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A focus now on a new survey on Americans' views on military spending and international engagement.
Roger Zakheim is our guest.
He's the Washington director of the Ronald Reagan Foundation, Presidential Foundation, and Institute, a group whose mission is what?
To advance President Reagan's legacy, broadly speaking, in Washington, D.C., I have the honor of being the director of the Reagan Institute, as you mentioned, and here we work on taking Reagan ideas, principles, and values, and making sure that those engaged in public policy, be it in the Congress, the executive branch, thought leaders here in town, are really looking at Reagan ideas and principles as they advance U.S. public policy.
How long has the foundation been around?
How are you funded?
Well, the foundation, it's a 501c3 since they started the library back in 1991.
The Institute in D.C. has been around for about six or seven years.
We have our presence right next to A. Adams Hotel across the street from the White House on 16th Street.
And when and why did you decide to start surveying Americans about their views on international engagement and these defense issues that we're going to talk about?
Well, President Reagan had a strong legacy in terms of advancing American leadership in the world, and particularly on advancing peace through strength.
And we for some time have been engaging with America's thought leaders and elected officials on these issues.
We found that it really was a gap in the discussion in terms of where the views are of the American people.
Oftentimes you hear elected officials talk about the American believe X, the American people believe why, but it's not backed up by a lot of evidence.
And so what we sought to do with our survey is to make sure that when it comes to foreign policy, national security, and defense issues, there was actually an annual survey that was a pretty deep dive into the issue set and make sure that our elected officials and policymakers understood where the American people actually were on those very questions.
So how many people did you survey when were you in the field on this?
So we're in the field just after the election, so in early November.
About 2,500 people were reached out to by our polling services.
Some questions were just over 1,500, but overall it was 2,500 respondents.
And some top-line numbers from that survey, this year's survey that we're talking about, 50% overall, including 61% of Trump voters, prefer a, quote, engaged internationalist American leadership approach on the international stage.
79% strongly or somewhat support an increase in defense spending.
That's the highest level ever recorded on one of these surveys.
And 71% supported more defense spending in the Institute's summer 2023 polling.
And so what stuck out from you from those numbers?
Well, the first one you mentioned was really the one that got our attention.
As you mentioned, 57% of American people believe that America should be leading in the world.
And I think surprising to many of those who have looked at our survey, 61% of Trump voters.
There's a big, broad coalition that put President Trump back into office.
There's certainly a pocket of those voters, a slice of those voters, who actually would look to reduce America's role in the world.
But as the survey bears out, the majority of them actually are in line with a very Reagan-esque worldview, 61%.
That is up significantly, not just where we were, as you mentioned in our last survey, as we saw where Trump voters were, but there's some demographics here that really stand out.
In addition to the Trump voters, young voters want to see America leading the world.
Significant jump there, I'd say by about 30% since our last survey.
That 61% who want an engaged internationalist American leadership approach.
Is that at odds in your mind with a campaign slogan, a campaign platform that's America First?
Well, I think it's a question of how you have America First.
What is America First?
I think what this survey really bears out, both in terms of what American leadership is and then what President Trump often campaigned on, peace through strength, you can kind of stitch together how the American people are interpreting that.
So American leadership in the world needs to first and foremost be about America's national interests.
I think you will not hear the Trump kind of supporters, folks who are going into the Trump administration talking about America supporting the rules-based international order.
That's not part of their lexicon.
What they want to see in the world is that America is leading.
America's interests are being advanced.
And that I think is what 61% of those Trump voters were probably getting behind.
There's a recognition that for American interests, the American security, American prosperity to be preserved, it can't be done simply by Fortress America.
That to preserve those equities really requires America to lead in the world.
And I think that's the contribution of the survey, certainly on this question.
We're going to dive more into this survey.
Roger Zach Heim is our guest of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.
Go ahead and start calling in.
Phone numbers are split this way.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
Independents 202-748-8002.
And then a special line for active and retired military, 202748-8003.
Especially want to hear from you, especially in topics related to the second part of the survey.
Confidence in the U.S. military was one of the subjects that was polled on.
51% of respondents have a great deal of confidence in the military, with another 31% stating that they have at least some confidence.
That's up, as you've pointed out in the results, from a historic low of 45% who had a great deal, high confidence in the military after the withdrawal from Afghanistan late 2021.
Yeah, this is actually one of the more important discoveries we've had since we've done our survey.
We've had it as far back as 2018.
And when we started the survey in 2018, 70% of those surveyed had trust and confidence in the military.
And we divide that up between somewhat or a great deal, but total count was 70%.
And we saw this precipitous decline.
And as you noted, that decline really bottomed out in 2021.
This year's survey, the one that we're talking about that was carried out in November of this year, we saw that number going up a bit to just north of 50%.
Now, institutions as a whole have taken ahead.
We've seen that in our survey over the years.
But I think it's a positive indication that the American people, certainly as expressed to the respondents in this survey, have now increased their confidence in the U.S. military.
So what do you do with these numbers, confidence in the military, U.S. role in the world?
You take these to members of Congress, policymakers, and you say what?
Well, first we make them aware.
And we make sure that those who have a point of view, and they're doing it in the name of the American people, actually they're informed as to how their point of view aligns with our survey.
We just came out of our Reagan National Defense Forum, which takes place every year in the first weekend, December out in Simi Valley, California, where the Reagan Library resides.
There we have the Secretary of Defense, the leaders of Congress who focus on national security, the Armed Services Committees, the Appropriations Committees, industry leaders, they all gather about 700 people annually at the Reagan National Defense Forum, and the survey is a big part of that conversation.
It drives the discussion because, again, we want to make sure that those who are advocating for an increased U.S. role in the world, who are pushing for U.S. presence in some of those critical regions, such as the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, they understand where the American people stand with those issue sets and it gives a richer conversation.
And importantly, this is where the legacy of President Reagan comes in.
He was always quite focused on the views of the American people, the voice of the American people penetrating the Beltway into the halls of public policy in D.C.
And we see ourselves doing that through this survey.
So this confidence in U.S. military, do you see it as a measure of that Americans, 51% of Americans have a great deal of confidence that the U.S. can fight and win the wars of the future?
Or is it 51% have a great deal of confidence in the decision makers leading us in fights that we can win?
Well, it's a great question, and it's hard to parse the survey.
We've used other questions subsequent to the confidence question to try to get at that.
I think generally it's about the focus in terms of the leadership.
We have other questions to talk about, the U.S. military's confidence in the U.S. military's ability to prevail in armed conflict, one of which, importantly, is a view of the American people in terms of whether the U.S. could prevail in a conflict with the People's Republic of China, with the People's Liberation Army.
Obviously, that is the focus of national defense policymakers, the peer competitor in the competition with the PRC.
There, just over half believe the U.S. could actually prevail in a conflict.
In that respect, it does kind of parallel the trust and confidence numbers that we were just talking about in terms of 51% have trust and confidence in the U.S. military.
There's more numbers in the survey.
I want to get to them over the course of this segment.
Roger Zachheim with us until the end of our program at 10 a.m. Eastern today, but want to get to your calls.
Howard's waiting in Chicago first.
Republican.
Howard, good morning.
Yeah, good morning.
Everyone's talking about the defense budget, but why is it they can't pass an audit?
Haven't done it in seven years.
And most importantly, no one is held accountable for failing their audits.
How do we address that?
Great question on the audit.
And I think there's two ways to think about the audit.
First is what you bring up, that, hey, this is an enterprise that is appropriated on an annual basis just about $900 billion and it should be able to have a clean audit.
We have certain pockets of the Department of Defense that actually do have that audit.
The Marine Corps stands out in terms of military services that can carry out an audit.
But overall, the Department of Defense has struggled to have a comprehensive audit.
The process of realizing an audit, and this does not bare out in our survey, it does actually connect, though, of course, to the support for increased defense spending.
The process of carrying out an audit, as I mentioned, does actually reveal a lot of information that helps the Department of Defense execute its responsibilities more efficiently.
So the process, the pursuit of an audit, is going on.
It's done with renewed purpose and focus really since the last Trump administration.
And I think that will continue in the coming Trump administration.
As to when the Department will have a clean audit comprehensively, I think we're years out for that.
And that's a problem.
And Caller is right to highlight it.
Howard knows, obviously, because he brought it up that the Pentagon failed to pass the seventh audit.
How big of a deal is this to the policymakers that you talk to?
How much do they care?
Yeah, policymakers care deeply about it.
There's, of course, a variety of players here.
So certain members in Congress who have prioritized this over the years.
Senator Grassley comes to mind in the U.S. Senate.
But it makes the Department more efficient as they pursue this audit.
And I think I know in the previous session we were taking calls, a lot of focus and attention on Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, and I think the audit will be a big part of that.
You have to know what you have and where you have it.
I heard one story just the other day that because of the Marine Corps audit, for example, they found some spare parts that were necessary for the F-35, our fifth generation fighter that's critical for our Navy, Marine Corps, and of course our Air Force because of the audit.
And the result was that about 50 plus F-35s that were grounded were able actually to be put in use.
That was a result of the process of the audit.
So it does have a material impact on the operations and the warfighting of the military, correct?
Views of U.S. weapons to allies from, again, this survey.
43% support giving weapons to allies.
That's down 5% from last year.
Within that group, 54% support sending weapons to Israel.
55% support sending weapons to Ukraine.
What do you want to note on that?
Well, the big story on military support to Israel and military support to Ukraine is the deep partisan divides.
And notably when it comes to Ukraine, Harris voters support that by 74%, whereas Trump voters support by 42%.
So the overall average is the majority of the American people, as I just noted.
But the partisan divide really bears out.
And you almost have the flip side when it comes to support for Israel in terms of military assistance.
That's critical, of course, because Ukraine is at war right now trying to defend against Russian aggression and restore its sovereignty over all its territory.
Israel, the same, of course, the war in Gaza continues.
Stories today are focusing on what's happening in Syria.
But the threat from Hamas and stability in Gaza continues to be Israel's focus.
One thing I note, and you have to kind of delineate, not just in terms of the views of the American people in terms of their willingness to have U.S. security assistance to those countries, Israel and Ukraine, but overall, the United States, through this survey we see, the American people have strong support for Israel and Ukraine.
75% of those survey view Ukraine as an ally, as a partner.
74% view Israel as a partner, as an ally.
And just to contextualize that, 73% view Japan as a partner and ally.
So there's really strong support for those countries.
The specific policies in terms of security assistance is where you see these partisan divides.
But the majority not supporting the idea of sending weapons to allies, right?
43% support, 57% don't, or there's some that didn't answer.
So for that majority, what is the reason not to do arms transfers?
Is it weakening the United States' weapon supply?
We're not ready to fight our own battles if we're giving these weapons away.
Is it spending monies overseas?
What do they say?
Well, in terms of the overall point of view, we don't have the follow-up questions on that.
But we know a little bit about this in terms of the follow-up questions we have as it relates to Ukraine.
There's definite concern that just the mere cost, you know, this idea that, hey, we have our priorities, our needs, our fiscal situation here, it costs too much.
There's also concern beyond that in terms of whether or not the U.S. stockpiles are sufficiently supplied that we're able to deliver munitions and security assistance to other countries.
We need it for the U.S. military.
So I think that is contributing to concerns about security assistance, military assistance to Ukraine.
I'd say that if that's their concerns about Ukraine, that's for sure going to be their concerns with other countries.
But as you note, the majority of the American people, as it relates to those particular conflicts, want to see it continue.
More calls for you.
Jeff is in Port Angeles, Washington, Independent.
Jeff, good morning.
Hey, good morning, guys.
I really believe that we are wildly overspending on defense, and we always have Who's going to fight a war these days?
There's no economic benefit for anybody.
China is, what, are they going to shut down the Molucca Straits and cut their own throats on trade?
Or Russia, how are they going to project force?
They can't even beat Ukraine.
So I would like to see.
10% slashes in defense spending.
And let's get it down to a reasonable level.
I think the threats to the United States are wildly overblown.
And obviously, we could use that money much better at home.
Thanks, guys.
Roger Sakhan.
Well, caller has a point of view that we are wildly overspending on defense.
I think if you take a historical look, that's simply not the case.
Right now, we are hovering about 3% of GDP dedicated to defense.
It's actually going to go lower to about 2.5% if you look out in the defense program out to about 2030 or so.
And by historical standards, during the height of the Cold War, when President Reagan was in office, we were at 6% during Korea.
It was about 12%.
World War II is about a third of what we were spending.
So what we have today in terms of defense spending as a percentage GDP, gross domestic product, is actually what we were spending roughly at the end of the Cold War.
It surprises a lot of people, right?
That was a moment when truly there was no competitor.
We had defeated the Soviet Union.
We were taking a peace dividend, and we're roughly about the same level of defense spending.
And my view, and this is where I disagree with the caller, I don't look at the world today and see the United States as safer.
I see a competitor that we have not seen in generations in China.
What that means militarily, China is engaged in the largest military buildup in generations.
You have to go back to what the Soviet Union did after the Cuban Missile Crisis to see a military buildup that we're witnessing out of Beijing.
And you have to ask yourselves.
We all have to ask ourselves, what are they building up towards?
What are they seeking to do?
If you look at what our defense leaders and national security leaders are, and this is bipartisan, this was the view of the Trump administration, and it was a view of the Biden administration.
What they're doing is actually attacking our interests, not just Indo-Pacific, which of course, as the caller notes, we have significant trade interests, but actually globally, more and more, in the Western Hemisphere, actually even in the continental United States, as we saw with the Bloomgate not too long ago.
And then you add to that what Russia is doing, and certainly they have been bogged down in Ukraine.
But that's a result of U.S. security support.
So the Ukrainians have fought nobly in Ukraine, fending off Russian aggression.
But at the same time, they would not have been able to do that without the security assistance of the United States.
That's important not just for Ukraine's sovereignty and the plight of freedom on the part of Ukrainians.
That's important for U.S. national security interests.
Vladimir Putin, as we know, is an aggressor.
If he had been able to capture Ukraine, he would likely have gone on to weaker NATO allies.
And that would have put the United States in a far more costly position.
We know his conduct, 2008.
He invaded Georgia and South Osepia and Abkhazia in 2014.
He annexed Crimea.
So I think the caller is perhaps too optimistic about the security situation globally.
And I think it's U.S. defense spending, in my view, and a view of the American people, frankly, is underfunded.
Did Ronald Reagan ever face a defense funding cut from Congress?
President Reagan, when he was in office, ran on a platform actually going into office of peace through strength and rebuilding our national defenses that had gotten so bad during the tenure of President Jimmy Carter that he actually had an election mandate to build up, and there was bipartisan support in the Congress to do so.
And he did that from the time he entered office in January of 1981, pretty much throughout his time in office when he left in 1989.
By 1986, 87, members of Congress started pulling back a bit, but overall it was a net increase year over year.
As I mentioned, the height of which is just over 6% of GDP with 7 to 10% real growth annually, 81, 82, 83.
That was a strength which really allowed for the peace that resulted by the time he left office in 1989.
Floyd is in Iowa line for Republicans.
Good morning.
Yeah, guess this, to talk about the military and the confidence in the military.
We had a sec deaf, I think we still have a Secretary of Defense, Austin.
He took some time off for surgery and didn't tell anybody about it.
And as far as I know, he never appointed a second in command.
That's one of the first things you learn in the military.
If you're not going to be there, you get your second in command to get up to speed and get on with the mission.
But as I understand it, this Austin, he's still there.
He didn't get fired.
Is that true?
Floyd, Secretary of Defense Austin is still there.
In fact, he was speaking on Saturday.
He announced at a defense forum a new Ukraine security package.
Let me show you a minute and a half from Saturday.
And I'm proud to announce today the commitment of a new Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative package worth nearly $1 billion.
Now that package will provide Ukraine with more drones, more rockets for our time-off systems, and more support for crucial maintenance and sustainment.
And that brings the total of U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine since February 2022 to more than $62 billion.
The engine of our efforts has been the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which first met in April 2022 at Ramstein Base, Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Now, the contact group has helped ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself and to forge a future force to deter more Russian aggression.
And I have convened the contact group 24 times now.
Its other members have committed more than $57 billion in direct security support, a security assistance to Ukraine.
And as a percentage of DDP, more than a dozen contact group members now provide more security assistance to Ukraine than the United States does.
And together, we have helped Ukraine survive an all-out assault by the largest military in Europe.
Austin, at a defense forum over the weekend, in fact, your defense forum.
Not just any defense forum.
That is the Reagan National Defense Forum I referenced earlier.
We hold annually the first weekend in December.
And Secretary Austin has been with us each year.
He served as Secretary of Defense.
And of course, this was the fourth time he visited and made some news, as you note, in terms of what the Department of Defense is doing to support Ukraine in the final weeks of the Biden administration.
Did he talk about the results of this survey?
Or did you get a chance to go through it with him?
Absolutely.
Secretary Austin referenced the survey in his speech, and my recollection is it was about national defense and military spending and noted that the American people support increasing the defense budget.
He made some arguments as to how the Biden administration has contributed to that.
My own view is that that has not been sufficient, as I referenced in the conversation with the call earlier.
What are your conversations like with the incoming Trump administration?
Are you having those?
Yeah, absolutely.
There are officials, as you know, are being named and announced.
Of course, those who require Senate confirmation, they're just designated, so they're not speaking for the Trump administration.
There are others like Mike Waltz, who has been announced to be his National Security Advisor.
Alex Wong is a deputy national security advisor.
President Trump, as it relates to this issue and this survey, ran on peace-through strength, as I noted earlier.
He's the first president to run on a platform of peace-through strength since Ronald Reagan ran on that back in 1980.
And I think we are pushing forward the survey to show how they could stitch together a peace-through strength platform that's reflective of the viewpoints and the hopes and aspirations of the American people that goes from defense spending all the way to Israel policy and Ukraine policy.
And I think one of the things that came out in the survey, and it relates to the clip you just showed of Secretary Austin, is what the Trump administration policy will be as it relates to Ukraine.
President Trump announced that retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg will be the special envoy for Ukraine.
Our survey shows that 59% of Americans support peace negotiations, even if Ukraine was required to give up or concede territory.
And as far as Trump voters, 63% support that, and Harris voters is 55% as well.
So, you see, there's pretty much consensus around doing that.
How they go about that is quite important.
Brings in another element of the survey, and I'll wrap up with this: that as I mentioned before, 75% of those surveyed believe that Ukraine is an ally.
80% believe that Russia is an adversary or enemy.
And so, however, President Trump is going to pursue those negotiations, he's famously said that he wanted the conflict to come to an end, that it will end by the time he is inaugurated.
The survey shows that the American people clearly know whatever that negotiated outcome looks like, who the friend is and who the adversary is.
Greg's next in Wilmington, Connecticut.
Democrat, you're on with Roger Zachheim.
Greg, you're with us.
Good morning.
Good morning, John.
Go ahead, sir.
Good morning to guests.
Hi.
Hi.
Good morning.
I don't see a defense spending.
I see an offensive spending.
We have had so many conflicts, starting, let's start with Vietnam, going to Afghanistan in the 80s, the late 80s, early 90s, and then now, and then to Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan and Palestine.
The slaughter has been non-stop, John.
Non-stop.
Now, I don't see any defense in slaughtering innocent Palestinian children and women, okay?
That's not defensive spending.
Now, you know, my criticism is mostly of C-SPAN and of the mainstream media, because the American public is poorly informed about what its government does.
Most Americans would know that we're in Syria right now, basically camping out, stealing oil from Syria to give it to other countries.
I mean, it's insane our military is spending.
Insane.
We spend more money than the next 10 nations that spend money on military.
Who has all the aircraft carriers?
We do.
So it is not defensive.
It's offensive.
And C-SPAN has to do a better job.
That's all I'm saying.
Thank you.
That's Greg in Connecticut.
Roger, Zakhan.
What do you think?
Well, I respectfully disagree with Greg's characterization.
He mentioned Syria, Bashar al-Assad, whose regime came to an end and wasn't soon enough, is responsible for slaughtering 600,000 of his people.
U.S. forces there have been engaged to protect U.S. interests and doing what they can to help with the humanitarian crisis caused by that butcher, Bashar al-Assad, who again, just as today, this news bear out, is no longer in power.
I think the point the caller makes about the U.S. outspending the rest of 10 nations combined is actually overstated.
I'd encourage the caller to look at work by Mackenzie Eagland of the American Enterprise Institute, who actually has done a deeper dive into what the PRC spends on defense, and it actually is increasingly coming closer to what the U.S. spends.
They're just approaching $800 billion, that is China.
And of course, the way that they spend their funding, it's a command and control economy.
Civilian resources go to support the military.
The U.S. fundamentally has interest globally, not because it's looking to fight wars or it's offensive.
It's because it's protecting U.S. interests, our freedom, our security, and ultimately it leads to our prosperity.
That's why you see in the survey, for example, big support, 62% year-over-year support having U.S. forces deployed overseas, not because they're engaged in some sort of offensive attack, offensive posture, because they know that that U.S. presence globally is what we rely upon to provide for this peace and prosperity I referenced a moment ago.
In the absence of that, you would see far more conflict in this world and would probably draw us in to a war that would cost us a lot more than we spend on an annual basis on our national defense.
The caller brings up aircraft carriers.
This question always comes up.
The United States has 11 carriers in service right now.
China has three.
Why do we need eight more aircraft carriers than China?
Well, China would like to have 11 aircraft carriers, and they're on their way to build up the carrier.
I mean, there is a critique out there that the aircraft carrier is not the most relevant fighting platform for deploying power overseas that it was in the past because of missiles and other technologies that, for example, the PLA, the People's Liberation Army, has.
And so perhaps it's not as effective.
That's a military argument why perhaps aircraft carriers are less relevant in the Indo-Pacific.
But overall, this is the primary vehicle the U.S. has used for decades now to project power overseas.
And for those places where we can't go and have forward presence, the Navy, and particularly aircraft carrier, is the best vehicle to get there.
And that's what assures the trade routes to operate freely.
We see what happens when they're under attack, even by a JV terrorist organizations like the Houthis in Yemen that could shut down trade in the Red Sea.
As a result, those trade patterns have to change and the cost of goods go up.
That's what the aircraft carriers give you.
But it's, I think, a mistake to think that because China only has three and the U.S. has 11, we have more than we need.
China very much would like to displace us as a naval power, as a blue sea power, and they would love to have those carriers.
They've been a great down payment for the peace and prosperity that we enjoy.
And they have absolutely been a benefit, not just for security, but for economic prosperity.
About 10 minutes left with Roger Zachheim this morning of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
It's ReaganFoundation.org.
If you want to find them online, is this survey also available on the US?
Absolutely, yeah.
You go on, put in the Reagan National Defense Survey in your search tab, and it will come up on the Reagan Institute page.
Take you to the Buckeye State.
This is Catherine in Cleves.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning.
You're asking for a 100% increase in the budget for military spending.
My question is, where would that money come from?
Are you willing to take it from people like myself who are on Social Security?
I worked my entire life.
I did not take my husband's Social Security.
Mine was better, so I took mine.
So are you willing to put people like myself on the street, or would you be willing to maybe stop supporting the vets and their needs that they have?
Roger Zakai.
Well, certainly Reagan Institute and the survey itself is not advocating for 100% increase in defense spending.
I think what I was giving historical context, that the level we're spending on national defense actually is the level we went to in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War when President Bill Clinton was seeking a peace dividend.
So I think the view that we're spending more than we have historically is actually not the case.
We're underspending, underinvesting our national defense.
I think as a general matter, Secretary of Defense of both parties, general officers, flag officers, to sustain our defense investments, you need to have real growth.
You need to fund the Department of Defense beyond inflation.
My own view, that should be between 3% and 5% annually above inflation.
That's what we came out to.
And a Defense Strategy Commission I had a chance to participate in we released this summer.
I think when you look at overall federal spending, I think this is where the caller was getting to in terms of where it's going to come out of.
It shouldn't impact anybody who is benefiting from Social Security.
People have worked their whole lives and are now taking from Social Security.
They've worked for it, they paid for it, they should receive it.
I don't think anybody's advocating that.
There is a need for Social Security reform, and there's a need for reform on overall mandatory spending.
I think people forget that when you look at overall defense spending as a share of federal spending, it's roughly about 13%.
We actually are spending more to service our national debt than we are on spending our national defense, 14% on servicing the national debt, 13% on national defense.
The issue, of course, is mandatory spending.
Social Security, Medicare, and other mandatory programs, those need to be addressed.
They're on kind of an automatic increase year over year.
I believe such the Doge effect, the Department of Government Efficiency will have to look there because that is what is consuming the overwhelming majority of our spending.
It isn't discretionary spending, isn't the defense spending.
It's the spending that's mandatory, that's an autopilot that Washington does really little about year over year, and it needs to be addressed.
So when you say 3% to 5% increase, so U.S. Deck Clock has us spending $951,000 $337 million this year on defense spending.
So you're saying an increase of somewhere around like $45 billion?
Yeah, that's right.
we have 45 billion to 55 billion dollars the idea is where do we get 35 45 to 55 billion Congress has done that over the past two years, actually.
President Biden underfunded national defense, as I was referencing before, but the Congress recognized that these programs to continue to take care of the men and women in uniform, to modernize the force, to make investments in industrial base, required an increase in defense spending.
We spent trillions of dollars over the past few years on programs that are far less bound to what the Constitution calls for.
I mean, you come down to what government should be spending on, it's quite clear.
You know, Article 1, Section 8 gives Congress responsibility to build the Army, to build the Navy.
That has been underfunded.
And given the global reach of our interests, the need for the economic security that ultimately all Americans prosper for, it requires robust investment in national defense.
Point is it's actually historically low and it's an increasingly smaller slice of what we spend we spend on in terms of the total federal budget picture.
Tom in Maryland Independent, good morning you are next.
Hey, good morning John, and as always, you do a great job as a host here, and for mr. Zakheim, I guess it's.
It's a little disappointing just hearing the questions that you're getting.
Looking at the results of the last election and then seeing this survey, Chevron up here saying Americans favor more military spending in international engagement, and all we're getting are the talking points such as, you know, Russia the aggressor, et cetera, etc.
And you know that we're not spending somehow enough.
And I and the real question here is with you know the bloat that we've seen in admirals and generals and all this wasted spending and these, so many of these failures in foreign policy.
How are we to believe this question in the survey and the results?
Because those results, of course, naturally favor quite dramatically everything that this organization stands for.
So can you tell us a little bit about the survey and was it really objective?
Absolutely.
Thanks for the question.
As I mentioned before, there were 22,510 respondents to the survey.
Estimated margin of error is plus or minus two percentage points.
Many of the questions went to about half the respondents, so just over you know 1200 there.
The margin of error is about 2.8 percent plus or minus.
So if you look at other surveys, this one is actually has more respondents than the ones you read about in your favorite paper or feed.
You get when they're talking about a survey.
You know what we do and we've done it year over year since we began.
The survey in 2018 is, ask the questions American people about national security, defense and foreign policy and we'll see where the numbers go.
The reality is that, year over year, the American people understand and support having U.s force presence overseas, not because they're looking to engage the U.s military in armed conflict I certainly don't read the survey that way but they know that is the best guarantor of peace and I think that's what's what's what what bears out in in the survey.
Certainly, if there was something in the survey that uh didn't compliment my own point of view, that's fine.
It's disappointing to me that only 52 percent of Americans have trust and confidence in the military.
I pointed that out to our service chiefs and said hey, this is a problem.
When we started it was 70 percent and that is a policy uh area that I believe the Department OF Defense AND THE Military needs to work on.
That comes out of the survey.
So we get the numbers numbers don't lie and we report them out and that's the why we like engaging with you on it.
Yesterday, from the White House, president Biden talked about steps the?
U.s was taking in Syria after the fall of Assad U.s efforts there to support allies in the region uh, and he laid that out as a clip we played for viewers earlier.
It was saturday that president-elect Trump said the United States needs to stay out of Syria.
So it leads to this question from Mark in New York.
Can the guest explain what U.S. interests are in Syria?
Well, I think from a Syria standpoint, we don't want it to be an ungoverned space that we have the emergence of ISIS.
And I think that is something that President Biden wants, but it's also something that President Trump wants.
I mean, he was responsible in his first administration for ensuring that ISIS was taken out.
So we have experience since 9-11 that we know which terrorist organizations threaten our national security interests that would look to develop a capability in an ungoverned space to attack the homeland.
ISIS fits that category.
That is the biggest risk profile for the United States coming out of an ungoverned Syria.
Beyond that, you don't want to have the RAGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, attack U.S. interests in the region.
That could also happen in an ungoverned space, although I believe out of this development, Iran is weaker.
Certainly, that's because of Israel and its policies as it's been applied against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Lebanon, Hezbollah interests in Iran in Syria, as well as Iranian interests in Syria.
Just a couple minutes left this morning.
What didn't we get to from the survey that you wanted to talk about?
Well, there was one element that stands out as it relates to Israel, and that is while there are strong partisan divides over U.S. security assistance to Israel as it defends itself post-October 7th, Hamas's massacre in Israel, Republicans are generally supportive of giving Israel security assistance.
Increasing number of Democratic voters, Harris voters, are opposed.
As it relates to U.S. hostages and support for policies that bring U.S. hostages out of Gaza, it's over 60%.
So that is an area of bipartisan support.
It's been a priority for the Biden administration, as we saw from President-elect Trump, who tweeted out on social media about a week or so ago that he expects that U.S. hostages to be freed out of captivity in Gaza, and there will be hell to pay.
I'm not sure that's a direct quote, but that was certainly the effect if that does not happen by the time he comes to office on January 20th.
I think it's about seven Americans still held hostage by Hamas.
A number of them, unfortunately, are believed not to be alive, and we think about three of those are, but the bodies of those Americans who have perished in captivity by Hamas certainly still are in Gaza.
Did you get into support for sending the U.S. military to release those final three?