Sparks fly at House hearing as GOP’s Matt Gaetz attacks Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over ‘woke-ism’

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin clashed with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) during a House committee hearing.

The Florida Republican accused the defense secretary during an Armed Service Committee hearing of wasting taxpayer funds on lectures on socialism and diversity, and Austin became frustrated by his questions and frequent interruptions.

"Well, I certainly don't agree with embracing socialism," Austin said, before the lawmaker cut him off.

Committee chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) scolded Gaetz and asked him to let the secretary finish his answers.

"I got the answer I wanted," Gaetz said. "My follow-up question, if we don't embrace it, why did the National Defense University put out a statement saying in this talk he will argue that the right answer lies in ending Western arrogance and promoting a new egalitarian horizon on a global scale, a new form of ecological and post-colonial socialism. So why would we invite people we don't agree with to evangelize views and values that we don't share at the National Defense University when we should be learning strategy about how to combat our enemies and make assessments that are accurate?"

Austin explained that the military was constantly studying strategy and joint force development, but he wasn't sure of the context of this particular lecture, and Gaetz jumped in again.

"Mr. Secretary, I've shared with you the context," he said. "The context wasn't to better understand socialism so we can defeat it, the context wasn't learn about it so that we can offer countermeasures. The concept was that it's time for socialism, and the reason I know that's the context is because the lecture was pulled from a book written entitled Time for Socialism."

Austin tried to get clarity on what Gaetz was asking, and the lawmaker kept on talking.

"I control the time," Gaetz said. "You guys have been blowing a lot of calls lately on matters of strategy, Mr. Secretary. You guys told us that Russia couldn't lose, that the Taliban couldn't immediately win. I guess I'm wondering, what about the $773 billion that you're requesting today is going to help you make assessments that are accurate in the face of so many blown calls?"

The two continued arguing about military readiness, and Austin became exasperated.

"The fact that you're embarrassed by your country," Austin said, over Gaetz's denials. "That's what you're saying."

Gaetz then accused Austin of focusing too much on diversity training.

"Maybe we would be better at home if the National Defense University actually worked a little more on strategy and a little less on woke-ism," Gaetz said. "That was baked into your flawed assessment. I saw that the Obama administration tried to starve our military and it seems the Biden administration is trying to starve our military by force-feeding it woke-ism."

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