| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
And without objection, that is so ordered. | |
| And without objection, the subcommittee will stand adjourned. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Frank Lunt. | ||
| He's a pollster and communications strategist. | ||
| Welcome to the program. | ||
| Today, of all days, this is such an honor. | ||
| I'm grateful. | ||
| I'm privileged. | ||
| And I hope we have a really good conversation. | ||
| I think we will. | ||
| Well, today's events in D.C. come as Marines and federal troops are in Los Angeles. | ||
| Tensions are rising in the Middle East. | ||
| What do you make of this moment? | ||
| What's interesting, and I heard the introduction about five minutes ago about public opinion, is that the only institution right now that still has a majority of support, faith, trust, and confidence is the military. | ||
| Doesn't matter whether you're a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent. | ||
| It is the most trusted institution in America today, and I'm determined to keep it as such. | ||
| Keep out the politics, keep out the partisanship. | ||
| We don't trust our schools. | ||
| We don't trust our health care. | ||
| Obviously, we don't trust politicians anymore. | ||
| But we believe that the military serves us, and it's selfless service, and we're grateful. | ||
| And in fact, the thing that I want to emphasize as a very first way to kick this off is when you thank someone in uniform for their service to the country, do more than say thank you. | ||
| Buy them a meal. | ||
| I know they won't take it, but buy them a meal, pat them on the back, give them a first-class seat on the plane. | ||
| Do something meaningful, measurable, and tangible to express your appreciation. | ||
| Because let's face it, our democracy exists because of the men and women in uniform. | ||
| You said you want to keep out politics and partisanship, and I want to ask you about President Trump's appearance at Fort Bragg. | ||
| The military.com is reporting that there was quite a bit of politics and partisanship there. | ||
| There's a quote here I want to share with you from a commander at Fort Bragg, and he is anonymous to avoid retaliation. | ||
| He said this, this has been a bad week for the Army, for anyone who cares about us being a neutral institution. | ||
| He said this was shameful. | ||
| I don't expect anything to come out of it, but I hope maybe we can learn from it in the long term. | ||
| And this is in response to the people being, the soldiers, being screened for their political affiliation, for booing President Trump's political opponents, and for cheering for his politics. | ||
| I was there at the speech that he gave to the West Point cadets. | ||
| And I think for the first time ever, he invited cadets to come up on stage and be recognized for their service, be recognized for how outstanding they were. | ||
| And that's what I would prefer. | ||
| I would prefer it to be a celebration and a recognition of things that are exceptional and extraordinary. | ||
| As I said to you off air as we were talking, I will not do politics here. | ||
| I will not mention the president's name because I think today is essential that we maintain the commitment of the military to defend the Constitution. | ||
| And that's what people don't know. | ||
| And I say this to you all watching. | ||
| They don't swear an oath to the president. | ||
| They don't swear an oath to the United States of America or to the people. | ||
| Their oath is the Constitution. | ||
| And that is why they've been so successful. | ||
| That's not why they've been successful, but it's why we've been successful. | ||
| The Constitution above all, regardless of who sits at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. | ||
| I want to ask you about Defense Secretary Hagseff's message to the force. | ||
| I want to read you a portion of it and ask you about it. | ||
| He says this, the president gave us a clear mission, achieve peace through strength. | ||
| We will do this in three ways, by restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence. | ||
| We will revive the warrior ethos and restore trust in our military. | ||
| We are American warriors. | ||
| And he goes on. | ||
| He uses the term warrior three times in that and indicates that this warrior ethos is being restored and revived. | ||
| So here's what's interesting about this. | ||
| I know how moms react to that. | ||
| I don't know if you're a mom, but when moms hear warrior, they get nervous. | ||
| They love the service. | ||
| They love the character. | ||
| They love the sacrifice. | ||
| They love the selflessness. | ||
| But warrior concerns them, but that's their job. | ||
| And as someone who's an instructor there, who's, I guess, my title is senior fellow, I watch how this develops. | ||
| And I'll say this to you, and this should give you a sense of safety and security. | ||
| Not only are they developing a warrior ethos, but it's with character. | ||
| It's selfless service. | ||
| It's relentless. | ||
| It's all the attributes, discipline, determination, focus, kindness. | ||
| These are people who are being required to do the ultimate sacrifice. | ||
| But they have a heart and they have a soul and they love their country. | ||
| And what they appreciate more than anything else is the commitment to each other, to the man or woman to their left, to the man and woman to their right, to always have their backs, to always be there for them. | ||
| All the attributes, character traits that we really want in our young people, it's what's being taught at West Point and in our service academies. | ||
| So yes, they use the word warrior, but please include the fact that these are young men and women of character, of sacrifice, of commitment. | ||
| And one last thing. | ||
| A cadet cannot lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do. | ||
| Isn't that what we want in society? | ||
| Isn't that what we want for our kids, for our parents, for the people we work with? | ||
| These are attributes that we should be celebrating in addition to the warrior ethos. | ||
| Well, let's take a look. | ||
| You spoke to some of the cadets. | ||
| These are Sandhurst team captains. | ||
| We'll talk about that later. | ||
| But here's where you're asking them about the term warrior. | ||
| How do you know you're a warrior? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We train and we compete and we test ourselves. | |
| And through those tests, we kind of gain confidence and realize where we're at and what we need to improve. | ||
| And that's how we know if we're ready or not. | ||
| To win this competition, we have a series of alumni that are out in the big army that are doing a lot of great things, serving their country. | ||
| And they put invested great amounts of time to this organization and to win it. | ||
| And so there's a culture that we create of winning. | ||
| And so this year, our task is the same as it's been for the last nine years: win the competition, because that's what you do, and that's the person you are for the alumni. | ||
| And expand this to the country. | ||
| What does it mean to America? | ||
| It showcases America is ready to go. | ||
| It showcases our lethality. | ||
| It shows that we're ready to support and defend the United States of America and its people. | ||
| That's exactly what people want. | ||
| These future leaders, these future second lieutenants, I'm sitting there in that focus group, standing there. | ||
| And I'm wondering, where the hell are these people? | ||
| How did they get here? | ||
| I've always been a supporter of the military. | ||
| My dad was in the National Guard for 24 years. | ||
| I wish he was still alive because he would love all this. | ||
| And I'm listening to them and I'm watching how they act with each other. | ||
| And I'm thinking, how can we create tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who have that commitment? | ||
| I know we're going to show other clips of this, but they act the way that we want them. | ||
| They are who we want them to be. | ||
| And thank God for West Point because it's there to ensure that it is not just leadership. | ||
| It is not just lethality. | ||
| It is not just a commitment to the military aspect, which it is. | ||
| But we're going to win the right way. | ||
| We're going to win the ethical way. | ||
| We're going to win. | ||
| But we're going to be proud of it. | ||
| And I love that. | ||
| Tell us about West Point Sandhurst Military Skills Competition. | ||
| What's it all about? | ||
| So it's been there now for about 60 years. | ||
| I think it started in 1967. | ||
| And invites teams, obviously, from West Point, from the ROTC units across the country. | ||
| Usually they have more than a dozen of them. | ||
| There are often 15, 10, or 15 countries that are represented. | ||
| And here's what's interesting: competing in this tournament, in this competition where teams from Germany, Italy, and Japan, our enemies who we are killing 80 years ago are now on side competing peacefully, physically, emotionally, militarily. | ||
| This is to me the greatest success that these sworn enemies of our grandparents are now our allies. | ||
| And the competition, I got to read them to you: tactical combat care, grenade assault, land navigation, rifle marksmanship, weapons assembly, all sorts of fitness tests and obstacle courses, machine gun deployment. | ||
| And it's physical, it's mental, and it's based on team. | ||
| And all the skills that we require in the military are part of Sandhurst. | ||
| In fact, that's the whole purpose of it: to recreate those skills that they're going to need in the next 10, 15, 20 years of their lives. | ||
| I can't do any of them. | ||
| I can't even, I can't even put on a uniform, obviously. | ||
| I'm so intimidated by what they do in five minutes because it's more than I do in five hours. | ||
| And the best are just awesome individuals. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation with Frank Luntz, you can. | ||
| These are the numbers: Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you're active or retired military, you can call us on 202-748-8003. | ||
| You can also use that line to Texas. | ||
| Frank, what's your affiliation with West Point? | ||
| So I'm a senior fellow. | ||
| I started teaching there a year and a half ago. | ||
| The untold story of this is that I actually started at the Naval Academy before that. | ||
| And I wanted to teach there permanently because I saw that there was something different about the students. | ||
| That they were more serious, they were more focused. | ||
| They didn't ask questions to perform. | ||
| And they weren't seeking to be affirmed. | ||
| They were seeking to be informed. | ||
| But the Naval Academy never got around to it. | ||
| I have issues with bureaucracy. | ||
| It's a great academy, but it's too bureaucratic. | ||
| And West Point, in the meantime, said, why don't you come up, talk to us, do a lecture or two, which led to multiple lectures, which led to the pitch of a class. | ||
| So now I teach a course called You Are the Message. | ||
| These second lieutenants have to be able to communicate. | ||
| They have to be able to deliver orders, to be able to explain why you have to charge that hill, why you have to stand up when you'd rather sit down or go forward when you'd rather go backward. | ||
| And so I get a chance every semester to teach language. | ||
| I don't think I'm going to be too much longer, but it has been the greatest experience of my life over the last 30 years. | ||
| I haven't done anything as meaningful as this. | ||
| I actually have purpose. | ||
| I look forward to going into the class. | ||
| I look forward because I'm the worst human being in that group. | ||
| I mean, you smile at me, but I'm sitting there with 19 cadets, couple other faculty people, and I'm the worst human being of all of them. | ||
| Why do you say that? | ||
| Because I can't live, because I'm embarrassed, because I didn't, I promised I would not get emotional before I did this. | ||
| I did not serve. | ||
| Every night in college, I got to sleep in a warm bed, I got to drink, I got to do whatever. | ||
| On Friday night, this is several months ago, they're celebrating the 500th day. | ||
| They're going to graduate 500 days from then. | ||
| And I'm walking home. | ||
| It's about 9 o'clock. | ||
| It is snowing and sleeting. | ||
| And the weather is awful. | ||
| It's 30 degrees. | ||
| It's cold and wet. | ||
| And these people come pouring out of the dorms in uniforms and get up that I never saw before. | ||
| I was so intimidated. | ||
| Normally I take pictures of this. | ||
| I was so intimidated at Friday at 9 p.m., they're going to be outside for the next eight, ten hours on the ground, in the rain, in the snow, outside, cold and wet, and I'm going home to a comfortable place a mile from there. | ||
| It just doesn't seem right to me. | ||
| And they do this every day, and they do so with, they don't like every day, to be clear. | ||
| Every cadet doesn't like every day at West Point. | ||
| But they love what it means and they love to serve. | ||
| And these are people who would listen to the calls that you're going to take momentarily. | ||
| And frankly, I think they'd be upset. | ||
| They don't hear Democrat or Republican. | ||
| They hear America. | ||
| They don't think left-wing or right-wing. | ||
| They think Constitution. | ||
| And the three generals who run this place: General Gillen, who's the superintendent, General Garcia, who I'll talk about in a moment, because this is his program. | ||
| He's the Commandant. | ||
| And General Reeves is the dean. | ||
| These three generals have created or are stewarding a learning environment like no other. | ||
| You don't play games. | ||
| You don't perform. | ||
| You ask questions. | ||
| You're expected to challenge, but not in a way that is divisive or polarizing. | ||
| I have never had a discussion. | ||
| You know, I talk politics. | ||
| I've never had a discussion that ended with someone saying, I'm out of here. | ||
| They just don't do it. | ||
| Because they're taught respect. | ||
| And if there's one value that matters more, this is not the most important value for the military, but it's the most important value for a teacher and a professor. | ||
| It's respect. | ||
| You challenge me, by the way. | ||
| Yes, as a pollster, you know how divided this country has become. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's awful. | |
| How polarized this country has become. | ||
| Those cadets are a product of this country. | ||
| So how do they, I mean, is West Point some sort of a utopia where politics doesn't matter and everybody gets along and everybody loves everybody? | ||
| Everyone doesn't love everyone, but everyone respects them. | ||
| And actually, at West Point, I made the comment before: you have to protect the person on your left and the person on your right. | ||
| It's part of the ethos of the academy. | ||
| And it's why I say to parents, don't send your kids to the Ivy Leagues. | ||
| The Ivy Leagues teach personal excellence. | ||
| West Point teaches team, teaches problem solving, critical thinking, team building, and the most important of all, which I don't get at any Ivy League, and I've taught at two of them, character development. | ||
| So you ask me what's different about West Point, it's the character. | ||
| And that is part of what the generals insist on. | ||
| It is not just military performance, it's also character. | ||
| Now, troops have been deployed in LA. | ||
| They could be deployed in other countries. | ||
| Some of those cadets that you're teaching could graduate and be deployed in the United States for partisan purposes. | ||
| I don't want to say that because does it make me feel uncomfortable? | ||
| Yes, but is it partisan? | ||
| There is a problem in LA right now. | ||
| We should say for their political leadership, not necessarily for partisan purposes. | ||
| I really misspoke. | ||
| How are you preparing them for that kind of a situation? | ||
| So here's the problem. | ||
| And this is, by the way, if anything's going to get me fired, this is going to get me fired. | ||
| So I probably shouldn't say it, but I'm going to say it anyway. | ||
| I respect them so much that I don't chew them out anymore. | ||
| I respect them so much that I don't like yelling at them. | ||
| I don't like, I will challenge them. | ||
| I hate people when they say the word like, and you haven't said it once in this interview. | ||
| Every kid I know at every university, well, like, it was the cruelest thing, and like, and it's driving me nuts. | ||
| It is to me fingernails on a chalkboard. | ||
| And I was given the right to make them do push-ups to stop them from doing it. | ||
| And I did for the first two semesters. | ||
| But then I started to get to know them. | ||
| And they were willing to do it because saying like is not part of good training. | ||
| It's not part of good communication. | ||
| And I stopped doing it because I just didn't want to cause them a hassle. | ||
| Oh, you're a big softy. | ||
| Yeah, that's the problem. | ||
| That's what's going to get me fired. | ||
| And I've been told by my colleagues, fight it. | ||
| You have to deliver. | ||
| You have to be tougher. | ||
| You have to say to them, you will not do this because in the end, someone who says like six or seven or eight or ten times is not going to be a good communicator. | ||
| And that means they're not going to be a good leader. | ||
| Let's talk to callers. | ||
| We'll start with Alan. | ||
| He's retired military in Palm Bay, Florida. | ||
| Hi, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how you doing? | |
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to say, Frank, you know, I hear you talking about West Point, all the academies. | |
| You know, it's not just there, it's the entire military. | ||
| The thing is, this is, you know, we've gotten so far away from family and faith and respect. | ||
| Nobody respects each other anymore. | ||
| Nobody respects themselves. | ||
| The military, they break you down. | ||
| Every single person that goes to boot camp is the same way as these kids today. | ||
| They're pretty close. | ||
| They're all independent. | ||
| They're all better than the next guy. | ||
| They beat each other up if they met each other. | ||
| But they can't, right? | ||
| Because they learn to respect. | ||
| They learn that they're colorblind. | ||
| They learn to have to work together because I have to save your life. | ||
| You have to save my life, right? | ||
| And the thing is, is we've just gone so far away. | ||
| Everything is so, the world has gone so crazy. | ||
| Everybody's mad at each other. | ||
| Everybody takes political politics as the one and only thing. | ||
| And it's crazy. | ||
| All right, Alan. | ||
| Can I prove that if you guys back in the control room can queue up the next clip? | ||
| Because you're going to hear it from them. | ||
| They talk about this. | ||
| They, it doesn't matter whether you're West Point or the Naval Academy, if you're enlisted, and by the way, the people who I find respected the most are the leadership of the enlisted, the non-commissioned officers. | ||
| They keep our military running. | ||
| And the level of respect and appreciation is so strong, but I'd rather have the cadets explain that to you than me explain it to you. | ||
| This is when you asked them about the impact that the competition has had on them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| All right. | ||
| Let's play it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Everything kind of comes together. | |
| You learn a lot of discipline being on a Sandhurst team. | ||
| You have to go, you know, get up at five o'clock in the morning to go work out. | ||
| All these things really seep into other aspects of your life. | ||
| And I think that's the biggest change. | ||
| How are you a better human being because of Sandhurst? | ||
| If I realize, if I ever wanted to achieve anything in life, I needed to suffer. | ||
| You will learn from that suffering and you will become better because of it because you know what you're capable of and you can trust your training. | ||
| You can trust what you've done and that like you become better because of that. | ||
| Is he right? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| You all agree with this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| The thing is about the shared suffering as well. | ||
| And building faith in the teams you work in. | ||
| I think for us, like going through academies, it's building faith in your peers around you to perform under pressure as well as yourself. | ||
| I think that shared suffering is one of the only ways you can sort of forge those bonds and forge that trust. | ||
| And you can't really get that outside of putting yourself through and your peers through like pushing their limits. | ||
| A willingness to suffer. | ||
| We run away from that. | ||
| Our young people run away from that. | ||
| They want to be coddled. | ||
| And they want it to be tough. | ||
| And this is something, and I said to you, the reason why I shouldn't be there is because I am too soft. | ||
| Not just emotionally, physically, all aspects of it. | ||
| I needed to suffer to learn. | ||
| I needed to suffer to grow. | ||
| And everything for them is a life lesson. | ||
| From the moment they wake up in the morning until the moment they go to sleep at night. | ||
| What can I learn from this? | ||
| How can I become better from this? | ||
| I've never met students more determined to make not just their lives better, but the people around them better, to lift everybody up. | ||
| And it's not happening at other college campuses. | ||
| And that's why I think it's exceptional and extraordinary. | ||
| And I don't want to be fired. | ||
| I probably should not have told that story. | ||
| But these young people, these men and women, I want to emphasize this because Sandhurst, you've seen guys on that video. | ||
| The women at West Point are awesome. | ||
| I would use a four-letter word, but I don't want the FCC coming down on you. | ||
| They are so awesome. | ||
| They are dedicated and committed and focused and great leaders of character. | ||
| And to be around them, I don't measure up. | ||
| They're better than me. | ||
| They really are. | ||
| Here's Tom, a Republican in Spring Hill, Florida. | ||
| Good morning, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mr. Luntz. | |
| I appreciate you taking my call. | ||
| My question is, with all the damage the left wing in this country has done to Democrat, progressive, liberal, leftists, with everything from DEI to the riots in Los Angeles to putting in this admirable, this fruitcake, lunch, whatever his name, whatever his name is, where do these soldiers stand when it comes down to a civil war with red states and blue states? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Where do they stand? | |
| Because it's inevitable that there could possibly be a civil war with the way things are going, with the left just keep pushing it, pushing it, and pushing it, pushing it, poking the bear. | ||
| Where do you see this military standing? | ||
| I know there's control. | ||
| That's so easy. | ||
| There are no red states. | ||
| There are no blue states. | ||
| To the West Point cadets, there are only the United States. | ||
| They don't see it. | ||
| They don't have glasses or edits that make them left or right, Republican or Democrat. | ||
| Which is probably why it's kind of weird for me to be doing this on this show, because you have a Republican line and a Democratic line to ensure that everyone gets a voice. | ||
| And that's really cool. | ||
| That's very important. | ||
| By the way, I do. | ||
| Your bosses here gave me the C-SPAN shirt. | ||
| I don't know if it's on camera, but I love this place because everyone gets heard. | ||
| At West Point, it's the Constitution. | ||
| And the Constitution doesn't have an R or a D after its name. | ||
| It's how they can applaud a Democrat and a Republican at the same time, how they can engage. | ||
| The caller said that a civil war was inevitable in this country. | ||
| Look, I'm very pessimistic about America. | ||
| I think that we have issues, divisiveness, and an unwillingness to hear each other. | ||
| We do get our news to affirm rather than inform. | ||
| We don't hear the other side. | ||
| And the problem is we don't seem to want to anymore. | ||
| I teach my cadets to sit around people who you don't necessarily agree with, who don't look like you, who don't sound like you, and get the experience. | ||
| We just brought them to Europe for 10 days. | ||
| They got to meet four British prime ministers. | ||
| They got to meet the commander of NATO, General Cavoli. | ||
| They got to meet the head of the Finnish military. | ||
| They got to meet the leader of the European Commission military. | ||
| They got the broadest understanding of what Europe thinks right now. | ||
| And they look at us and they don't understand why we're doing what we're doing. | ||
| Europe looks at us and says, why are you so chaotic? | ||
| Why are you such a mess? | ||
| And please don't bring that mess to us. | ||
| And the cadets, the questions that they asked and the knowledge that they got from this isn't tinted based on partisanship. | ||
| It's focused on the facts. | ||
| And everyone, we all are told you teach a fact-based approach. | ||
| Nothing more and nothing less. | ||
| I want to ask you about DEI programs in the military writ large since the caller brought that up. | ||
| Not necessarily at West Point, but in general. | ||
| What are your thoughts on that and the impact that that's had on the military? | ||
| The goal of it was to ensure that people saw individuals who look like them. | ||
| So we got female leaders advanced and got promotion and people who might have otherwise been excluded. | ||
| But the highest priority for people who lead us and who serve us, whether in the military or the police or the fire or health care, education, all the things that matter in society, it's about merit, about performance. | ||
| Did you actually earn it? | ||
| Who you look like, what you look like, is not as important as what you know, as what you do, and the record that you've had, whatever track record you've had. | ||
| So, is it your opinion that removing those programs has been a positive, a net positive for the military? | ||
| You see it as removing programs, and I see it as reinstilling performance and merit. | ||
| You earn it, and therefore you deserve it. | ||
| And that is so important in American life because that's one of the things that makes us American. | ||
| That's what makes us exceptional. | ||
| That if you're really bright, I've got a cadet right now. | ||
| All I'm going to say is his first name. | ||
| His name is David. | ||
| He's got crummy grades. | ||
| There will be 10 cadets who know who I'm talking about. | ||
| This kid is bright as hell. | ||
| And I need to ensure that he gets every opportunity to succeed because he's going to take advantage of it. | ||
| And that's what makes West Point so awesome. | ||
| You can start with lousy grades, and you can end up the leading general in the country. | ||
| Patton had the worst, he flunked calculus. | ||
| George Patton flunked calculus. | ||
|
unidentified
|
By the way. | |
| How is he commanding an army not knowing calculus? | ||
| Well, this is back in 1940, 40-something. | ||
| That's a very funny lie, by the way. | ||
| I have a letter from him apologizing to his dad for really screwing up on math, but saying that the other grades are getting better. | ||
| And it's so amusing to me because his penmanship is awful. | ||
| But here he is as a 21-year-old apologizing to his dad. | ||
| And about 40 years after that, 45 years after that, he's going to save America. | ||
| I love that. | ||
| All right, let's talk to Vincent in Lilliburn, Georgia, also retired military. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Vincent. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| How are you guys today? | ||
| I'm just calling in reference to, I guess, the partially to what you guys are talking about this morning. | ||
| I'm just calling to encourage and let the U.S. know that I enjoy training cadets from West Point. | ||
| They generally, when I was in the military, I was a drill sergeant. | ||
| That's what our job is for a certain period of time to train soldiers, whether they're men or women. | ||
| And I will say training West Pointers. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Once again, I'm a retired military. | ||
| So, Vincent, we got that. | ||
| And you were saying that you were training West Pointers. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, they come into active duty military drills training on a daily basis. | |
| And usually they are with us for a week. | ||
| We train them on everything that we possibly do, just like we do a normal soldier. | ||
| And I would say after the week of training, the things that they thought they couldn't do, they do. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Frank? | ||
| They drill and they drill and they drill and they drill. | ||
| I love the drill sergeant because they're the ones who have to be tough on them. | ||
| Because in the end, you have to be prepared for anything that can happen. | ||
| And that's why the gentleman who's the commandant, so there are three different leadership positions at West Point. | ||
| And the Commandant is the one responsible for the military, for that aspect of it. | ||
| And what's happening at West Point right now is a real transformation. | ||
| Utilizing innovation, utilizing ingenuity to ensure that the cadets are prepared to win the next contest, not backwards, but in the future. | ||
| They have to do drones. | ||
| And there's a program there, West Point Projects, where they celebrate how they're focused on science and technology and math. | ||
| What's amazing about the Academy is that they have to excel in three areas. | ||
| Intellectually, you have to be bright. | ||
| Militarily, you have to be more than just competent. | ||
| You have to be able to do your job. | ||
| And physically, you have to excel. | ||
| Once again, there is no place on earth that I know of that requires all three at the same time. | ||
| And if you fail at any one of those three, you don't graduate. | ||
| Michelle is a retired military in Converse, Texas. | ||
| Hi, Michelle. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I am almost at a loss for words. | ||
| I understand and have always revered my place in the military and the West Point and all. | ||
| But I am becoming more and more dismayed with the tenor of the military and some of the thoughts that some of the military leaders and some of these bases and some of these enlistees, senior enlisted and military officers display. | ||
|
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You know, Frank, I used to really like to listen to you and enjoy some of your discussions, but the more I listened, the more I felt that you're becoming a little bit more toward the right and having some kind of very distinct focus. | |
| No. | ||
| So hold on, hold on, hold on. | ||
| Let me, I'm actually going in the other direction. | ||
| I used to come on this show up until about six, seven years ago, on the Republican side. | ||
| So actually, it's the exact opposite that I've been, my politics has been changing, my commentary has been changing. | ||
| And in fact, today, I don't speak as a Republican or a Democrat. | ||
| I speak as someone who's in awe of this 250th Army anniversary. | ||
| So I urge you to go back to the videos that you're watching and see where I was 10 years ago compared to where I am right now. | ||
| And that's part of what the military's done to me. | ||
| How has it changed you? | ||
| Because I can't do partisanship anymore. | ||
| Because they can't. | ||
| I have to be able to speak to every individual, every caller. | ||
| But you weren't working with the military 10 years ago. | ||
| No, and that's the whole point. | ||
| It's like a kick in the head. | ||
| I realize I should be a better person. | ||
| And this is part of what I've been going through, my health situation, my career situation. | ||
| I wasn't who I should have been. | ||
| I took a line rather than taking the truth. | ||
| And I sought the phrase rather than the facts. | ||
| And that's completely changed now. | ||
| And I know that it agitates some cadets who think that I'm coming in with a certain ideology. | ||
| They see me on YouTube. | ||
| They've read my background. | ||
| They assume they're going to get one thing, and they don't. | ||
| And it upsets them. | ||
| And I tell them it's a much better way to live. | ||
| When you learn how to apologize, I say this to that caller. | ||
| When you learn how to apologize, a whole world opens up to you. | ||
| And even more importantly, when you learn to say you're wrong, you have freedom to get it right. | ||
| And it's so liberating for me. | ||
|
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Michelle, did you have another question for Frank? | |
| Well, I did. | ||
| And I wanted to get his take on, I think it was called the Sandhurst group that he was with. | ||
| All white. | ||
| All white. | ||
| No, no. | ||
|
unidentified
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You said, let me speak. | |
| Let me speak. | ||
| And you said that you were not going to be discussing the politics of the day and all. | ||
| But when you say that West Point tries to implement DEI, which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion, which means that we want to include everybody who can be of value to us in leadership roles. | ||
| I don't see that. | ||
| You see where we have a president who came in and one of the most, two of the most educated and most brilliant military minds, was it C.K. Brown from here in this area here? | ||
| He's fired for what purpose? | ||
| Okay, Frank. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| First off, I was there at the competition. | ||
| There are people not just of every race, every gender. | ||
| It's a global competition. | ||
| There are, I think, 15 teams, 16 teams from other countries. | ||
| There are Razi units. | ||
| You get onto a team and you succeed based on how you perform. | ||
| And that's it. | ||
| And I mean it. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| You don't get a position because of who your last name is, because of what state you're from. | ||
| You have to prove physically, mentally, that you deserve it, that you've earned it. | ||
| Just about General C.Q. Brown getting fired. | ||
| And a president has the right to choose who he wants to serve. | ||
| It's part of being president. | ||
| People lost their jobs at State Department, at the Pentagon, at all these cabinet agencies. | ||
| Presidents make that decision, and it's up to them to decide who they want to be advised by. | ||
| I don't see race in that. | ||
| I saw that he wanted to go in a different direction. | ||
| And one last thing about DEI. | ||
| It is an admirable goal, but the way it was being pursued wasn't admirable. | ||
| We just had this debate. | ||
| The cadets just talked about this. | ||
| If you're from the Asian community, you're getting punished by DEI. | ||
| Let's find a way that we can lift up everyone rather than this group at the expense of this group. | ||
| Here's Josephine in Livingston, New Jersey, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Let me just say I'm 81 years old, so it's my observation. | ||
| But one thing I'd ask C-SPAN, please. | ||
| Stanley McChrystal, the four-star general, has just written a book. | ||
| It's called On Character, that choices that define a life. | ||
| Please, please, please bring him on. | ||
| As far as that goes. | ||
| Now, to where Mr. Luntz is concerned, I watched two graduations. | ||
| It's just my observation. | ||
| Last year I watched the graduation of the president going to give his speech, which he did, okay? | ||
| And he stood and shook each and every student's hand. | ||
| This year, I watched the graduation. | ||
| It became a political speech. | ||
| He was like a rah-rah, brought these students up, and did he stay to shake the hands of the students. | ||
| Are you kidding me? | ||
| He hightailed it out of there so fast. | ||
| That's only my observation. | ||
| That's what I'm thinking about. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And people did talk about that. | ||
| And they accepted the trade-off. | ||
| The idea of the cadets, and by the way, there's one more segment that you've got that I really want you to show of the video before we run out of time. | ||
| I appreciate the caller's point of view. | ||
| They talked about that there. | ||
| The president talked for a long time, much longer than the president usually talks. | ||
| So while he did not hand out the diplomas, he did engage them in what he was thinking about at the time. | ||
| So I find it very hard to criticize him for not devoting enough time when he actually spent an hour engaging them in his commentary and recognizing half a dozen of them for exceptional service. | ||
| All right, so here is the portion where you asked the Sandhurst team captains about how this competition helped them overcome weaknesses. | ||
| How did it change you? | ||
| What are those weaknesses that Sandhurst changed? | ||
|
unidentified
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So for instance, I've found that I don't recover very well from failure. | |
| I get very hyper-focused on tasks that if I underperform at, it hinders me. | ||
| I have a hard time recovering from that. | ||
| Sandhurst has taught me that you can't stay there. | ||
| You have to keep your head up and keep moving forward because there's plenty of competition left in front of you. | ||
| So I think that really speaks to what we've been talking about a lot, just that resiliency piece. | ||
| Sandhurst shows you that no matter what happens, you know, you might take some hits. | ||
| You got to keep your head up, keep moving forward. | ||
| Sandhurst has made me a better problem solver under stress. | ||
| There's mistakes I've made in years past that I think about when I train now so that I don't repeat those same mistakes. | ||
| Maybe I missed a target. | ||
| Maybe I shot 39 out of 40 on a stress soup. | ||
| Well, I can't do that this year, but I especially can't do that on the battlefield. | ||
| Like what if I only shoot 39 soldiers out of 40? | ||
| Well, what happens if I get hit? | ||
| One of my buddies get hits. | ||
| You know, you have to remind yourself these things while you're training so you don't repeat the same mistakes. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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I was going to say another thing that kind of changed me was like not to be afraid of suffering. | |
| I think the best moments in my life have been while I've been suffering the most, like especially with your team. | ||
| When you're suffering the most is when your team, people do dumb stuff and funny things. | ||
| People say something funny and it's just, it's honestly, in that moment, the most hilarious thing in the world. | ||
| And when you look back on it, it's still the most hilarious thing in the world. | ||
| And that suffering is the only reason why that moment was so great. | ||
| And so I think suffering really like, it has such a negative connotation as regular society, but I think here is what brings us all together and it's kind of what makes Sandhurst such an awesome thing that we come back for and want to do again. | ||
| Tough, relentless, determined, unwilling to accept anything but the best, but perfection. | ||
| And what does that do? | ||
| That's what gives us an army that we're about to celebrate today. | ||
| That's what has allowed us to celebrate the freedoms that we were granted 250 years ago. | ||
| And the only thing that I'm afraid of, my greatest fear, is that we are lowering our expectations, that we are accepting average or mediocre. | ||
| In the military? | ||
| In life itself. | ||
| And that's why the military still has the most credibility, still has the most support, has the most faith, trust, and confidence in. | ||
| Because they're trying to be the best. | ||
| How do you reach the conclusion that society as a whole is lowering its expectations? | ||
| Because of all the focus groups I do. | ||
| And it's so difficult now that I'm going to stop doing them shortly because it depresses me so much. | ||
| People are so mean. | ||
| You've had it on your phone calls before I came on, that they're looking to own people. | ||
| To them, the best thing that they can do is get on the air in front of a million or two or five million people, whatever many are listening, and just damn the other side. | ||
| We don't need to do that. | ||
| We all have faults. | ||
| None of us are perfect. | ||
| I go back to admitting mistakes and seeking the truth. | ||
| That's the way to live. | ||
| That's the way these West Point cadets live. | ||
| That's the way the military. | ||
| You see them on your camera shot right now. | ||
| The military is truly committed to the pursuit of perfection and the pursuit of the truth. | ||
| And I think that that's why they're exceptional and extraordinary. | ||
| Will you be going to the parade today? | ||
| So here's the issue. | ||
| I have to go. | ||
| I have to go. | ||
| Number one is I'll be emotional. | ||
| I can't help it. | ||
| I got through 45 minutes without doing this, and you triggered it. | ||
| So I don't appreciate that. | ||
| Second is, I really can't stand for three hours, four hours. | ||
| It is really difficult. | ||
| But if they could stand, if they can do whatever they have to do, I have to be there. | ||
| But I'm scared to death of what happens when I try to get home because it'll be a mile walk or trying to take the metro. | ||
| And if an audience person sees me walking, I am not drunk. | ||
| My balance is messed up. | ||
| If they see me struggling, it's not because I'm an idiot. | ||
| It's just physically. | ||
| But yes, I'm planning to go because I want to applaud not the tanks, not the planes. | ||
| I don't care about them. | ||
| General Garcia, it was a decorated Apache pilot before he became Commandant at West Point. | ||
| And I've never had the chance to thank him for what he did because he was a hero. | ||
| All of those three people, the three generals who run the place, are heroes. | ||
| So if they can do what they do in the grit and the mud and the dirt and the being fired on, I can put up with a mile-long walk. | ||
| So I'm just talking myself into it right now. | ||
| Yes, I'm going to go. | ||
| All right, that's Frank Luntz. | ||
| He's a pollster communication strategist and a social sciences department senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. | ||
| Thanks, as always, for coming in. | ||
| I'm grateful for the opportunity. | ||
| I'm grateful for the callers who call in because that's what democracy is about. | ||
| And for those of you who've served in any branch, in any way, bless you. | ||
| Be healthy and be happy. | ||
|
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