On Friday’s Morning Joe, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough defended the Biden administration’s liberal takeover of the US military by attacking the efforts of House Republicans to amend a military spending bill to remove so-called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, abortion funding, and funding for transgender treatments in the military.
Scarborough framed the effort as an attempt by Republicans to insert politics and culture wars into the military, and compromise America’s national security in the process. He sneered:
I'm telling ya, I was on the Armed Services Committee, appointed there four times, and, man, I can tell ya, Mark McKinnon, nothing drives military leaders, nothing drives the rank and file crazier than people fighting culture wars, basically, in these military funding battles and, you know, whether it's authorizing or appropriating. And all they're doing, and John Thune said it about Tommy Tuberville, all they're doing is, you know, they're hurting America's readiness. I mean, how hypocritical, you have Republicans always saying, ‘oh, our military is woke and weak,’ when we're stronger than ever, because Democrats are trying to politicize it and have culture wars. No, it's Republicans that are literally fighting culture wars instead of funding our troops.
His attempt to frame these amendments as Republicans somehow prioritizing ideology over military readiness were a complete reversal of reality. The fact was that the amendments were an attempt to keep politics out of the military - politics that the Democrats and Biden administration just saturated the military with.
An apolitical military wouldn’t use taxpayer funds to brainwash America’s troops into far-left DEI ideology or for hotly contested issues like abortion or transgender operations- neither of which made the military any more effective on the battlefield.
The left fully inserted its political ideology into the military and annihilated any sort of political neutrality they had when they forced these issues into the military. And if the U.S. military was stronger than ever, it wouldn’t be reportedly running low on artillery shells and need to send cluster bombs to Ukraine.
Scarborough’s guest, Mark McKinnon, commented how Republicans wouldn’t do something like this in the days of Ronald Reagan and John McCain, but conveniently left out that Democrats didn’t have the military pay for “gender affirming care” or travel expenses for abortion in the days of Reagan and McCain either.
Scarborough also argued that Republicans were somehow hurting military recruiting, that people were “not going to want to be a part of this lifestyle.” Meanwhile, without the GOP’s amendment, the Army failed to reach its recruiting goal in 2022 and was expected to fall short again in 2023. The other branches were also struggling to meet their recruiting goals as well.
Here Scarborough tried to turn the truth completely on its head, accusing Republicans of the exact same thing Democrats have been doing the entire time. He may not be an expert on the military, but Scarborough proved himself to be proficient in the art of deception.
Joe Scarborough’s disinformation was sponsored by Sleep Number and Liberty Mutual. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
07/14/23
6:22 AM ET(…)
WILLIE GEIST: The Republican-controlled House voted last night to include dozens of controversial amendments to the National Defense Authorization bill. Among the measures, limits to the DoD's diversity initiatives, bans on the military covering gender-affirming care, and the approval to roll to back a Pentagon policy that guarantees service members access to abortion. Far-right Republicans also tried to push proposals that would limit America's involvement in Ukraine, but those failed.
A full House vote is expected today. Democratic leaders have pledged to oppose the bill, writing in a statement, Republicans have, quote, ‘hijacked what always has been a bipartisan legislation’ to, quote, ‘jam their right-wing ideology down the throats of the American people.’ That's a quote from the House Democratic leadership. So Joe, once again here, you could add Senator Tommy Tuberville to the list, what he’s doing in the Senate, but House Republicans slowing down this -- you've been there many times, voting on this, something that happens every year -- getting the military the money it needs to do its job.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I'm telling ya, I was on the Armed Services Committee, appointed there four times, and, man, I can tell ya, Mark McKinnon, nothing drives military leaders, nothing drives the rank and file crazier than people fighting culture wars, basically, in these military funding battles and, you know, whether it's authorizing or appropriating.
And all they're doing, and John Thune said it about Tommy Tuberville, all they're doing is, you know, they're hurting America's readiness. I mean, how hypocritical, you have Republicans always saying, ‘oh, our military is woke and weak,’ when we're stronger than ever, because Democrats are trying to politicize it and have culture wars. No, it's Republicans that are literally fighting culture wars instead of funding our troops.
MARK MCKINNON: Yeah, Joe, I mean they're clawing their way to the bottom in two ways. First of all, on the issue of abortion. Which if you saw the Kansas referendum, which is a pretty conservative state, Republicans should have gotten the memo.
But clearly they haven’t. And at the same time, they're doing it while denying military leadership which is supposed to be the Republicans' stronghold on issues. I mean, we grew up with Ronald Reagan, and John McCain, and the notion that the Republicans would be holding up the leadership of the military is so contrary to the conventional history of the Republican Party.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. John Heilemann, it's crazy. It’s just absolutely crazy, again, how politicized this House has become, and especially on an issue like this, especially when you have readiness issues. You're actually not only just driving women away who would want to serve, you're also driving a lot of men whose spouses are not going to want to come with them, not going to want to be a part of this lifestyle. And it seems the Republicans are doing everything they can to hurt recruitment here.
(…)
