Stay updated with breaking news from The dont ask. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Five other languages. she s been in the war zone a couple of times, back and forth. she s immensely capable. how will you replace that person? i can give you dozens of accounts of people were that kind of experience. people like me serving in the military, you can t replace a senior chief, you can t replace all that experience. you re talking about huge disruptions. the president, according to the white house press secretary, that it erodes military cohesion. that s an argument that s been made, frankly, for, you know, whether or not to have african-americans serving in the military, and whether to have openly gay people serving in the military, gay and lesbian people. does it affect unit cohesion? you brought up the exact points. this is the 1950s, going back to segregation, you re going to the don t ask,l era. ....
Unit cohesion. there s a great reluctance of courts to second guess that. that s why most of the don t ask, don t tell challenges failed. it was only when congress and the president, president obama, changed the policy that the policy changed. the courts were not nearly as helpful as they were on same-sex marriage. so i think lawsuits here, they will certainly be filed but likely to be long shots. this is a political and military issue, more than an issue for the courts. matt, is this more about politics more than military issues? i think look, there is an argument, we ve had this before with gays in the military about unit cohesion and whether or not we re focused on social engineering versus military readiness. but i don t think that s what this is. it s this was seemed to come out of nowhere, and the only rational is political. i think the most you listed a ....
Banning several thousand people from the armed forces, how that might affect readiness? well, we don t. and the word readiness is really a red herring to stall any debate. look, i want to make a couple points. i think there is an issue of the politics of the military. it s an issue of what the law says and what congress has the ability to do. and also the potential for lawsuits to block this on the back end. on the politics in the military, what i m most what strikes me the most is how this comes down completely the opposite way that the don t ask, don t tell repeal went down. so i covered the pentagon through the years when secretary gates was there. and he told us early on, he did not want obama to get the credit or blame for the don t ask, don t tell repeal. he didn t want it to be pinned on obama because any opponent could just say, ah-ha, it was his thing. so it took a couple years. and the gay community was not happy with it. but it took a couple years for gays in the penta ....
Forgot he was the guy who caught pneumonia because he rufeuds to have a coat, caught pneumonia and died. well, that was a pretty bad start. but if you look at donald trump in the first 100 days so clinton he got into the don t ask, don t tell. you have some other problems like that, so all presidents make mistakes. one of the paradox of the presidency is you have to make the most important decisions when you re least ready and haven t settled into the job. having said that, as he does in other ways, donald trump breaks all boundaries. and he s had a terrible week. terrible. and his credibility was badly damaged on this wiretapping ....
obama knew this shift was possible because he had made it himself. i believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. the most progressive president in a generation had drag his feet on gay marriage. advocates felt betrayed. many suspected obama s reluctance was a political decision, reflecting his sense of just how much change the country could digest. [chanting: what do we want, equality]. instead of pushing gay marriage, he steadily but quietly made smaller strides. first he signed a hate crime bill that protected gays. two years later he repealed the don t ask, don t tell policy allowing gays to serve openly in the military. never been more proud to wear my uniform and represent this country than today. it was not obama but joe ....