House Republicans have come under fire from the White House after including several conservative amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed last week, but Rep. Mark Alford, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Newsmax Sunday that the bill passed as a hard-fought battle for bipartisan legislation.
"This is a long-fought, hard-fought battle to make this a bipartisan bill that we can get some passage hopefully through the Senate as well," the Missouri Republican said on Newsmax's "Sunday Agenda." "But we are putting $886 million worth of taxpayers' investments into rehabilitating our military."
That means "ending the wokeness programs that have debilitated, have infiltrated our military," Alford added. "We are getting them out of there. The drag queen shows that you've heard about, the digital ambassador program trying to recruit others of like mind into the military."
Meanwhile, the United States must rebuild its naval assets, and the bill puts "more money into building more ships to try to deter the Communist Chinese Party," said Alford.
The "woke" actions in the military did not happen under former President Donald Trump, but under the Biden administration, he said.
"It happened in the last Congress," Alford said. "The CRT [critical race theory] classes were brought into the military. The diversity-equity inclusion was brought into the military. We're getting rid of that. We told Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [Mark] Millie and Secretary of Defense [Lloyd] Austin this has no place in the military. The drag queen shows on Navy ships and military bases have no place."
And even while recruitment is down, Alford said he doesn't think the answer to that is loosening standards so the branches of the military are taking less than qualified recruits.
"I'm hearing from drill sergeants in the military right now ... they're spending a lot of time just getting our couch potato generation into shape where they can actively do pushups and situps and run long distances. We have a problem in America. We have an obesity problem. We have a fitness problem. I think we have a mental fitness problem in a lot of areas."
That means it will take a "little creativity" to get the best recruits possible, Alford said.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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