To protect the integrity of the dollar instead of the dual mandate that worries about employment and the value of the dollar. I want to unleash american energy. I want to pursue policies that will bring jobs back to the United States. We know how to do this. We did it before. Quite frankly, inflation is raging under the Biden Administration because of their policies. If i am president , i am going to move out to implement a plan that will bring real relief to American Families by lowering the cost of living. Reporter nikki haley in her speech place blame on republicans as well for inflation and the National Debt. Do you think the covid stimulus bills under the trumppence administration has any blame for the Current Situation with inflation and the National Debt . Mr. Pence president barack obama doubled the National Debt. The debt went up under our administration, for legitimate reasons. We had to deal with the worst pandemic in 100 years. I believe the resources we provided was essential. I think our administration could have done a better job controlling domestic spending. Most important of all, we could have engaged on the issue of common sense entitlement reform, which President Trump was never willing to do before and is still unwilling to do. 70 of our federal budget is Social Security and medicare. We have a National Debt the size of our nations economy today. Joe bidens policy is insolvency. He refused to talk about those programs. President trump has the exact same position. I think it is essential the next republican president be willing to engage the american people, be honest about the debt crisis and bring forward common sense reforms for americans under the age of 40. We are going to keep our promises for people over the age of 40. For younger americans, i think we can reform these programs and gives them a better deal. We will have details of the proposal coming out before. I think there is enough blame to go around when it comes to runaway spending in washington dc. During my time in congress, i thought it the big spenders i thought the big spenders. If i am president , we will provide for our nations needs, provide for the defense, we will turn back in the direction of the balance federal budget through fiscal discipline and reform. Thank you very much, everyone. Mr. Pence thank you. Lets go. Thank you. Best of luck. Mr. Pence all these great young people. Thanks for coming. Hand him your camera. Get in here. Thank you. Mr. Pence thank you for your service. Were you a marine . Army. Mr. Pence infantry. A real guy. Mr. Vice president. Army, combat. That is for not showing up. Cspans campaign 2024 coverage is your front row seat to the president ial election. Watch our coverage of the candidates on the campaign trail. To make up your own mind. Campaign 2024 on the cspan networks, cspan now or anytime online at cspan. Org. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. Today, a discussion with veterans of the female technical platoon of afghanistan. They are trained by the u. S. Military and participated in highprofile missions against the taliban. In 2021, 41 members of the platoon were evacuated to the United States. Hosted by the womens Foreign Policy group, watch live at 6 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan now and online at cspan. Org. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government, funded by these Television Companies and more, including comcast. Comcast is partnering with a thousand Community Centers so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. Comcast supports cspan as a publicervice, along with these other television providers, ving you a front row seat to democracy. Up next, discussion on civil rights, diversity and inclusion in the military. This Truman LibraryInstitute Event lasts about an hour. Okay, good morning. Thank you all for being here. Im going to keep it super short so that we can get to the conversation. Of so just a few things. One, i am thrilled to be part of this event and to recognize the courage of president truman to sign executive order 9981. An order, frankly, that is the only reason i can take this stage today as a retired navy guy. But even more importantly, its the personal growth, trumans personal growth over his lifetime. Ive worked in the world of political science, and were talking lots about hyperpartisanship and polarization and how people are dug in on their positions. Truman had the opportunity to do that, and he chose the more difficult, more american path of growing. And, yes, the work continues. This order was signed in 1948. If you tried to be, if you wanted to be an officer9 in the navy, very difficult even after the order was signed. When i went on my first deployment in 199, it was an all allmale ship, no women allowed. My second deployment women were only to be officers, and they refitted the ship to allow for female sailors to be onboard. That was 2001. My mother graduated from high school in 1970. 16 years after brown v. Board, she was of valedictorian of her segregated high school in blakely, georgia. So just because legislation, Supreme Court sessions, executive orders are signed and come down to the country does not mean changes happens overnight. It requires energy, effort, passion, and it requires the next generation to pick up the baton and not let the changes or the progress weve achieved fall to the side. As we say in the navy, not pick up the baton, but e got the watch. We have the watch for our democracy. We have the watch for the diversity that we bring, the strength that we bring to our nation and to the world. And so to have this conversation, ive god a few of my good friends here, and i want to make sure i introduce them in order. First, we have retire navy captain cynthia behalfly, then retired Army Lieutenant general Jason Dempsey and secretary of the department of Veterans Affairs, anthony woods, tony woods. Please. [applause]. [applause] all right. So were going to power through some questions here to sort of keep us on time. And the first question i want to ask is how each of these folks came to the work of inclusion, the military and thinking about the future of the country. And first i want to ask captain mackrey about her life growing up, her father, her grandfather and how their story contributed to how her military career ended up or went. Thank you, ted. So is i, my story is like everybody else, my journeys not linear. But one of the the things i wanted to make sure that i brought up was that before executive order 9981 there was executive order 9066 which resulted in the interment of 120,000 japaneseamericans, many of whom were actually u. S. Citizens by birth. And so in addition, among those e people that were actually arrested can and put in u. S. Prisoner of war camps was my grandfather who was in camp livingston, louisiana, for the duration most of the war and then was paroled in march of 1944 and reunited with his family at camp jerome, arkansas, which was one of the ten war relocation camps. My dad then the family then return ared after the war back to hawaii. Where my dad got a bachelors degree but was drafted in 951 for the korean war 1951. Before the mccarran act in 1952 restore his birthright citizenship. So, again, these are parts of the history that i think many people either dont realize or dont remember or were never taught. And so my dad went on to the university of minnesota where i was born to get a ph. D. In plant genetics and ended up serving humanity throughout the world for his entire career as a international agronomies. Im the middle of five kids, born in st. Paul, minnesota. Which always, you know, puzzles me when people can me where im from, you know, where i learned how to speak english [laughter] and more recently, why dont i go back where im from. [laughter] and so, but those are things that, you know, we, or you know, endure as part of what we call or what have been labeled as microaggressions that make us feel like we dont belong. So my, the experience since im the middle of five kids, of course, everybody was japaneseamerican, right . Everybody expected to go to college. I didnt even know you could have a job without a college degree. [laughter] and i, there was no money. So i joined the navy to go to med school. And, by the way, you know, when youre 3 years old and you tell your japaneseamerican father that youre going to be a doctor, guess what you wind up being . A doctor, right in. [laughter] so i had to i was not the smartest student, but with i had an interesting life because i had livinged overseas, worked in a lend proprocity hospital in pakistan. I mean, who else did that among applicants for medical school in 1979 . So i joined the navy in 1979, and like ted said, who knew that we couldnt be on ships, right . Who knew that we couldnt, we didnt is have the freedom to choose where we wanted to go. I wanted to be an or the periodic surgeon. I played College Soccer in 1975 on the mens team, and i wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. Those doors were not open in the military at the tame. At the time. I did not have the, you know, all of the choices that i wanted, but i leveraged the ones that i had and, ultimately, ended up we ended up publishing a paper about how Health Disparities, which was in 1990s, late 900s, Health Disparities actually the were killing people. Both systemic mismatch between providers and patients culturally, you know, race, identity, etc. , contributed to the lack to poorer outcomes among minority women for one of the most pref if lent worldwide cancers, cervical cancer. So we published that paper k and that launched me on my journey to improve diversity in Higher Education by any means that i could. And the navy was, was very receptive to that in the late 90s, early 2000s and, i ultimately, i built my portfolio around improving diversity in Higher Education. Yeah. Thank you. And, i mean, to all those who say learning the tough history of our country will dissuade people from serving . If no. No, it wont. People who love this country will serve the country no the matter the history and, again, this panel is proof of that. Jason has an interesting story about the man who now is the militaries play upstairs is now named after colin powell, so ill turn it over to jason for his journey from cadet all the way through to his retirement, talking about inclusion and the role of diversity. Thank you, ted. So i was a military brat as many of us are nowadays who join the army. And my formative experience in the military was defined by the early 90s. Thats when i decided to put on the uniform. And there were two things that define Race Relations in the military in the 90s or at least the perceptions of Race Relations in the 90s. The first was the first goal four, if you remember, seen as an exorcism of all the demons of vietnam. Not just our battlefield failures, but included the racial strife thatted had rocked the military through the late 60s and early 70s. The second thing was, well, we had general powell appointed as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. And if that was an indicator at least to a lot of people, okay, the seniorranked person in the military is a black general. Were done with race. I was fortunate prior to commissioning to go intern as a speech writer for general powell, and there are a couple things that really opened my eyes about those jenner perceptions about race in the general perceptions about race in the military at the time. The first was the letters. General powell received more letters than any chairman had previously and probably any chairman has since. And it was young kids, it was people getting ready to commission. Everybody wanted him to come and see them graduate from basic training. Hay wanted him at their commissioning. They wanted to ask him advice about joining the military, and it showed what a dearth of representation there had been up to that point. That hunger for seeing somebody like yourself as you make this leap into this really hard profession. The second thing i was tasked with was researching and drafting what became his dedication speech or speech at the dedication of Buffalo Soldiers monument. And i, you knowing trucked my way down to the pentagon library. It was the first time i really dug into the history of what had happened to africanamericans in the armed forces. And seeing the just outright brutality, the criminality, the discrimination they faced year after year after year, and more importantly it was done by gentlemen that we had otherwise been caught to venerate as heros. And the fact that we excluded that from how we taught history indicated that we had some real blind spots in how we were going to approach this issue. You know, and as i went and left and got in the army, e realized i realized, yoke okay, the goal was really, it wasnt about the end of race, it was, frankly, it was our Mission Accomplished moment on race. It was not realizing we still had a long, long way to go, you know . We certainly hadnt exorcised our inability to avoid catastrophic failure in a counterinsurgency war, but we also hadnt gotten past the challenges we were facing on racial and and ethnic integration. And fast forward, i was able several years later the army sent me to go teach at west point, and i was able to as part of my doctoral degree do a survey of the social and Political Attitudes of all ranks of the United States army. And i asked that classic question, do you think theres more or less discrimination in the military than in society in and conventional wisdom was with, of course, the militarys wonderful. But when i looked, 80 of army officer at the time, unfortunately still are in the senior ranks, are predominantly white males. And if you look at the way they answer that question, 88 said, of course, theres less discrimination in the military than in society. But when you broke it down by race, it was a different story. No matter what rank they were, enlisted, junior officers, even senior officers, if they were not white, their answer was maybe. Less than 50 said there was less crimination if mt. Militarn the military than in society across all those minority demographics, across all ranks. And and so if you think about what that means for the way conversations take place about race in the military, i would just say imagine, you know, two middleaged white guys alone in a Conference Room saying, hey, jim, are you racist . And how do you overcome those issues that prevent these conversations spurt its amazing to hear you talk about power. After obama was elected with the national postracial moment in the military had that mom a couple decades earlier with powell and realized as a nation in a postracial. Theres work to be done. Kori, she worked on the base read any commission so i would love for her to talk about that experience and the reminder that the past is always with us unless we take it on, take it out and do something about it. Spurt it was a privilege to enter Michelle Howards leadership and i think a lot of the reason quite sincerely a lot of the reason there hasnt been more pushback to exchange that the commission ushered in was the great and excellent leadership at all how it brought to the process that was inclusive, that was consulted to job that helped bring communities along. I have to tell you though it was genuinely shocking to realize that the department of defense has 10,000 properties named for people who voluntarily serve in the confederacy. We renamed or recommended the renaming of the ten big army bases and two capital ships, but 10,000 properties named for people serve in the confederacy. Id like to mention two things. First one of the most egregious properties for me was until this year at the United States military academy at west point there was a 20foot high portrait of robert e. Lee in his confederate uniform with a black slave holding his horse. That was given by the daughters of the confederacy in 1954, soon after black cadets started matriculating at west point that hung in the Cadet Library until this year. The second thing i want to say is just to briefly illustrate one of the soldiers for whom one of the bases was renamed, William Henry johnson, who fought in world war i. He was an american soldier. Because the American Army would not permit blacks to serve in combat because they did not want them to get the social acceptance of that service, his unit Harlem Health fighters, actually thought attached to a fridge unit he was the First American soldier awarded the and subsequently the medal of honor. And it is now renamed for him. A while back. [applause] i suspect this will be a political football of sorts. What we named them and sort of that vein, so the conversation is not over even with the amazing amazing work of the commission of work will need to be defended will require our support. Lets go to secretary woods. We go back a decade or so, so got to get used as a your friends become important. You have to follow the time. So tony returned serve in the army returned from iraq and gets an appointment to harvard and everything changes, id love for you to talk about your journey. Thank you very much and thank you for organizing this. I come to this work first and foremost the secondgrade set of air force veterans. S executive order 9881 really shape the Family Business so to speak in just a smidgen so many folks and served come from families who have examples of people serve as will. That animates our think about this work and how i think about my service. For me raised by a single mom who worked as a housekeeper, west point became an opportunity out, completely change the trajectory of my life getting a shot at the middle class. That was exceptionally important to me to get an opportunity to serve in exchange for education to. Unfortunately after my two deployments that after going to harvard my career was interrupted because i chose to be honest about who i was in my Sexual Orientation period this is at the time dont ask, dont tell was still very much the law of the land and resulted in immediate discharge from the military. I did work on advocating for repeal of dont ask, dont tell was so many others and obviously was very excited to see when that law went away. Its pretty rare in life people who advocate for something also did immediately get to enjoy the fruits of that labor. Just a couple years after that i was able to rejoin the military and where i still served in the Army Reserves today, i made a site to the pentagon on the joint staff that i bring to this work our lives think about lgbt q Service Members and the acceptance and inclusion they have as they serve to deeper and finally to your point i have the privilege of serving in the more administration in maryland as secretary of Veterans Affairs but we have about 360,000 veterans who live in maryland here its an exceptionally diverse veteran population. One of the things i have learned a fair amount about overtime whether serving on Advisory Board for the u. S. Department of Veterans Affairs is that the fact we have very different conception and image of what it means to be a better has actual real outcomes and impacts on the level at which veterans consume the benefits they have earned women, for example, are far less likely to take advantage of the benefits they have erred. If you are a woman you typically will take 40 will take advantage of one benefit they have erred. Thats leaving a tremendous amount of resources on the table because more often than not will be think of what a veteran and its a person who was a white straight male concert in the combat arms wrote on the front lines overseas. That perception has very real impacts right now a black veteran who applies or files a claim related to posttraumatic stress disorder far less likely to have the claims accepted that a white veterans thinking about disparities and how inclusion plays out in an exceptionally diverse that is my was mye something very important. Governor more, his governing philosophies is leave no one behind her i think about who are my most marginalized or unrepresented veterans who have to put first week we are thinking about the work we have to do. Spurt weve talked about i think all the stories connect the past to present service and present challenges to thinking about the next set of challenges what does this look like . What are the gen z kids think about what theyre going to do after high school or after college, is a military one of the options what the next set of exclusion challenges that will require the encourage that truly demonstrated that will be required of us . This is an open question but once the Frontier West this is not to suggest we have solved race and ethnicity or Sexual Orientation is in the military but we do from American History that the set of problems is not, has not been bounded, that it can grow. What are the next challenges . Id love to the future of inclusion in the military, what are the successes we can look forward to as well as the challenges . Sort of an open question to the group here. Ill take a shot at that. I think both present and continued future challenges is socializing the appreciation that inclusiveness is what makes for living armies. To your point that there is a stereotype of what people think of veteran is. Theres also a stereotype of what an effective combat unit is, and is not diversity in all its forms. But actually the scholarship i committed a terrific book you called divided armies. Its an exceptional work of scholarship that demonstrates historically were waiting armies are armies of which everybody feels like they belong and they contribute war waiting armies given the way that military service was being politicized, military promotions being held up for by senator tuberville for example, in order to score points on other issues, and with the military is being dragged into a lot of culture war issue, thats bad for inclusion. Thats bad for national security, and thats an ongoing argument that both within and external to the military we still need to do a lot of work on spurt can i just add to that . I completely agree with what you are saying. One of the things i think that we have to look at is in the past that will maybe put the future on trajectory is to not allow what were seeing now i think is reliving the past, putting, people get set on making sure that would actually be rolled back. Like senator tuberville and have to tell you i am a Soccer Player so soccer metaphor, like . You cant build a winning team if all you recruit is strikers, right . And also if you dont play everybody on the field, your playing short and thats the metaphor i just usually talked to my boss, the chair, the chief of naval operations. Thats the concept i think that people are more willing to look at but if youre excluding people that are on your team, your playing short. Our effort should be to make sure that we include everybody. Along the lines of turberville, hes a College Coach that the same thing that happened to title ix, right . Cited 1972. You didnt get it active intellect and 75. Why . Because all the Court Challenges that they made it about football and not about Higher Education. Equal Education Opportunities and that something we are still fighting for today is equal opportunity for the education system, for that network, for that edges and middleclass wealth. Those are things we still need to look for. By letting football culture basically dictate the trajectory of the military as i think, works against us. If i could add quickly. One other thing thats important to note, the military is that a competition for talent. It has missed its recruiting goals pretty significantly for the past, i cant member the last outdated hit across the board, and so i think one of the most important things to keep in mind is that with a young person today is thinking about serving in the military they are looking for an environment where they can bring their whole selves to work and be who they are. Of course the military is going to assimilate them into the culture it is but they still need to know theyre going into an environment where theyre going to be accepted and appreciated and respected. If you look at gen z today, those who do not identify as sisters or straight is a dramatically increasing number for the highest estimate i think is like 20 . Sis gender equity to ensure we got a military environment that is inclusive, and i think starts, receive a political football between administrations transgender servicemembers being able to serve openly and receive the full Healthcare Benefits they deserve and that theyve earned. When we think about how the military thinks about things like diversity Equity Inclusion programs which were zeroed out of the House Republican version of the National Defense authorization act we have to think about taking that seriously because you cant roll these things back and expect the military will be an environment that can recruit the best, yearoveryear. Theres a short and longterm challenge the shortterm challenge is even within the military as it becomes a partisan political football eight is how to create a tribe stronger than the pole of social media . We are not winning. The radicalization of veterans who go on to commit violent extremist access to happenings while their inservice. You look at folks who are going out and acting on their beliefs, they are much younger than previous generations of veterans who went enjoyed extremist groups is more likely to act as a military increase and becomes a bipartisan football, it will tear the military part. We have to figure out how to get back to teambuilding this with the manager used to isolate and put people in an environment where it was controlled, structured and you can worry about other things. The second or longterm i think we have to grapple with this the organizational structure and the culture at the United States military is still 50 years behind most of the United States is still built on industrial error model that assumes a single order family with a camp following wife for the most part. And edward worked 60 of women are now College Graduates compared to 40 of the that will become increasingly hard thing, smaller and smaller and smaller segment of the American Public thats going to serve in the public less unless, unless like their peers. Theres a real structural changes that the military is absolutely not comfortable with making that we had to force them to make to make sure they are still entered with american society. Spurk. [applause] spurk weve got about ten or 15 minutes left before we did move on so if you have questions please scribble down on a piece of paper and passing to the folks that will be Walking Around to collect the beer while thats happening i want to ask a final question for the group before we go to these questions. A couple thanks to what is in the recent affirmative action case, one of the carveouts for a race could be used was the Service Academies. This wasnt interested by the Supreme Court of the diversity is a strength may be a strength that our services should have but not the nation which is a separate conversation. But it does signal the importance of diversity is understood at the highest levels. The question i want us to wrap on the foregoing, which i would sign 9981 a lot of leadership in the military, civilian and uniform said the military is not a place for expectation bit the same thing when repeal of dont ask, dont tell that this is not a place we experiment with society and war fighting apparatus. And yet many of the nations advances the military has often been at the vanguard, either directly or because of the relationships created during service that people take back to their communities and their approach policy with a different level of compassion. I want to ask you this question about the role of the military as a social experiment, we thinking about the future of the country by modeling it through those who served or if thats not an appropriate role in the fact the military got the vanguard is bad for democracy, im just curious of her thoughts about the role of military and creating change and society. I was able to think about that because i could sit and talk forever about this. Just look at the Service Academies, the Service Academies are required or the congresspeople and senators to back nominations from each state. So its engineers to ensure that people from montana have representation at the Service Academies just the same as maryland which makes it, i always used to tell students the easiest way to get into the Naval Academy is to move to montana. But its absolutely true its so competitive in this area. However, you could fill all the Service Academies with students that graduated from the dmv public schools. In order to get representation picked so that is an experiment that is been going on and is been very successful throughout the history of the Service Academies. So thats one way that we can say and i think theres other ways that we can lead in the military. I would caution and pushback against the social experimentation, red flags its often thrown out by retired and current kurt gentles as a way of saying hey, i dont like this and, therefore, we should take it off the table i just want to remind everybody of what happened with the repeal of dont ask, dont tell. That was a serious and sizable cohort of retired and even active generals who were insistent that it would destroy the force, that the