You can go to cnbc. Com she was talking about her to series, rising risk and clean start. Thank you for the conversation we appreciate it, talking to our viewers. We want to welcome our congressman, the democrat of california. Privilege and pleasure to host a group or by military veterans and families called we the veterans but it includes a coalition of different specific organizations that are fundamentally unified around the idea that veterans have a lot to contribute to our country and at a time where our country is in turmoil and maybe even in danger. They have a big part of potential solution to this problem not that we should be relying exclusively on the almost 20 Million People who have served this country and no longer are in uniform but that is remarkably capable dedicated of individuals. And probably for a group that can lead the way to help some of the rest of us make some inspiration as well as for ways to strengthen our democracy and serve our country even out of uniform. Im going to bring out the panel when they finish getting wired. Its an Incredible Group of folks. I will not spend a lengthy time on the introductions of each of them but weve got admiral steve abbott one of the most Accomplished Navy officers of the modern era who did a lot on Homeland Security towards the end of his government career emerald admiral thad allen ellen gustafson, was been involved in lot of Grassroots Efforts to get military families involved in various democracies, strengthening National Service and thirds. General Craig Mckinley who ran the National Guard bureau, a fourstar general who is our senior military leader on matters concerning the reserve and National Guard. Then our own Elaine Kamarck who has a tradition of military service and her family and her kids are in the military and she has worked on a broad array of issues in strengthening and reforming democracy, our government, very famous for working on al gores efforts when he was Vice President in this vein. But has continued to study the role of military and veterans in our society. So without further ado would you please join me in welcoming the panel to the stage. [applause] i know that was an unconventional start but i didnt want to keep cspan waiting or any of you. We are going to launch right in. The unifying scene here is what can military veterans and military families do to help strengthen our democracy . We are going to hear a range of ideas. Rather than try to summarize them all myself im going to let the panelists to work down the row and talk about how they define the problem or how they see this challenge and what they think can be done about it. Theyre not going to speak come pensively theyre going to begin with what one or two ideas of what they are most involved in and then we will have a bit of time for discussion here in a bit of time for discussion with you. I would like to begin with Elaine Kamarck because she has began a study on current political races, beginning with the general election season for this congressional round and also elections across the country at different levels. She has a lot of data that will be useful for helping us understand the role that military veterans are playing at the level of potential elected office. There will be just one of the many things we will hear about today. Done, studying people who run for congress, house and senate, in primaries. That gives us a very good idea of what the two parties are going to be like, what the factions within each party are about and what the factions within the house caucus, or the House Democratic caucus or republican caucus, Senate Caucuses are going to be talking about. And what the candidates themselves will be worried about or the members of congress who get elected about what they will be worried about, what kind of primary challenges they will try to avoid. That is this is a comprehensive study. Its not a sample. We looked at over 2000 candidates this year and in previous years. And we looked carefully veterans. Let me tell you a bit about what we have found. First, veterans constitute 17 of all the candidates running for office this year. That is a very large number because no other demographic subgroup was that big. This was about the same, a bit bigger, then in 2018 which was the last time we did this. It was 2018. Its a bit bigger. Of those, 72 were running in the republican primaries, 20 were running in democratic primaries, which is consistent with studies about what we know about this officer court in the military being slightly more republican than democratic. By and large, is candidates tend to reflect their political party. However there were a couple of things that stood out. First, we asked only two questions about international affairs, which, i sort of laugh at because when it comes to american elections, president ial and congress, a lot of what they do is foreign affairs. But almost nothing that they do on a campaign trail has to do with foreign affairs. Its not a voting issue for us. However, what was different is that the veterans really had long and mostly well thought out positions on foreign affairs. They talked quite intelligently and passionately about americas role in the world, what they saw, what they thought should happen etc. It was a stark difference from all the other candidates with the exception of some of the incumbents who obviously were doing this as part of their job and knew a lot about it. That was the biggest difference. Among the republican veterans, they were quite critical and quite carefully critical, not just slamming about the pull out of afghanistan last summer. And critical of biden and his leadership there. The democrats simply didnt mention it or defend it, they simply didnt mention it. Those were the two things were there was differences. , basically one of the things which we saw this year and we have seen in previous years is that both Political Parties back in 2021 when you had to recruit really soft out veterans. They wanted veterans to run. Was equally intense that was equally intense and political presence. They found that there was a reason for that. Veterans were more favorably perceived by the voters than nonveterans. It didnt matter the gender, female veterans were as well perceived as male veterans. And they definitely had an important leg up on other candidates. And then they had to in fact, perform well as a candidate. We did find a lot of districts where veterans were running against other veterans. So, that ended to happen and veterans with districts with a lot of military people so that was to be expected. That is the top of our findings. We dont have complete win losses numbers yet. There are still primaries to happen. It veterans are very important part of the pool of picked ash part of the pool of candidates pool of candidates. Let me move to closing to a tale of two veterans who have run for office. Both of these guys are featured in a 2016 book by the journalist, joe klein, called charlie mike a tale of two heros who brought their missions home. We focused on veterans who give back to the community. Since he is a political reporter for his career, theres a heavy overlay of politics in their. And you can see him thinking in between the lines the skies president ial material, this this guy is a president ial material. When he talked about the two veterans in the book who were prominently in the news in literally the last three months, one of these, is eric of a mystery and the other was from of missouri. He was featured prominently in the book, he had future president written all over him. He was a navy seal, bomb star and a purple heart winner. He founded that the Mission Continues which im sure many of you know about. He ran for governor in 2016 and one as governor of missouri. He ran as a republican even though he had been a democrat. And he was in office a little over a year when angst began to implode when things began to implode. There was an affair with his hairdresser. There was maybe or maybe not a series of pornographic pictures of her. There was maybe or maybe not some abuse. Anyway, things fall apart along the way he was charged with using his fundraising list for the Mission Continues, for his political work and that is a no no. You are not supposed to do that. Basically, things began to fall apart. By 2018, the Missouri Legislature was voting articles of impeachment against him, his party had refused to support him and he went to the woods for a while to think about things. He came back in 2022 to run in the missouri primary for senate, republican mary for Senate Primary for senate. Things started out great. He was in the number one spot. Things sort of fell apart. His estranged wife accused him of abuse. He ran an ad showing himself as some other guys, breaking into his house with semiautomatic weapons, going from doortodoor, looking for rhinos. Republicans in name only. The ad was widely panned. He went from firstplace to thirdplace be he got 20 of the vote. I dont think joe klein will be writing any more books about him , that have future president written all over them. Contrast this, westmore. He was in the army, an army officer also arose color, successful entrepreneur, he founded a company that produced military for people like Oprah Winfrey then he was head of the very prestigious Robin Hood Foundation this summer he ran for governor of maryland and a tight threeway primary one by about three points. And of course the city of maryland is a democratic state, we can anticipate he will probably be the next governor of maryland. If, of course, nothing implodes. That is the problem with running for office. Thats why im sure were going to talk about other ways to improve. Democracy then running for office. If you think your first battle was bad, running for office is your second battle and it is a bear. That is clearly had an advantage in politics, they go into it with clear advantages in the electorate. Veterans votes at a higher percentage than nonveterans. 74 for veterans, 66 for nonveterans. There is a clear advantage for veterans in elective office. Once they get in the fall prey to all of the four liberals that all the other candidates all of the things other candidates fall prey to. We gotta watch out for that. Having looked at hundreds veterans websites in the last congressional cycle i can tell you that the thoughtfulness is there, the integrity is there. And i suspect we will very soon have another veteran as president of the United States, may be a she not a he. Thank you, fantastic setting of the context and now admiral abbot, if i could turn to you, i met i mentioned your distinguished biography, we took up a lot of opinions and views and experience about what veterans can do to give back and i would love to hear your thoughts today. Thank you. I am grateful to be here. Grateful to brookings and to be here with this group of folks who i have known for a while. By the way, we are all believers that veterans have been doing a whole lot for this country for a long time. As elaine said, voting at higher rates and participating in volunteer positions, generally good citizens. Of course theyre not all perfect and we mentioned to some examples, i thought i would try to paint what i think is the picture broadly of the participation of veterans that includes retired people like the three of us here. How what theyve have done for this country and i believe they could do more, that is the bottom line. I think Everybody Knows a bit about the founders of the country and the fact that a lot of them served in militias and therefore worst were military people there was actually 31 president s who have had military service out of the 46 president s we have had, thats a pretty good number. Two thirds. A lot of veteran serving in other positions, cabinet officers, all of us know examples of prominent veterans who have served in legislative positions. Those in the Naval Academy were very proud, john mccain. They continue to do so as elaine says at a remarkably high rate. I think that is admirable but all of us are involved with organizations which are promoting the notion that veterans could do more. I hope my colleagues might get into a bit more detail about those organizations. I would like to just briefly mentioned that the political scientists see this issue of veteran participation as a element of a larger, broader issue of civilian military relations. Now, in the broadest application of relations it is talking about every intersection that the military has with the civilian community. Thats admiral allen down in new orleans, general mckinley and all of the places that the guard are in. Many people tend believe that it is a more narrow issue of just what is the relationship of the military leadership in washington to the civilian leadership and that is a very critical and important issue related and it has been in the news a lot, this week with an open letter from prior secretary of defense and the former chairman. We could possibly get into some of that but i would like to say that the participation of veterans in the country is not just tradition it is what we have encouraged veterans to do over the history of this country. And theyve performed wonderfully well. We mentioned that there are some exceptions and i certainly would include those where for ins tance, retired military people worked to promote the candidacy of an individual with the implication that that person was speaking for all of the active duty military, which is clearly not the case. And ash but nevertheless there has been a normas but nevertheless there has been an amount done, i we can get to the details. If you and elaine have had encouraged veterans to get involved in political life even as candidates, i agree with you. I happen to remember there were fairly ok president s like george washington, and Dwight Eisenhower did well. Its hard to imagine a blanket prohibition against political life retirees. Are there any thresholds or lines that people should not cross . I will be blunt and smart and start by mentioning the name. I think mike flynn crossed the line. He was speaking in an incendiary way. I dont like the choice of his candidate, but i will leave that aside. The way he spoke was to suggest a lawlessness towards the other sides candidate. It seems to me he was using his military reputation to incite some kind of militaristic response against the opposition. That is something to avoid. Elaine gave an example, dont be a criminal and dont abuse your wife. But are there any other general guidelines you would acknowledge that people should be careful about in period immediately after they take off the uniform or the rhetoric they use in their political activity . Any constraints that should be self imposed by veterans who want to be part of our political life . I would say this, relations and the theory regarding participation and behavior of a veterans and former military people should be one that is debated within Political Science fields and the academics, because indeed, there are no restrictions on what veterans may do. They are that his sins, they have the rights of citizens and they have they are citizens and they have the First Amendment to say what they want. There is an objection to individuals like general flynn and my friend and colleague general allen to do things that put the relationship between the leadership on the military side and the leadership on the civilian side at risk. That would occur if the public at large began to think that veterans and retirees like us were indeed speaking for the department of defense, speaking for the military services and that of speaking as a citizens who were involved and interested in what the civic duties they should perform should be. Yes, theres going to be some norms which are violated. Norms is a term that the political scientists like to use but what it means is normal. The normal activity should not include that crossing the line, as you say of implying that veterans and retired military people speak for the active duty. Thank you. Lets keep moving. Ellen i would like to go to you next, you have done Amazing Things even as you have a spouse in the military unit and a family to raise. A lot of energy and commitment. Tell us a bit about what you are up to and thank you for joining us. Thank you. One thing that is interesting about this conversation is the distinction for military Family Members like myself and veterans in wanting to serve democracy, serve the country, serve the constitution, as distinct from serving a political party, a political agenda or promoting a political agenda. Something that has been hard to be in this nuance spaces how military veterans and military Family Members can actually promote mock receipt, can help promote democracy, can help support institutions and norms of our country while not engaging as a candidate for party. We, as an organization, that i cofounded with my fellow cofounders who were all veterans, we looked at this opportunity, this group of 17 million veterans plus way more Family Members like myself as an Incredible Opportunity that has not specifically been engaged through other Service Organizations in the support of democracy. We know veterans volunteer in general a higher rate. We know they vote at a higher rate. What an Incredible Group of people to engage in activities that are not political, not for a party but really are supporting our country. The organization that i cofounded, we the veterans, with a military Family Members, is the second part of the organization, is looking to find ways to connect our community with opportunities to support institutions of norms and democracy at large were looking at issues like Civic Engagement, issues like countering violen