PBS NewHour host Geoff Bennett, New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart came together on Friday to discuss multiple-defense related controversies from the past week and accuse Republicans of “screwing up” the military for the sake of their “culture wars.”
Bennett began the conversation by discussing the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act, “And the House narrowly approved its version last night, and it includes Republican provisions blocking abortion coverage, diversity initiatives at the Pentagon, transgender care. In years past, this was a bipartisan enterprise.”
That’s not true, but that didn’t stop Bennett from asking Brooks, “What do you make of this effort by Republicans to use this bill as a cudgel in the culture wars and to really virtue-signal to members of their base?”
At no point did it occur to any member of the trio that it was Democrats who were pushing culture wars on abortion, “diversity initiatives,” or “transgender care.”
As for Brooks, he claimed he was actually fine with the amendment process, labeling it “the democratic process,” but Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s effort to block high-level promotions in protest of the Pentagon’s legally dubious abortion travel plan was a different matter, “The terrible thing that's happening with Senator Tuberville is blocking promotions until he gets his abortion policy correct. And that just weakens the military. It's fine to have a debate. It's fine to have amendments. It's fine to have a policy process. It's not fine to weaken our military because of your philosophy.”
Instead of questioning why the Pentagon is violating, at the very least, the spirit of the Hyde Amendment, Brooks gave a history lesson:
Abraham Kuyper was at 19th century or 20th century Dutch prime minister, and he had a thing called the philosophy of the spheres, that we have different spheres of life. Politics is over here. The military is over here. The media is over here. You ruin a society if you don't respect the differences of the spheres. And the military does its own thing by its own logic, by its own standards and should not have outsiders screwing up the way it does its business for an ideological culture war issue.
Staying on Tuberville, Bennett turned to Capehart, “President Biden has called on Republicans to talk to Tuberville, Senator Tuberville, to get him to change his ways here. It doesn't seem like that's going to happen.”
Capehart replied by proclaiming Tuberville’s actions to be “shameful. It's reprehensible. It puts our national security at risk.”
Trying to come up with an example, Capehart added, “And, sure, the Marine Corps commandant in waiting can be acting, but this is the first time in, what, 150 years that there hasn't been a Senate-confirmed Commandant of the Marine Corps?”
The Senate could decide to vote for a new Commandant of the Marine Corps individually if wanted to, but it choses not to. Maybe someone should ask Chuck Schumer why.
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Here is a transcript for the July 14 show:
PBS NewsHour
7/14/2023
7:36 PM ET
GEOFF BENNETT: On the matter of defense and money, Congress, as we heard earlier in the program, is considering the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets policy for the Defense Department.
And the House narrowly approved its version last night, and it includes Republican provisions blocking abortion coverage, diversity initiatives at the Pentagon, transgender care. In years past, this was a bipartisan enterprise. What do you make of this effort by Republicans to use this bill as a cudgel in the culture wars and to really virtue-signal to members of their base?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I mean, there are two things going on here. One is the amendments, which I'm basically fine with.
Like, having the Pentagon pay for people to travel for abortion, that's a policy choice. The Pentagon made a policy choice. It's based on a set of philosophies. And some of the Republicans have a different philosophy, and so they can try to vote it down. And that's fine. That's — to me, that's the democratic process.
The terrible thing that's happening with Senator Tuberville is blocking promotions until he gets his abortion policy correct. And that just weakens the military. It's fine to have a debate. It's fine to have amendments. It's fine to have a policy process. It's not fine to weaken our military because of your philosophy.
And there's a — I'm doing a lot of history tonight. The ghost of Mark Shields is smiling upon me.
Abraham Kuyper was at 19th century or 20th century Dutch prime minister, and he had a thing called the philosophy of the spheres, that we have different spheres of life. Politics is over here. The military is over here. The media is over here. You ruin a society if you don't respect the differences of the spheres. And the military does its own thing by its own logic, by its own standards and should not have outsiders screwing up the way it does its business for an ideological culture war issue.
BENNETT: President Biden has called on Republicans to talk to Tuberville, Senator Tuberville, to get him to change his ways here. It doesn't seem like that's going to happen.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yeah. And the onus is on Senator Tuberville, because what he's doing is — it's shameful. It's reprehensible. It puts our national security at risk. And, sure, the Marine Corps commandant in waiting can be acting, but this is the first time in, what, 150 years that there hasn't been a Senate-confirmed Commandant of the Marine Corps?
And that's important, because for that person to be Senate-confirmed, it means that that person is beholden to the American people, accountable to the American people. And, you know, I don't know what it's going to take for Senator Tuberville to change his view.
I wish he could change his view on, you know, holding up these promotions in the same way he changed his view right quick on his definition of white nationalism and whether it's racism or not. But that's another conversation, isn't it, Geoff?
