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A focus now on a new survey on Americans' views on military spending and international engagement.
Roger Zach Heim 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.
How long has the foundation been around?
How are you funded?
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?
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
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.
It 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.
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 We're good.
That's 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...
I think?
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 the 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.
Independence, 202 -748 -8002.
And then a special line for active and retired military, 202 -748 -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.
We're good to go.
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, that 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 on the first weekend of 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 service 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.
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, 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 are just over half believe the U .S. could actually prevail in a conflict.
In that respect, it does kind of...
There's more numbers in the survey.
I want to get to them over the course of this segment.
Roger Zach Heim 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 sense 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 bear 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
Howard knows, obviously, because he brought it up, that the Pentagon failed to pass the seventh audit.
Yeah, policymakers care deeply about it.
There's, of course, a variety of players here.
So certain members of 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 the result of the process of the audit.
So it does have a material impact on the operations and the war fighting of the military.
Correct.
Use 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.
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.
We're good to go.
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' weapons 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 it's just a 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 your concerns about Ukraine, that's for sure going to be their concerns with other countries.
But as you know, 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 is 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?
Russia, how are they going to project for us?
They can't even beat Ukraine.
So I would like to see 10 % flashes in defense spending.
Roger, Zach, hi.
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 was about a third of what we were spending.
So what we have today, in terms of defense spending as a percentage of GDP, gross domestic product, is actually what we were spending roughly at the end of the Cold War.
It's surprising to a lot of people.
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...
You have to go back to what the Soviet Union did after the Cuban Missile Crisis to see...
A military build -up 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 our security leaders are, and this is bipartisan, this was the view of the Trump administration, and it was the 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.
I think?
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 would have 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 the 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 was 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 an Iowa line for Republicans.
Good morning.
Yeah, I guess this talk about the military and the confidence in the military.
We had a sec def, I think we still have a sec 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 to your 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 its HIMARS systems, and more support for crucial maintenance.
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 Air Base in Germany.
The contact group has helped ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself Thank you very much.
And together we have helped Ukraine survive an all -out assault by the largest military in Europe.
Absolutely.
Secretary Austin referenced the survey in his speech, and my recollection is it was about national defense and military spending.
I 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 it 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.
We're good to go.
I think?
We're good to go.
I think?
Of American 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 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'll end by the time he's 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 Zach Heim.
Greg, you're with us.
Good morning, John.
Go ahead, sir.
Hi, good morning.
I don't see a defense spending.
I see an offensive spending.
We have had so many conflicts.
Let's start with Vietnam, going to Afghanistan in the late 80s, early 90s, and then to Iraq and 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 wouldn't 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 spending.
Insane.
We spend more money than the next ten 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.
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's news bear out, is no longer in power.
I think the point the car makes about... U .S. outspending the rest of ten nations combined is actually overstated.
I'd encourage the caller to look at work by Mackenzie Eaglin 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 interests 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 this 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 U .S. presence globally is what we rely upon to...
The caller brings up aircraft carriers.
This question always comes up.
The United States has 11 carriers in service right now.
China has 3.
Why do we need 8 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.
There is a critique out there that the aircraft carrier is not the most relevant.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
We're good.
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.
Absolutely, yeah.
You go on, put in the Reagan National Defense Survey in your search tab.
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?
And the survey itself was 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 the Defense Strategy Commission had a chance to participate in and 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 really impact anybody who is...
We're good to go.
I think?
I think we are.
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.
It 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. debt clock has us spending $951 ,337 billion.
This year on defense spending.
So you're saying an increase of somewhere around like $45 billion?
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, $45 billion to $55 billion.
The idea is...
Where do we get $45 to $55 billion?
The 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've 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.
What's your take on this?
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. Zach Heim, I guess 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 show 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, etc., etc.
And, you know, that we're not spending somehow enough.
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 so many of these failures in foreign policy, how are we to believe this?
Absolutely.
Thanks for the question.
As I mentioned before, there were 2 ,510 respondents to the survey.
Estimated margin of error is.
You know what we do And we've done it year over year since we began this survey in 2018,
is ask the questions of the 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.
It's disappointing to me that only When we started it was 70 , and that is a policy 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 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, and he laid that out.
It was 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 IRGC, 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.
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' massacre in Israel,
We're good to go.
I think it's about seven Americans still held hostage by Hamas?
support for sending the US military to release those final three and the difference between supporting bringing them home and