Pentagon NUKES Biden Admin DEI Policies, Press Sec Kingsley Wilson Says MERIT IS BACK
Timcast's White House Correspondent, Elaad Eliahu, sits down with Pentagon Press Secretary, Kingsley Wilson, to discuss today's most pressing issues. BUY CAST BREW COFFEE TO SUPPORT THE SHOW - https://castbrew.com/ Become A Member And Protect Our Work at http://www.timcast.com Host: Elaad @ElaadEliahu (X) Guest: Pentagon Press Sec. Kingsley Wilson @PressSecDOW (X) @KingsleyCortes (X) Producer: Serge @SergeDotCom (everywhere) My Second Channel - https://www.youtube.com/timcastnews Podcast Channel - https://www.youtube.com/TimcastIRL
Hey everybody, I am Alad Eliyahu, the White House correspondent here at Timcast.
But today we have a very exciting, different episode for you because we are at the Pentagon's Media Row where we are doing interviews with different Pentagon officials.
Today we have Department of War Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson here with us today.
Thank you so much for taking the time to do this media out.
Since we're a little bit strained on time, I kind of wanted to just jump right into it.
Absolutely.
One of the first things I wanted to ask you about is one of the new initiatives here was changing the name from Department of Defense to Department of War.
I actually heard the slip-up in yesterday's perspective regarding that.
What should we understand from the name change here?
And your name speaks to what you do and who you are, right?
And here at the department, we've been focused, I think, under previous administrations, Republican and Democrat, on endless defense, endless nation building.
And we're really at the end of the day getting back to our core mission of warfighting, of lethality, of basics, right?
Our warriors sign up not because they want to, you know, do nation building across the world, but because they want to be lethal.
They want to be warfighters.
They want to defend the American people wherever they can.
So our name really now communicates that.
It communicates strength.
And President Trump is the peace through strength president, right?
He doesn't seek war.
We don't seek war at this department.
We hope to never have to engage in war, but we're going to be prepared for it.
And we're going to make sure that our warriors are prepared for it.
So our name speaks to that now.
And I think it communicates something that defense really never could.
So we're very excited about that change.
We've been changing a lot of the plaques around the building and making sure that everything's up to date.
And I think it really has been emblematic of the culture shift we have seen under Secretary Hegseth.
Now our warfighters aren't focusing on DEI, climate change, drag queen story times on Navy ships.
Now they're focused on getting back to basics, being fit, lethality, having weapons that work and are strong.
So all of that's going to continue to be a priority for us going forward.
And to follow up on one of the things that you mentioned, as I understand Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been rolling back the different DEI initiatives that were here at the Department of War.
Can you describe some of the initiatives and tell me why is this an important thing for him to be working on?
I know also in the speech where Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was talking about this, he also mentioned that some generals were overweight and they need to renew these standards.
I don't know, did he get any pushback from some of the generals around here for noticing that some of them are on the heavier set?
There are a lot of our generals and just the force in general that are overweight.
It's totally unacceptable.
We have standards.
We have to meet them.
We've unfortunately gotten pretty lax with those standards under the Biden administration.
And those days are over.
We're going to be fit, not fat, the Secretary always likes to say.
And at the end of the day, the American people need to have confidence that the best of the best are in our military defending them.
And that's what we're going to do.
So, we're going to make stuff tougher, too.
There were a lot of, in the previous administration, combat arms positions, some of our most physically demanding MOSs and positions, there were separate requirements for men and women.
We've made it a single standard.
If women make that standard, fantastic.
But if not, they shouldn't be given that position simply by virtue of the fact that they're a female.
So, we're going to have high standards and we're going to have uniform standards across our force.
I know we say it in like a tongue-of-cheek kind of way, but this does really affect our military readiness, as I understand.
I wanted to follow up with you, too, on one of the big news stories surrounding the Department of War, and that is our military actions in international seas regarding drug boats coming from Venezuela.
What are our military goals in Venezuela and the surrounding areas?
So, our military goal right now in the Southcom region generally is to dismantle narco-terrorism.
The president designated a lot of narco-terrorist cartels as designated terrorist organizations, and what that did for us at the department is it unlocked a lot.
Now, we can engage in lethal and kinetic ways that we never could before.
And we're focused on narco-terrorists, whatever country they come from.
If you're someone who is trafficking drugs, deadly narcotics, to the United States to poison our people, we're going to take you out.
The president has said it time and time again: every single boat that we hit saves 25,000 American lives.
That is absolutely something that the War Department should be focused on doing, and we're going to continue to do it going forward.
Moving forward, is it important to seek congressional approval?
I don't know if the narco-terrorism claim, not that Maduro is or isn't, kind of doesn't require you guys, as I understand it, to receive congressional approval.
Is that something that you guys are thinking about around here?
Yeah, so for the moment in time where we are right now with the boat strikes, the president has the authority to direct these strikes well within his powers as our commander-in-chief, and he is exercising those powers.
We, of course, keep the Hill informed.
We've briefed them 18 times as a department on these ongoing strikes.
Of course, there's been 21, so we've been briefing them quite a lot on our ongoing operations, and we'll continue to do so.
But for us right now, I wouldn't want to preview any future operations that the president may or may not decide to engage with or to direct.
But for this moment in time, the president has delegated this authority to us at the War Department, and we're able to carry it out.
There's been some consternation surrounding a recent military strike, this alleged double tap by Admiral Bradley.
I don't need to ask you about the specifics about that.
I want to get your reaction to Senator Mark Kelly, and I think it was also Senator Van Holland implying that if the allegations in the Washington Post are true, that this may potentially constitute a war crime.
Have you heard that?
And what's your reaction to high-ranking Democrats saying stuff like this?
Yeah, it's been ridiculous to watch both folks on the Hill and the mainstream media go into apoplexy about these strikes.
We have said time and time again from the beginning, from the very first strike, that these strikes were lethal kinetic strikes.
They were designed to sink these boats and to eliminate the threat that they pose to the American people.
And we are 100% confident in the fact that these are legal strikes well within our authorities.
Every single military and civilian lawyer up and down the chain of command has agreed with such, and we are going to continue to take them out.
And it's disheartening for me to see people who cheered on endless war in the Middle East for 20 years and had no issue with a lot of questionable strikes over there now criticize ones that are so legal and that our warfighters are working so hard to execute.
Because I think we saw this with Operation Midnight Hammer.
When you question the job that our warfighters did, it's really offensive, I think.
They do incredible things every day.
They're down there on the ground, engaging, keeping the American people safe, and they're really good at their jobs.
They know exactly what they need to be doing well within the confines of the law and will continue to do it.
So it's shameful, I think, when we see people question the job they're doing and question this commander's in chief's ability to take out narco-terrorists.
I would also add that it's what the American people elected him to do.
He is the one person elected by the whole of the American people to carry out strikes like these.
He campaigned on this, right?
Taking out narco-terrorism, ending the drug flow into our country, and he's keeping that promise.
So protecting our homeland is definitely our biggest priority as a department.
And whether that's, you know, what we're doing with these strikes in our hemisphere or down at the southern border, we've got nearly 10,000 troops right now down at the U.S. southern border working alongside Border Patrol.
No one is crossing the border anymore.
So homeland defense is definitely America first.
It's going to continue to be a priority.
That said, we've got other emerging threats in theaters all across the world.
We look to the Indo-Pacific, for example, and we're making sure that we have a lot of ships that are going to be ready to meet any threats that could come from there.
That was the Secretary's first international trip, I believe.
He went out to the Indo-Pacific to talk about the different threats that we face there.
So, you know, we know that there's a lot of threats across the world that we face.
We prioritize them in a way that we think makes sense.
And we've leaned to on our partners to take more of the burden.
In places like Europe, for instance, we're footing the bill for a lot of NATO and a lot of European security.
We've offloaded a lot of that now.
All of our NATO partners have committed to meet that 5% spending goal, which the president accomplished earlier this year.
So that's a theater where now we can focus maybe more on the Indo-Pacific because our allies are stepping up and filling in some of that gap.
I think that would probably be more of a question for the State Department and for DHS, but I can definitely tell you that we are always seeking to protect the American people from any threats that could come our way, whatever country it is, and we'll maintain that focus going forward.
Also, a little bit of a touchy subject, but recently the Japanese prime minister said on a hypothetical attack on Taiwan by China could be deemed a situation threatening Japan's survival.
Has this come to the attention of the Secretary of War, and do you guys have a response to that?
Do you guys agree with the Japanese Prime Minister's understanding here?
I'm not sure on the specific comment that you mentioned there.
I can definitely check, but I will tell you that the Secretary recently went to Japan, had a fantastic meeting over there and visit over there.
We will continue to work closely with them and all of our allies in the Indo-Pacific and all of our partners over there to make sure that they feel they're safe and strong and our American interests are protected, number one.
They certainly have not pulled any punches ever since he was nominated, right?
He's been under mainstream media attack.
And I think that really speaks to the fact that he's over the target, right?
He's taking a lot of arrows because he is committed to the president's agenda and he is going to aggressively ensure that it is carried out across this department.
And it's a big department.
It's the largest military in the world.
And we're going to make sure that everyone is in line with the America First mission and everyone is up to standards, is focused on lethality and warfighting.
And in a city like DC, that can be a tough mission and a tough sell, but he's committed to it and he's tough.
And he doesn't really let the mainstream media get to him whatsoever.
So he's focused on the mission, and we as a department will continue to be focused on the mission.
So the media doesn't only seem to have it out for Pete Hegseth, but Secretary of War Hegseth might seem to have it out for the media too a little bit.
Some would say you got, I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that you guys have a new media program and a new media initiative here.
The old Pentagon Press Corps was asked to sign the new rules that you guys had here, which, full disclosure, I was a signatory to, and that was able to get me access here.
What are your goals with these new media initiatives?
What were you guys hoping to achieve with it?
How are the people that the Press Corps in the past falling short?
And how would you like the new media Pentagon reporters to really step up to the plate here?
We're really excited to welcome so much of the new media because it's an amalgamation of people from all sorts of different mediums, right?
We've got influencers here, independent podcasters, we've got networks like Real America's Voice, OAN, and we want to make sure that we're getting our message out to the American people wherever they're consuming their news.
And we're increasingly seeing people cutting the cord.
They don't have cable news subscriptions anymore.
They're getting their news from X, from Instagram, just from various social media platforms.
So it's important for us as a war department to be on those platforms and to not only engage with legacy media who has dwindling audiences and viewerships.
We want to make sure that we're talking to people who have large audiences and who are going to get our message out to the people and also to our warfighters.
And it's important for us in terms of recruiting too, right?
A lot of young people aren't sitting there watching CNN or MSNBC or reading the Washington Post every single day.
They're scrolling on X, they're scrolling on Instagram, and they're getting their news that way and engaging with content that way.
So our focus has really been on engaging with new media.
The president employed this strategy on the campaign trail, sitting down with a lot of podcasters.
And we want to make sure that we're doing that and we're also engaging on our end from the digital side and making sure that we're reaching as many people as humanly possible.
