Senator Dan Sullivan questioned SECDEF Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about President Biden’s use of US Marines as a backdrop to Biden’s highly politicized controversial speech in Philadelphia.

The Senator–as did most Americans–found it “shameful, outrageous and infuriating” and we’ll add highly alarming, inappropriate and disgraceful for military members to be associated with a partisan speech like this that disparaged half of America.

Senator Sullivan said this shows a politicization of the military and asked both Austin and Milley if they would commit to not allowing this to happen again. He thought he would get a simple agreement from both as he said Republicans AND Democrats agreed it was improper to use Marines in this context.

The answers from both defense leaders is disappointing.

After that, Sen. Sullivan asks them why they are decreasing the budget for the military, especially for Navy ships. Watch video above.

Biden slammed for ‘rancid’ Philadelphia speech attacking Americans while flanked by US Marines (1 SEP 22)
President Biden used the pretext of an official presidential address to deliver an “angry and rancid” campaign-style speech indicting the 73 million people who voted for Donald Trump as enemies of American democracy, Washington Times columnist Charlie Hurt told Fox News on Thursday.

Biden declared – with U.S. Marines stationed behind him against a dark red-backlit Independence Hall – that American citizens who support Trump “do not respect the Constitution” and may support violence to achieve political ends.

Hurt said he had never seen a president take aim at about half the American people in what was billed as a presidential address, and therefore the official position of the executive branch of the United States government.

“I’ve never seen such an angry, rancid speech in which a president attacks the voters that he supposedly works for,” he said. . . . .

Iraq vet and former Democratic Party official criticizes Biden over presence of Marines in speech (2 SEP 22)
An Iraq War veteran and former Democratic Party official on Friday criticized the presence of US Marines in the backdrop of President Joe Biden’s speech in Philadelphia, during which he issued stinging political criticism of Republicans.

“We need to make sure that our military is as removed from politics as possible and it’s not right if a Democrat uses the military as a political pawn and it’s not right if the Republican Party does it as well. None of our politicians or elected leaders should do that,” Allison Jaslow, a former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on “New Day.” . . . .

Marines at Biden Speech Prompt Debate About Politicizing the Military (Washington Post, 3 SEP 22)
The White House’s decision to flank President Biden with U.S. Marines as he delivered a speech raising alarm about the authoritarian impulses of former president Donald Trump and his supporters has sparked debate about what is an appropriate use of the military. . . . .

No way Biden should’ve used Marines as props for his hyper-political speech (Jonathan Turley, New York Post, 3 SEP 22)
President Biden’s speech Thursday has been criticized for its attacks on his political opponents as threats to the nation. However, for some of us, the optics were equally glaring, with the prominently placed Marines framing the president. The use of the Marines and the Marine Band raised concerns given the address’s clearly political purpose. Indeed, the networks didn’t see it as an address to the nation and refused to give the White House primetime slots. . . . .