000 But, you know, this comes back to the kind of issue about where do all these UFO reports end up.

00:15:16.000 And one of the big mistakes I made when I was acting Secretary of Defense, I didn't, somebody called me like, hey, did you get the UFO briefing?

00:15:23.000 And I literally was like, oh, man, I forgot to ask about that.

00:15:27.000 We were a little busy, right?

00:15:29.000 So, you know, at the time, but I think that's something, you know, Senator Cruz and others have been really adamant about trying to get to the bottom of a lot of these things.

00:15:37.000 And I think at the end of the day, there's still some unexplained stuff.

00:15:40.000 I think the vast majority are our secret weapons or other countries' secret weapons.

00:15:46.000 But in this case, I'm not thinking it's extraterrestrials.

00:15:49.000 What do you got?

00:15:49.000 What do you think?

00:15:50.000 No, I don't know.

00:15:51.000 I want to hear Charlie copy.

00:15:52.000 I'm just asking the question.

00:15:54.000 I'm asking the question because I don't understand why China would do this.

00:15:58.000 I'm not saying that it's extraterrestrials, but it's bizarre how the Biden administration is going around saying it's definitely not aliens.

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00:17:43.000 Chris Miller is with us, author of the book, Soldier Secretary.

00:17:48.000 I want to play another piece of tape here.

00:17:51.000 Seems to be a very warm relationship with China that we've developed.

00:17:55.000 Let's play cut 24.

00:17:57.000 At what point do you review a big review of the U.S. relationship with China?

00:18:02.000 And at what point does the president ask for a call from President Xi?

00:18:06.000 Again, I don't have a call to talk about today.

00:18:09.000 The president met with President Xi at Bali at the G20.

00:18:14.000 The whole purpose of that discussion was to move this relationship forward in a better way.

00:18:19.000 Most consequential bilateral relationship in the world.

00:18:21.000 The president knows that.

00:18:23.000 If he spins any harder, he's going to throw up and be nauseous, Chris.

00:18:28.000 Charlie, that dude, I told you, man, he's got a tough job.

00:18:32.000 Wow, that was, I'm getting kind of tired of it, to tell you the truth, but I know it's his job.

00:18:37.000 Like the fact, I don't know what, well, I'll just tell you what I think.

00:18:42.000 The Chinese can't figure out what's going on. 1.00

00:18:45.000 I had a great one.

00:18:46.000 They talk about the madman theory of international relations where, you know, people, President Trump was accused of this, and it's actually a valid means of international relations where you keep them off balance, right?

00:19:00.000 They don't know what you're going to do.

00:19:01.000 I'm now calling this kind of the clueless man international affairs strategy, which is not a valid thing because it's confusing.

00:19:10.000 The president says one thing.

00:19:11.000 His secretary of state says something else.

00:19:13.000 The secretary of defense says something else.

00:19:15.000 There's no coherence.

00:19:18.000 Hey, can we go there, Charlie?

00:19:19.000 Can we go there where this all started?

00:19:21.000 It started with the debacle leaving Afghanistan.

00:19:24.000 Correct.

00:19:24.000 Chinese.

00:19:25.000 I know you know that.

00:19:26.000 Sorry.

00:19:27.000 No, no, I'm encouraging you.

00:19:29.000 Please continue.

00:19:30.000 I'm just like, wow.

00:19:32.000 You know, that the Chinese saw that and we showed our bellies at that point.

00:19:36.000 That's not the men and women of our armed forces that conducted that evacuation were heroic beyond belief.

00:19:43.000 That's part of my book, right?

00:19:44.000 They always make chicken salad out of chicken.

00:19:47.000 You know what?

00:19:48.000 That's what they do because they're really great patriots and they care and they get it done.

00:19:53.000 But that thing was a debacle.

00:19:55.000 And the Chinese saw that and said, wow, this, we have an opportunity to advance our agenda.

00:20:02.000 And you know what they started doing?

00:20:04.000 They started flying fleets of planes against Taiwan and then they would like, they would loop off.

00:20:09.000 Oops, they would loop off right before they got into their airspace.

00:20:13.000 And then they started also sending in all those, they did a blockade.

00:20:17.000 So I think that's where it all started.

00:20:19.000 You can argue with me.

00:20:20.000 No, I don't argue.

00:20:21.000 I think we should have left Afghanistan. 1.00

00:20:23.000 But also, when someone says I need to have an appendix removed, you don't take out a pocket knife and start cutting yourself.

00:20:29.000 Like there's a process to be able to remove, you know, things that you no longer want to have.

00:20:34.000 It's just we did the worst possible way of withdrawal of Afghanistan.

00:20:38.000 Okay, I think this plays into another theme that I would love to explore with you.

00:20:43.000 And let me be very clear.

00:20:45.000 For my upbringing, I was the biggest cheerleader and advocate for the American military.

00:20:51.000 And so it really burdens me when I start to see now the American military become a college campus with missiles, where we now have the worst ideology imaginable of purging patriots, vaccine mandates, and all of this LGBTQ nonsense. 1.00

00:21:08.000 So I want to play a piece of tape here.

00:21:10.000 I think this is an Army recruiting video or something.

00:21:13.000 What exactly is this one?

00:21:15.000 I want to make sure Cut 22 is the Army ad.

00:21:20.000 Okay, this is an advertisement for the Army.

00:21:23.000 Now, remember, enrollment for the United States military is at Vietnam level levels.

00:21:29.000 It is that far down.

00:21:31.000 The morale is lower than ever before.

00:21:33.000 We missed our recruitment goal by 25%, 25% in the Army.

00:21:38.000 Play Cut 22.

00:21:40.000 Although I had a fairly typical childhood, took ballet, played violin, I also marched for equality.

00:21:48.000 I like to think I've been defending freedom from an early age.

00:21:54.000 When I was six years old, one of my moms had an accident that left her paralyzed.

00:21:59.000 Doctors said she might never walk again.

00:22:02.000 But she tapped into my family's pride to get back on her feet. 0.99

00:22:06.000 Eventually, standing at the altar to marry my other mom, I needed my own adventures, my own challenge.

00:22:15.000 And after meeting with an army recruiter, I found it.

00:22:19.000 A way to prove my inner strength and maybe shatter some stereotypes along the way.

00:22:25.000 Shattering stereotypes along the way.

00:22:27.000 And then you have this one, Mark Milley.

00:22:29.000 Then I'd love to get Chris to riff on this saying, look, I want to learn about white rage. 0.59

00:22:33.000 Play cut 23.

00:22:35.000 And it is important that we train and we understand.

00:22:39.000 And I want to understand white rage.

00:22:41.000 And I'm white and I want to understand it.

00:22:44.000 So what is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America?

00:22:52.000 What caused that?

00:22:53.000 I want to find that out.

00:22:55.000 Chris, how should we think about this?

00:22:58.000 Well, I got serious there.

00:22:59.000 I try to be lighthearted and try to be amusing and whatnot, but you really brought up an issue that has to be addressed.

00:23:09.000 And tell you, Charlie, I joined the Army in 1983.

00:23:14.000 I left in 2014.

00:23:16.000 I retired.

00:23:18.000 And in all those years, I never met a single person that joined the military to fight the culture wars.

00:23:27.000 They joined the Army or the services.

00:23:30.000 I dealt with them all because it's ultimate meritocracy.

00:23:35.000 There are issues involved in the military, but they take it very seriously to correct things that go wrong.

00:23:43.000 And people, and I went out to the field not too long ago because I thought maybe I was missing something that maybe things had changed because I'm an old guy now, right?

00:23:51.000 You know, my used to have orange hair, it's white now.

00:23:55.000 You know, and I went out there to listen.

00:23:58.000 I didn't talk.

00:23:59.000 I listened to make sure that I wasn't somehow, you know, missing the big picture.

00:24:05.000 And military is still the same.

00:24:08.000 Those people join, they don't want to fight the culture wars.

00:24:10.000 They want to prepare.

00:24:11.000 They want to be combat ready to fight real wars.

00:24:15.000 And our leadership, I think, and you brought up the clips and the ad, that's part of the point of my book is there has to be accountability, but our generals are kind of missing the boat.

00:24:28.000 And they just need to support those in uniform who don't want to be part of all this.

00:24:32.000 They just want to do their job.

00:24:35.000 They want to advance.

00:24:36.000 And we're getting, it's very troubling.

00:24:40.000 And let's be honest, it's being exploited by our opponents.

00:24:45.000 Is there any other explanation as to why enrollment in the military is down 25%?

00:24:53.000 I don't know.

00:24:54.000 There was a piece that came out, I think, in one of the papers, the major papers the other day, where the Army did a survey and they came up with something that there were people that, you know, it's economics or something.

00:25:09.000 I really think, though, when we dig into it, there's a problem.

00:25:14.000 There's a saying, we're seeing our senior leaders do this thing that is, do as I say, not as I do.

00:25:21.000 And, you know, the testimony you saw there and some of these advertising campaigns and these other initiatives, I think you're seeing like young people going, I just want to serve.

00:25:35.000 I want to work.

00:25:36.000 I want to do well.

00:25:37.000 And I don't want to be part of that.

00:25:39.000 And then when their leaders get involved in it, they start questioning why they're doing it.

00:25:45.000 And I also think you brought up vaccinations and other things, or we've talked that certainly come up.

00:25:51.000 There's a, I'm afraid that we're going to have a break in faith between our leadership and the young people that we really, really need to come in and serve.

00:25:58.000 And I know I'm talking too much.

00:26:02.000 That's part of my book is like, we, and I'm glad that you're doing what you're doing because there is nobility in public service.

00:26:12.000 I mean, there's an just, we need good people to go into it.

00:26:16.000 And when they, when they're getting confused about their leaders kind of going, blown, or what do they call it, you know, going with whatever way the wind blows, that's not what they want.

00:26:26.000 The, yeah, thank you for those kind words.

00:26:30.000 And I will say this, and I've said it before on this show, and it really is disheartening.

00:26:34.000 I don't think our military is ready to win a war right now.

00:26:37.000 I don't.

00:26:37.000 And you might disagree.

00:26:39.000 I don't see strength.

00:26:40.000 I don't see competency.

00:26:42.000 I don't see the ability to pull off sophisticated or difficult military operations, Afghanistan being one of them.

00:26:49.000 I think the raw potential there is extraordinary.

00:26:53.000 And at every corner and every turn, Chris, there has to be some social justice wrinkle added to it.

00:27:00.000 A great example is last yesterday at the Super Bowl.

00:27:04.000 So there I am sitting far away from the game, about 30 miles away, and I hear, you know, the fighters go abovehead, right?

00:27:12.000 And then it goes on TV and they had to.

00:27:14.000 They say, and this was the first ever all-female flyover. 1.00

00:27:17.000 Who cares?

00:27:18.000 Does that make us more likely to be able to kill the enemy?

00:27:21.000 I just, you know, I'll disagree a little bit because those people that are down in the trenches that are doing the day-to-day working are just amazing and they will absolutely get the job done.

00:27:32.000 I'm worried, though, that it's a slippery slide.

00:27:36.000 And I know that you're looking at it as a much more grand, broad picture.

00:27:41.000 And we need to do that.

00:27:42.000 And that's necessary.

00:27:44.000 But right now, I'm not worried about the utility and the capability of our people down in the trenches that are doing the work.

00:27:50.000 I'm worried about the leaders that are telling them to behave a certain way and not focus on conversation.

00:27:57.000 I hope you're right.

00:27:58.000 I hope you're right.

00:27:59.000 I really do.

00:28:00.000 And I don't see a military that is serious about winning wars.

00:28:05.000 They're very serious about gay public service announcements.

00:28:10.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

00:28:11.000 When Roe versus Wade fell as the law of the land last year, all it did was increase what pro-abortion states are doing to entice and mislead women to abort their children.

00:28:21.000 States are now advertising to travel just to get an abortion. 0.97

00:28:24.000 It's become abortion trafficking.

00:28:26.000 So the need to provide the truth as girls and women are contemplating what to do about their pregnancy is greater now than ever before.

00:28:33.000 Ultrasounds save babies because ultrasounds give the truth at a time everyone else is saying it's not just a baby, it's just a clump of cells.

00:28:41.000 When you introduce a girl to her baby by providing an ultrasound, you are giving her the truth at the most important time of her life.

00:28:48.000 And more than 85% of the time, she will choose life.

00:28:52.000 You don't have to make a lot of noise to make a big difference for life.

00:28:54.000 Just give an ultrasound at preborn.org to be a hero for life.

00:28:57.000 That is preborn.org.

00:28:59.000 $140 gives five mothers a free ultrasound and saves babies.

00:29:02.000 $200 can save 10 babies.

00:29:04.000 Go to preborn.org.

00:29:05.000 I love this organization.

00:29:06.000 I'm a donor to it.

00:29:07.000 Check it out: preborn.org.

00:29:13.000 Hi, my name is Johnny, and I use he, him pronouns.

00:29:15.000 Hi, and I'm Kanchi, and I use she, her pronouns.

00:29:18.000 And we're here to talk about pronouns.

00:29:21.000 What is a pronoun?

00:29:22.000 A pronoun is how we identify ourselves apart from our name, and it's also how people refer to us in conversations.

00:29:29.000 Using the right pronouns is a really simple way to affirm someone's identity.

00:29:33.000 It is a signal of acceptance and respect.

00:29:37.000 Yeah, so that is an official U.S. military public service announcement.

00:29:40.000 So, Chris, a lot of topics we could still get into.

00:29:43.000 I do want your thoughts on Ukraine.

00:29:45.000 More specifically, do you think the United States bombed the Nord Stream pipeline?

00:29:49.000 Oh, gosh, I don't think we're that good.

00:29:52.000 No, I can't do a high take on what you just showed.

00:29:56.000 Oh, of course you can.

00:29:57.000 Yes.

00:29:58.000 Oh, my gosh.

00:29:59.000 That was depressing.

00:30:01.000 That's why I get my, if you want to just know where I come from, that's not a military that's ready to storm a beach or to fight China.

00:30:09.000 That's official government-sanctioned propaganda there.

00:30:12.000 Yeah, but they're really good sergeants and non-commissioned officers that are responsible for anywhere from three to 12 Americans that are like, we don't use the pronoun we're going to use here is soldier, sailor, airman.

00:30:25.000 That gives me hope.

00:30:26.000 You're giving me hope.

00:30:28.000 That's why you're rebuilding my confidence because I want that.

00:30:32.000 Because when I see videos like that, I say, look, you guys should find something else on their line of work.

00:30:38.000 But, you know, fighting the Chinese or whatever enemy we have to go up against, I really don't care about pronouns. 0.89

00:30:44.000 Yeah, I was always raised where, you know, we had racial issues when I came into the military and the NCOs and the young leaders were like, we all wear green and we all bleed red.

00:30:55.000 So have a nice day.

00:30:56.000 You guys have to get along.

00:30:57.000 When you're out there in really tough situations, it's amazing how people come together.

00:31:03.000 It's the beauty of the military.

00:31:04.000 You know, I do a thing in my book about I have one of the, you know, you have to do your 10 policy recommendations at the end, which, Charlie, don't tell my publisher.

00:31:12.000 I was like, nobody, nobody's going to read that.

00:31:14.000 They're like, you have to put it in.

00:31:16.000 I was like, okay.

00:31:17.000 And I actually really got into it.

00:31:19.000 One of the things was universal service, right?

00:31:22.000 Back in the days, and it's just not military service.

00:31:24.000 Maybe it's something else.

00:31:26.000 You know, it's working the faith-based organization.

00:31:28.000 I don't care.

00:31:29.000 But work in green energy, go overseas, work in a national park.

00:31:34.000 But that's kind of one of the things I talk about.

00:31:36.000 And I do these informal surveys with younger people.

00:31:38.000 And I always get like, I get nine out of 10 say, yeah, I'd be interested in doing universal service, kind of bring, you know, back in the day where you see those World War II movies where the guy from New York City and the southern guy and then somebody from the Midwest, you know, I think that's something that would really help.

00:31:55.000 And you're focused so much on developing the youth and developing clear thinking and putting in the foundation for ethical and moral behavior.

00:32:05.000 So that's kind of, you know, and I always get one person that's a hardcore libertarian, and I totally get it.

00:32:11.000 They say, no, that's counter, that's against the constitution, not part of that.

00:32:15.000 I said, well, then let's have a waiver process.

00:32:17.000 There used to be conscientious objectors.

00:32:20.000 So I kind of, I kind of went off in a tangent there.

00:32:22.000 And we were supposed to talk about, we're supposed to talk about Ukraine, man.

00:32:25.000 I mean, the current mood I have towards the government is very sour.

00:32:29.000 However, the principle and the idea of a national mandated public service work or project, I think, is a great idea if it's done correctly.

00:32:38.000 Our government would screw it up because they'd end up having you do environmental work or some sort of LGBT thing. 1.00

00:32:45.000 But I mean, I see it.

00:32:46.000 I go to Israel and the young people there are responsible and they're mature and they love their country and they're fabulous.

00:32:54.000 Okay, so Chris, really quick, we only have a couple minutes remaining.

00:32:57.000 Tell us how we should think about Ukraine.

00:33:00.000 I know there's a schism within our conservative movement and I get that.

00:33:04.000 I'm kind of the Reagan era.

00:33:07.000 If there are people that are willing to fight and die for their freedom against tyranny and autocracy, let's go ahead and give them the tools they need.

00:33:14.000 Absolutely needs to be accountable in terms of what we provide.

00:33:19.000 In Afghanistan, Iraq, at the height of the war, Charlie, we spent $2 billion a week on training those and equipping those militaries.

00:33:28.000 Didn't work out so well.

00:33:30.000 And as soon as things got bad, they collapsed.

00:33:34.000 That's not going to happen with Ukraine. 0.87

00:33:35.000 And, you know, I think it's a model for Taiwan, too.

00:33:39.000 If they're willing to fight, if they're willing to die, if they're willing to have their infrastructure destroyed to stand up to tyranny, let's go ahead and give them the tools they need to do that.

00:33:47.000 Yeah, the question is: what happens when the regime you're supporting is also pretty evil and wrong, which I would consider Zelensky to be there. 0.97

00:33:54.000 But that's a different topic for a different time.

00:33:55.000 So, Chris, thank you for coming on.

00:33:57.000 Check out Soldier Secretary.

00:33:59.000 It's a terrific book.

00:34:01.000 And I want to thank you for your candor and your honesty and your service.

00:34:05.000 And I agree to something you said earlier: that public service is noble and it is virtuous.

00:34:09.000 And boy, I would love to see Donald Trump win another term and put you back as head of the DOD.

00:34:14.000 We'd be a safer country.

00:34:16.000 Our enemies would truly fear us and our homeland would not be messed with.

00:34:19.000 Chris, God bless you.

00:34:20.000 Thank you so much.

00:34:21.000 Carly, thanks for being in the arena and having me.

00:34:23.000 You bet.

00:34:24.000 Thank you.

00:34:25.000 Thank you so much for listening, everybody.

00:34:26.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:34:29.000 Thank you so much for listening and God bless.

00:34:33.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - February 14, 2023

The Decline (and Resiliency) of the American Military with Fmr Acting Def Sec Chris Miller

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