Senator Eric Schmitt was interviewed by Pete Hegseth about a recent Navy hearing on Capitol Hill. Watch:

Transcript

Pete Hegseth: The US Navy is missing its recruiting goal by 6,700 Sailors. Senate Republicans are now calling out the Navy Secretary for focusing less on recruiting and building ships and more on DEI and enforcing covid mandates and a climate agenda.

Videoclip from Hearing:

Sen. Schmitt to Navy Secretary: “Listen you have recruitment challenges, you refuse to you refuse to admit that DEI is a part of this. You’re firing qualified people who are well-trained and you sit here so smugly to act like
none of that has any impact on the readiness of our Navy.

Navy Secretary: Senator we re-contacted 3500 of the 4,800 people who were fired. You know how many actually decided to come back to the Navy? Two.

Sen. Schmitt: Shocker, shocker.

Hegseth: Missouri Senator Eric Schmidt joins us now. Senator you were clearly fired up for all the right reasons yet the Navy Secretary seems to think oh well that validates our decision that only two people wanted to come back.

Schmitt: Yeah I think he thought he had some gotcha stat there and that’s why I said ‘shocker’. It’s like no wonder, they were so disrespected by their own government.

The political class in Washington, like secretary Del Toro, they’re completely out of touch.

The military’s been this great meritocracy for a long time where people from anybody any background can have a ticker tape parade thrown from a New York as a war hero.

They have infused this divisive DEI ideology now. It’s dividing people by race, separating the room. I mean there’s a reason why the military you get a haircut and wear a uniform, it’s to build cohesion not this kind of division that’s again been driven by the by the left.

Hegseth: Absolutely, the military pushes this nonsense that our diversity is our strength when it’s our Unity inside the military as Americans that is our strength.

The Senate Armed Services Committee of which you’re a part has traditionally been a bipartisan, very gentlemanly committee. Is that changing a little bit because of the political nature in which these left-wing forces are are infiltrating and pushing into the military?

Schmitt: Yeah I mean look I’ve been very consistent, I think we have to speak out against this Pete. I think that we have to be. We can’t shy away from the issue because this divisive ideology, this sort of cultural Marxism that is what DEI is. It’s really dangerous and it causes division.

The Navy for example was 20% off of its recruiting goals last year. It’s 30 % off so far this year.

It is completely naive not to think that pushing this political agenda that the military has isn’t affecting recruiting. Of course it is.

And by the way they also fired thousands of well-qualified trained military men and women because they refuse to take the covid shot. I think that’s worth pointing out. But as you saw in that that clip there, there’s no apology, there’s no remorse. So I think it’s incumbent upon the Congress to hold these folks accountable

Hegseth: And our readiness suffers as you know well. The Navy is retiring more ships than it is building, shrinking the Navy as it as the Chinese Navy continues to grow. The obsession of the Navy: a green fleet, climate change. And they say it out loud don’t they?

Schmitt: Yeah, Admiral Nimitz would be rolling over in his grave to hear these folks talk about climate change being our biggest threat. No actually a nuclear holocaust might be or communist China on the rise with ambitions for world domination. That’s a much bigger threat. To get these folks to even admit that is an exercise.

But you’re right, China now has a bigger Navy than we have. Not a better Navy but a bigger Navy. We have four naval shipyards; they have 12. Each one of their 12 has greater capacity than all four of ours combined. So these are these are startling statistics. We’ve got to get serious about this if we’re going to win the 21st century.

Hegseth: You’re exactly right. Well Senator Eric Schmidt I appreciate you fighting on behalf of the warfighters bringing up the subjects that we’re all talking about in our home. Senator, thank you very much.

Schmitt: Thanks Pete.

Senator spars with NavySec over recruitment challenges, priorities