The Daily Signal - Former Defense Secretary Urges Pelosi to Visit Taiwan, Stand Up to China

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to visit Taiwan next month and Beijing is not happy, threatening "determined and forceful measures" if the trip happens. “[China] will have to take determined and forceful measures to firmly safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity” if the trip proceeds, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, according to the Financial Times.   Former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is among those cautioning Pelosi, D-Calif., against any decision to cancel or postpone the trip while warning what message it would send to China. "At this point, given the bluster and proclamations coming out from Beijing, I think if she doesn't take the trip it'll look like she stood down in the face of Chinese rhetoric and protestations," Esper says. Esper joins this episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss Pelosi’s planned trip to Taiwan, wokeness in the military, and the Army’s recruiting crisis. We also cover these stories: Democrats seek term limits for Supreme Court justices. A poll finds that Americans aren't on board with protests at Supreme Court justices' homes. A Florida state agency sues a Miami bar for staging drag queen shows for children. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Snap up Ancestry DNA's lowest price ever in our incredible cyber sale. With 50% off Ancestry DNA kits, it's the perfect time to help a loved one unwrap the past. And with their latest update, they'll discover their family origins like never before. With even more precise regions and new and exclusive features, their best gift, our lowest price. 50% off Ancestry DNA, only until December 2nd. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, July 28th. I'm Virginia Allen.

And I'm Samantha Rank. On today's show, I speak with Dr. Mark Esper, former defense secretary under President Donald Trump, about Speaker Nancy Pelosi's upcoming trip to Taiwan, wokeness in the military and the U.S. Army's recruiting crisis and more. But before we get to Samantha's conversation with Dr. Mark Esper, let's hit our top news stories of the day. Supreme Court justices serve lifetime appointments, but Democrats are successful.

seeking to change that. A group of House Democrats have introduced a bill that would limit the time a Supreme Court justice can serve to 18 years. Georgia Democrat Representative Hank Johnson is sponsoring the bill and says term limits are a necessary step towards restoring balance to this radical, unrestrained majority on the court. The bill would allow the president to nominate a new Supreme Court justice every two years to fill vacancies as the justices complete their 18-year term. The Constitution specifically states that justices are appointed for life. So the legality of the bill remains a little bit unclear. Republican lawmakers are demanding answers from the Centers for Disease Control for a link

on its website called Q Chat Space, which is a digital LGBTQ Plus Center where teens join live chat professionally facilitated online support groups, according to the CDC website. Representative Dan Bishop, along with other Republican congressmen, wrote a letter to CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Wollenski, which slams the National Public Health Agency for directing children to access online chat rooms that discuss sex, polyamorous relationships, white privilege, gender reassignment surgeries, and LGBT activism. The Q chat space allegedly enables children to hide the content from their parents and family members, the National Review reported.

A green bar located at the bottom of the page reads, clip slash tap here for a quick escape, which then leads the user to Google's homepage. There is also an option to join upcoming discussion groups about topics such as substance use, gender expression and fashion, queer platonic relationships, and being trans and queer at school. There's also a podcast called QPod that provides professionally facilitated live chat online support groups for LGBTQ plus teens, according to its YouTube page. Americans want the protests at the home. homes of the Supreme Court justices to stop. A new poll released by the Judicial Crisis Network found that 58% of respondents think that Attorney General Merrick Garland should take action and enforce

the law prohibiting protests outside the homes of the justices. Of course, this poll comes after months of pro-abortion protests outside the homes of the Supreme Court justices. It is illegal to use tactics of intimidation, such as protests, to try to persuade a sitting judge. or justices to rule a certain way. Judicial Crisis Network President Kerry Severino told the Daily Wire that Democrats who refuse to condemn protests, threats, and intimidation are endangering Supreme Court justices and their families, and it's long past time for their silence to be spotlighted. Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation served a complaint this week against a Miami Bar that hosts drag queen shows for children. The issue came to light earlier this month

after libs of TikTok tweeted a now viral video where a topless drag queen wearing a thong is holding hands with a young girl and parading around the R House bar. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke out about the video and drag queen shows on Wednesday. Well, first of all, there was a video out of Dallas where they had all these young kids putting money in the underwear of these drag queens at a bar. And that's totally unacceptable. And I said that at the time. Then what I was happened was a week or two later, there was video from a place that had similar stuff, and then that was identified as being in Florida. So we said, wait a minute, having kids involved in this is wrong. That is not consistent with our law and policy in the state of Florida,

and it is a disturbing trend in our society to try to sexualize these young people. The complaint also notes other so-called lewd shows on social media, in addition to another incident where a child was seen recoiling and turning away in her seat as a brunch performer climbed on the back of the child's bench, squatted and gyrated a couple of feet above the child's head, Breitbart reported. The bar is at risk of going out of business if it's found guilty of violating local codes and laws and has 21 days to respond to the complaint. That's all for headlines. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Dr. Mark Esper. At the Heritage Foundation, we believe voting is a sacred duty. It's how people express what course they want our nation to take. Given the importance of the

ballot box, it's necessary to have a transparent and fraud-free system that can be trusted. This is why Heritage created the Election Integrity Scorecard. The scorecard compares the laws and regulations for elections state-to-state and ranks them on their security and transparency. Check out the election integrity scorecard at heritage.org slash election scorecard. Joining the podcast today is Dr. Mark Esper. He was the Secretary of Defense under former President Donald Trump and is the author of A Sacred Oath. Dr. Esper, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks, Samantha. It's great to be with you and your audience. Yes, well, let's kick it off here. Now, you were just in Taiwan visiting.

And before we discuss your visit, I want to talk about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plans to visit Taiwan next month. She was supposed to go back in April, but she actually got COVID. Now, Beijing has warned against the trip, threatening determined and forceful measures to firmly safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity according to the financial times. What message would Speaker Pelosi and the U.S. be sending if the trip was canceled or even postponed to later this year? Well, I'd say first of all that if the speaker wants to travel to Taiwan, she should do so. It would not be unprecedented. She would not be the first speaker of the House to go. And in fact, lawmakers travel all the time to Taiwan. But more importantly, I would say,

we should not allow other governments, particularly the Chinese Communist Party, to dictate the, you know, the travel plans of our officials. I think that's just a core principle that we should not be that should not be violated. So if she wants to go, she should go. And at this point, you know, given the bluster and, and proclamations coming out from Beijing, I think if she doesn't take the trip, it'll, it'll look like she stood down in the face of Chinese rhetoric and protestations. Yes, and not only is Beijing urging against the visit, there has been some pushback from President Biden and the Pentagon who have said that the trip was not a good idea right now. On the contrary, you have Republican and Democratic leaders expressing

support for Speaker Pelosi. What are your thoughts on this divided front that we're seeing from the United States? And does it send a message of timidity and weakness to China? Well, from Beijing's perspective, it'll never be a good time for Speaker Pelosi to travel to Taiwan. So I think anybody throwing that argument is just fooling themselves. It's just that's not how Beijing behave. So again, I go back to core principles in these situations. I think if the speaker wants to go, she should go. If not, then, you know, Beijing is going to think it has some measure of control with regard to any time.

Somebody from the United States wants to travel to Taiwan, and we should not play into that. game. And frankly, in this situation today, when we have this, you know, growing standoff between the autocracies of Russia and China and the democracies led by the United States, Europe, and others in the strategic competition for control of the 21st century, we have to show resolve and principled behavior. And we should not be backing down simply because Beijing doesn't like the fact that she wants to travel. Now, I just want to shift a little bit to a domestic issue that has been raised as China's military becomes increasingly more aggressive. The recruiting crisis and wokeness in the military, the Associated Press reported recently that the United States Army is

falling short of its 2022 target and strength, about 10,000 soldiers short and has reached only 50% of its recruiting goals before the end of the fiscal year, which ends on September 30th. Now, also on wokeness in the military, Thomas Sporer, who is the director of the fiscal year, the Center for National Defense here at the Heritage Foundation wrote about what we're seeing with wokeness in the military, abandoning the gender-neutral combat fitness test, allowing unrestricted service for transgender individuals, and allowing HIV-positive individuals to serve in combat zones. Previously, they were barred from deployments and combat zones. As the former Secretary of Defense, what are your thoughts on both the recruiting crisis and

wokeness in the military? Well, it's a very good question. And of course, I face this issue as well as Army Secretary from 2017 to 2019. And I write about this in my memoir, a Sacred Oath that you talked about up front. So, you know, in the book, I talk about recruiting being, I think, a national, a really national crisis in some ways for the United States military. It's the Army has affected most, but all the services are having challenges. I believe that we need, you know, a whole-scale, whole-of-government effort, whole-of-country effort to really help recruit America's youth and do so the best we can, or else there's going to be this growing divide between the less than 1% of the American people who serve and the other 99% of which they defend.

And so it's a growing problem that's going to affect the all-volunteer force if we don't remedy it sooner rather later. You know, on the other issues, too, look, my focus as Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Army is war-fighting. that should be what we do. I tried to go about stripping out of our, you know, mandatory training and whatnot, all, all things unnecessary that did not stay focused on war fighting. You know, I was the one that reviewed, tested, and approved the Army Combat Fitness Test. That was a fundamental change in the fitness of our military and believed in gender neutrality. I have faith that the young women joining America's Army today can meet the standard. So all those things are important. Look, the key is to, again, inspire America's youth to serve, make sure they're focused on war fighting, and appeal to their sense of duty and patriotism to serve their country. And to me, those are the important things, particularly, again, as we enter these challenging period of time, we're going to see ourselves increasingly facing off against China and Russia and others. And as I mentioned at the top of the

interview, you recently were in Taiwan meeting with Taiwanese president, Tsaiang Wen, senior officials and business representatives. When you were there, did anyone talk about the U.S. response to Ukraine. And can you also share with us what was the number one concern you heard coming out of Taiwan? The issue of Russia's invasion of Ukraine came up several times. They are clearly taking lessons learned from Russia's invasion and more importantly Ukraine's, you know, inspirational response. And of course, we discussed that China is probably taking lessons as well. For me, the message that I conveyed to them was exactly along those same lines, that Ukraine's defense, its warfighting capabilities, its grit and determination have been inspiring. And I think if Vladimir Putin had known all those things beforehand, before he invaded on February 24th, he may not have done so.

He may have said, look, it's not worth it. I can't suffer the strategic failures of a more unified West, a more unified NATO, you know, NATO adding two more allies, et cetera. etc. So I told them, look, in that situation, what you need to do is increase your defense budget significantly. You need to adopt an asymmetric warfare approach, and you need to acquire the appropriate weapon systems to do that. You need to extend your conscription from four months to one year and toughen it. Number four, you need to revitalize your reserve mobilization. And number five, you need to start stockpiling, energy, food stops, weapons and ammunition, and you need to have a resilient infrastructure, such as telecommunications. If you do all those things, then when Xi Jinping wakes up every morning across the Taiwan

Strait in Beijing, hopefully he'll say, you know, today's not the day. The costs are too high. The Taiwanese are too tough and that they will be supported, importantly, by the West as well. So all those things are factoring in, and that was a big part of my message as I spent four days in Taipei. And as the war in Ukraine continues, so does the support from the United States and NATO allies who have been sending military equipment to the country. You know, the equipment is being flown to Eastern Europe and then transported by land into Ukraine, just logistically speaking with Taiwan being an island and obviously land

transportation not being an option, how would the United States realistically provide any military equipment or support if China were to invade? Well, look, that's a great question. And the flip side of that coin, too, as I said to them, you know, you. You need to prepare for this fight because there's no escaping from the island, you know, crossing the border to Poland or Romania or Moldova, right? So you've got to stay and fight this fight. And for us, logistic support will be difficult, us being, of course, not just the United States, but hopefully our Asian allies and our European allies. So that's why, you know, the fifth pillar, if you will, my recommendation said you need to start stockpiling the important things now, whether it's weapons and equipment or it's energy supply.

and food because you're going to have to hold out for a period of time until we can either, you know, break the blockade or that we can kind of find an open port to which we could deliver these types of supplies. And Dr. Esper, just one final question for you. President Biden is reportedly speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week. Do you have any advice for the commander-in-chief ahead of the call? Is there a specific message that you hope President Biden sends? We should always leave with our values. We should defend core principles such as, you know, the right of American lawmakers and officials to travel wherever they want. He should also reassert our support for Taiwan consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act.

And look, I think he should call the Chinese out for their bad behavior, for their constant intrusions, both aerial and maritime into Taiwan's air defense zones. is their threatening language, you know, their bad behavior toward Japan with regard to Sinkakakus go on and on. And just he needs to show resolve and commitment to defending, you know, international rules, laws and norms and this robust democracy in Taiwan from the aggressive Chinese Communist Party. Showing that type of resolve will send the right message back to Beijing. Well, Dr. Esper, thank you so much for joining me today. Again, we have Dr. Esper, the former Secretary of Defense under President Donald Trump.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Samantha. And that'll do it for today's show. Thank you for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. And if you have not done so already, please take a moment to subscribe to the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, IHeartRadio, wherever you like to listen. And please leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening. and we'll be back with you all tomorrow.

The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. The executive producers are Rob Blewey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Doug Blair. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, please visitdailySignal.com.