Everybody should be concerned about the military's readiness, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, who lost his right eye while serving as a U.S. Navy SEAL in Afghanistan, said in a wide-ranging interview airing on Newsmax on Sunday.
"Every year, when we do a continuing resolution for the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act], it hurts our military's ability to purchase new weapons again," the Texas Republican said on Newsmax's "Conversations With Nancy Brinker," during which he also talked about the decisions leading to his choice to join the military and to enter politics.
He called it a "crazy talking point" when people say passing the NDAA, which will be presented in Congress on Monday, serves to "enrich" the military-industrial complex.
"The problem is, there is no military-industrial complex like there used to be," Crenshaw said. "That's actually the problem. We can't build these weapons and these ships the way we need to be building them. Our entire military-industrial complex was basically reordered for counterterrorism operations and it became just a bunch of contractors and trainers that went overseas. We don't have what we need."
Another issue is that the reputation of the military is suffering because of reports that it has become too socially conscious, or "woke," Crenshaw said.
"That's affecting recruitment. But reputation aside, there's a problem in general with the health and well-being of young people," said Crenshaw, noting that there is an issue with people being able to meet the physical standards required for military service.
As for his own decision to join the military, Crenshaw said he read some books as a child about the Navy SEALS and followed his childhood dreams.
Crenshaw also spoke out about "election deniers" and said a lot of GOP candidates lost this election cycle because they made such claims the centerpiece of their campaigns.
"We lost [when] we shouldn't have lost," he said. "We lost seats in North Carolina and New Hampshire, in Michigan and in Washington that we should not have lost. These are supposed to be easy Republican seats. We almost lost in Colorado. That's an easy Republican seat to win."
Further, he said it was a mistake to go with the "old rule" in thinking the most conservative candidate in a primary would win a general election.
"It's this desire for constant but also meaningless conflict that I think characterizes a lot of these candidates," said Crenshaw. "It's just this chest-thumping. It's just nonsense. It's very clear they don't know a whole lot about policy, that they're just there to get TikTok famous."
Crenshaw also spoke out as a veteran about the situation between Ukraine and Russia and said he finds it to be a "very strange position" that some in his party are taking against aid for the Ukrainians.
"You're talking to 23% of our annual GDP [gross domestic product] or annual defense budget, and we've basically cratered the Russians' ability to ever invade another country again," he said. "This has not drawn us into an actual war; we have not lost a single American soldier; and yet one of our major adversaries has been kneecapped, while Ukrainians do all the fighting."
Crenshaw also said he doesn't see Russia as an existential threat to the United States, but he does see it as a threat to global stability.
"Things are interconnected in ways that you don't understand, so you actually do have to care about what happens around the world," he said. "Should we care more about the cartels on our southern border? Yes, we should. This doesn't have to be this or the other kind of choice. Don't make this a false choice."
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