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In our latest edition, we're grateful to have an interview with Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), who spoke with us about national security, Tim Walz’s record in Congress, higher education, the 2024 Senate map, and much more!
By: Matthew Foldi
Although the Senate is up for grabs this November, no one doubts that Rep. Jim Banks will successfully take Indiana’s open seat. Banks spoke with the Washington Reporter about the 2024 election, his former colleague Tim Walz, combatting China, and how to punish colleges that are hotbeds of antisemitism.
In an extended interview, Banks showcased just how eager the GOP is to attack Walz over a variety of veterans-related issues that go well beyond accusations that the Minnesota governor inflated his resume from the start of his political career.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign inaccurately claimed that Walz “chaired Veterans Affairs,” while Banks noted that Walz’s voting record in Congress showed that he “is more interested in playing politics with our veterans than in serving them in a bipartisan way” (last week, Banks, who said Walz “lied about” his military service, also wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “demanding that [Austin] make Governor Walz’s military record transparent and available to the public”). While in Congress, Walz also opposed the bipartisan VA MISSION Act, which Banks hailed as a “top two or three achievement of President Trump.”
Click HERE to read more from Rep. Jim Banks on higher education, defense policy, and how Republicans should tackle Tim Walz’s record on veterans.
In your work on the Armed Services Committee, you’re a leading voice in advanced weapons development, particularly in the Air Force. Why is this important to you?
Matthew Foldi
Editor-in-Chief
The biggest threat to America today is China, and Donald Trump’s the first president in my lifetime, Republican or Democrat, who named China as a threat to America economically and militarily. The leaders of our country, on both sides, have had their heads stuck in the sand, not focusing on modernizing our military so that we can beat China in a war, and more important than that, deter China. That means developing sophisticated new technologies, and that’s been my focus on the Armed Services Committee. I co-chaired the Future Defense Task Force. I co-chair the Hypersonics Caucus. But at the end of the day, I’m most focused on making sure that our defense priorities reflect the threats coming from China, not head in the sand, antiquated threats of the past. I’ve served on the House Armed Services Committee, my hope is to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee and to be a leader in that space and to do what we have to do to make sure that our pivot and our focus is toward China and not the threats of the past.
Rep. Jim Banks
(R., Ind.)
There are reports we’re covering about the Biden-Harris defense department prioritizing DEI spending over plans for a sixth generation fighter jet. How seriously do you think this administration is taking defense policy?
Matthew Foldi
Editor-in-Chief
If you go back to the very beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, they were more focused on woke causes at the same time that they were gearing toward the disastrous pullout in Afghanistan. What happened to Afghanistan could have been entirely different if the Biden-Harris team was more focused on national security instead of all of the woke crap that they were focused on. Whether it’s emerging technologies, next generation equipment or platforms, none of that has ever been a priority of this administration. President Trump in the next term is going to have to completely, completely overhaul the Pentagon to focus on modernizing the Pentagon, but also getting the Department of Defense back to what it should be focused on, which is training for and preparing to win wars and fight wars and deter wars, most importantly, than all of the woke political crap that Biden-Harris has been focused on.
Rep. Jim Banks
(R., Ind.)
House:
Senate:
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By: Matthew Foldi
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s Department of Defense (DOD) is sacrificing billions of dollars of military readiness to prioritize woke policies, defense hawks and former officials told the Washington Reporter.
The program for a sixth-generation fighter jet, known as the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter (NGAD), has been in motion for almost 10 years. DOD pulled the plug on future funding for the program, with critics contending that domestic politics are trumping national security.
Former Secretaries of the Air Force under Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama have said that the program is crucial for keeping a technological edge over China. Experts in both parties say that the next-generation fighter jet technology is crucial for national security, especially as China continues its developments of advanced drones and other jets. Congress has fully funded and supported this program, and even Europe is proceeding with plans for NGADs of its own.
One senior Trump administration national security official told the Reporter that it is “outrageous that Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks are sacrificing America’s lead in sixth generation fighters in a gift to China,” adding that “they might as well hand Taiwan over to the CCP now and save us all a lot of time. They’re squandering $10 billion already spent on this program while fully funding woke bureaucrats.”
Click HERE to read more about the Biden-Harris DOD prioritizing DEI over our next generation of fighter jets.
By: Matthew Foldi
Democrats have raised almost $500 million on the Democratic Party’s go-to online fundraising platform ActBlue since President Joe Biden bowed out of his reelection campaign. Now, Democrats should distance themselves from the site, which has in the past faced increased scrutiny from state and federal lawmakers for hosting organizations tied to Palestinian terrorists, and for questionable accounting practices “until we can figure out what the hell is going on,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) told the Washington Reporter.
Republican attorneys general such as Virginia’s Jason Miyares have questioned the platform for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars of contributions “in volumes that are facially implausible and appear suspicious” based on his investigations.
Issa’s remarks to the Reporter are his strongest salvo yet against the Democrats’ platform, and they build on years of scrutiny he’s applied to the fundraising giant. Starting in 2023, Issa — a longtime GOP oversight hawk — began working to force the platform to oust from its site organizations like the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). According to reports in the Washington Examiner, PACBI is “linked to Palestinian terrorism and violating federal law.” Although the organization was ultimately removed from the platform, Issa wanted to discover how it was listed on the platform in the first place.
Click HERE to read more about the problems ActBlue is facing from state and federal lawmakers.
By: Matthew Foldi
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s administration is under fire for its “failure to adequately address the criminal, violent actions of pro-terror, anti-Israel protesters on federal property.” At its center is Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who has “completely ignored” repeated requests from Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) to support the U.S. Park Police (USPP).
In a letter first reported by the Washington Reporter, Barrasso blasted Haaland for repeatedly letting “a string of violent uprisings on federal property in our nation’s capital” go unpunished. Last month, a “mob of thousands” illegally occupied federal property in Washington, D.C, vandalizing federal property. Almost no protesters have been prosecuted.
“According to Kenneth Spencer, the Chairman of the United States Park Police Fraternal Order of Police (USPP FOP), ‘[d]espite having only 29 officers available to mitigate damage – 29! – with no additional help from the Department of the Interior [DOI], we processed several arrests for charges ranging from assault on a police officer to destruction of government property,’” the Wyoming lawmaker wrote.
Click HERE to read more from Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) on holding the Department of Interior accountable for letting pro-Hamas rioters destroy property across America.
By: Matthew Foldi
Republicans are highlighting Gov. and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s (D., Minn.) penchant for socialism in a new nationwide ad campaign, first debuted in the Washington Reporter.
In the ad debuting nationwide, the Republican State Legislative Committee (RSLC) leveraged Walz’s remark that “one person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness” to argue that “socialism starts in the states, so when we say we’re the last line of defense, we mean it.”
“Just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist,” the ad says. Images of the violent riots that swept Walz’s state in 2020 flash on screen as the ad lists the elements of Walz’s gubernatorial tenure: “Rioting, looting, and anarchy. Crime and murder. Driver’s licenses for illegals. And that was only the beginning.”
“Socialism truly begins at the state level, especially in places like Minnesota where extreme Democrat Tim Walz and his liberal state legislature have had free reign to implement one of the most radical agendas of any state in the country,” RSLC’s President Dee Duncan said upon the ad’s release.
Click HERE to watch the RSLC’s new nationwide ad on how radical Gov. Tim Walz is. The Reporter previously published an op-ed from state Rep. Lisa Demuth on Walz’s real record, in addition to our new op-ed from Rep. Tom Emmer below.
By: Rep. Tom Emmer
Who is Gov. Tim Walz? Having both served with him in Congress and lived in Minnesota under Walz’s tenure as governor, I can tell you he’s a left-wing radical who embodies the same disastrous economic, open-borders, and soft-on-crime policies that Vice President Kamala Harris has inflicted on our country for the last four years. But don’t take my word for it. One look at Walz’s record tells Americans everything they need to know.
On the economy, Walz has been a fervent supporter of the Harris-Biden administration’s reckless spending policies that led to record-breaking inflation on the backs of hardworking Minnesotans. He endorsed their so-called Inflation Reduction Act and American Rescue Plan, which even Obama-era economist Larry Summers warned would “set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.” Now, the average Minnesota household has been forced to spend $30,427 more due to inflation since January 2021, with the average household paying nearly $1,200 more per month to purchase the same basket of goods and services.
Walz’s economic decisions on the homefront haven’t been much better. He allowed the far-left Minnesota legislature to pass an additional $8 billion in new taxes and fees after they blew through $17.5 billion in surplus. In his first budget as governor, Walz proposed increasing the gas tax by 70 percent, which would have resulted in Minnesota having the fourth-highest gas tax in the country.
Click HERE to read more from Rep. Tom Emmer on how Gov. Tim Walz’s “folksy demeanor” will only go so far. Click HERE to read our interview with Rep. Emmer, in which he warned that Walz is a “broken down mule” at best.
By: Rep. Tim Walberg
As parents prepare their children for another school year, lawmakers must turn our attention to improving results for all children across the country.
Earlier this summer, you may have seen a video of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that went viral for showing how school choice can create brighter futures for every child, regardless of where they live.
This is a discussion America desperately needs to have.
Despite historic investments in education, we’re seeing many schools flat-out fail our next generation. In Chicago, two out of three students in third through eighth grade cannot read proficiently. Yes, you read that right.
In the viral video, former Secretary Rice argues that school choice already exists across America; however, it is mainly available to those who have the means to move to a different neighborhood or those who can afford alternative schooling. As a result, most parents have no other choice than to send their children back to the same schools — effectively locking them into the failing system.
School choice provides options for families to choose the learning environment that best suits their child’s individual learning style, interests, and academic goals.
Click HERE to read more on the case for school choice from Rep. Tim Walberg.
