Secretary Mark Esper and Congressman Don Bacon on Defending America
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Fantastic guest first up today, Chuck.

Dr. Mark Esper, former Secretary of Defense of the United States. He is also the author of A Sacred Oath. You can get that right now at Amazon.com. It's a New York Times bestseller. A Sacred Oath, Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times. Boy, there's no question, Mr. Secretary, you served during one heck of a period. Well, thank you, Sam, Chuck. Good to be with you guys. And I look forward to discussing all of that today with you.

Let's first talk about something you probably will qualify to discuss. The military is missing their recruiting targets. I mean, they've come out and said that only 9% of young Americans say they're interested in joining the military. Only 23% are qualified based on educational skills, physical fitness. How do we change this? I mean, the Army, which you are secretary of, is our largest force. How do we change this? That's not very good for the future.

No, it's terrible, and I appreciate you asking the question, and I wish we had two hours to discuss it. But look, the bottom line is this. When I was Secretary of the Army, only 71 percent of America's youth qualified to serve. And today, just a few years later, only 77 percent are unqualified to serve. And of those remaining, it's single digits. So look, we have a –

We have a crisis that is slowly emerging in this country when it comes to the all-volunteer force. My fear is if we don't make big changes at the national level, then we will find ourselves in a place where we will be either unable to fill the force we want, be forced to accept underqualified young people, or resort to conscription, which nobody wants.

And look, the issue is that we have these broader, larger social and democratic changes, demographic changes sweeping our country that is, you know, causing these problems in the first place. Most of the young people who don't qualify, it's due to obesity.

And then after that, you have other problems like, you know, mental health issues, physical health issues, felonies, things like that. But we have to address this problem, not just for the United States military, but for our country at large. We need our young people to be healthy and fit and able to serve at any level, whether it's national in the military or at their community level. How do we change that?

It's obviously an emergency. Yeah, I wrote about this a few months ago, and my view is it's not a problem that the Department of Defense can solve. It is a problem that needs to be highlighted, addressed, and spoken about by our nation's leaders, both in Congress and from the White House, and I would argue the governors as well. And we need programs, ideas, incentives to get America's youth back into staying fit, eating well, you know, avoiding drugs and

and bad behaviors. And we don't have that message. You know, when I grew up, we had the president's physical fitness test. Correct. And that was something that all young kids tried to do and get the patch and everything. And we don't have that anymore. Secretary Esper, one of the things, looking at this, and obviously this has accelerated this trend during COVID when people were kind of stuck at home and obviously with obesity being the number one barrier for young folks coming in. But the other thing I think we've been seeing a lot of is that

What percentage do you know what percentage of current serving military are folks who had a father or grandfather, their legacy military members? Because it almost seems to becoming a profession within certain families that the broader public just doesn't partake in.

Oh, look, it's another great point, and I'm glad you drew it out because the fact is nearly 80% of the kids serving today have a relative in the service. So it could be a brother, a sister, mom, dad, aunt, or uncle, but they have a relative in the service. So it's becoming a family business in some ways, and that's not good for civil-military relations. We can't have a nation where 1% of the American population of 332 million –

serves and defends the other 99%, particularly when more and more often our military personnel are isolated on military bases in certain parts of the country. We need to have more people involved in our military, more people aware of it that understand it, and we need to make sure we have strong bonds between civilian society and the military, or else the military becomes a caste within our own country.

Let's switch topic here real quick. So President Xi of China was out in Saudi Arabia this week. We have been one of Saudi Arabia's longest tenured allies. They have been, you know, you could say I'm a friend as far as international diplomacy goes. That seems to be losing from our grasp. And China, as we know, has long patience and they've been playing the waiting game on this. Have they created an opening there that could really hurt our national security?

Yeah, good to you guys for picking up on this because it's been largely ignored by many in the media. But yes, Xi Jinping was in Saudi Arabia meeting not just with the royals but also with other Arab countries in the region. And their play is that they want into the Middle East. They want assured access to Middle Eastern oil because they are an energy importing country. And they tried to go as far as to get the Chinese currency, the RMB, the yuan,

to be a currency, a base of currency for oil trading. So look, Xi Jinping has a broad strategic ambition. The Chinese Communist Party has said that they want to displace the United States by the year 2049.

Certainly the regional superpower, but also the global power. And to do that, they have to excel in a number of industries, and they also have to secure their access to key strategic resources, whether it's specialty metals and minerals from Africa or oil from the Middle East. And this was another play by the Chinese to do just that.

Well, let me ask you one other question. So they're also trying to have the Chinese currency replace the U.S. currency. They said they're only going to deal with, you know, buying oil from the Middle East with Chinese currency. Why should Americans be concerned about this?

Well, because we need to have the dollar being the standard reserve currency of the world. It reinforces our currency. The way we bank and handle our currency gives great strength and confidence in the predictability of the fiscal markets around the globe. And look, at the end of the day, too, it gives us the ability to

Mr. Secretary, talking about China's influence growing in the Middle East and, frankly, across the globe, the Chinese government is not going to be able to do anything about it.

they're really good right now at finding out or figuring out what a country wants and needs that it can't easily do for itself. So throughout Africa and Latin America, a lot of that's been the Belt and Road Initiative. But in the Middle East, they're out competing us by making it much easier for Saudi and some of these other countries to buy weaponry from them, right? These countries are engaged in conflict with extremists, right?

And every time they come to us, it takes a very long time for them to get any weapons systems approved for sale, whereas the Chinese, basically, it's an open shop.

Yeah, look, that's right. I mean, I'm not a fan of the Communist Party system, but one thing you can say is it has a great deal of efficiency when you're a single party run by an autocrat. And so you can make things happen far more quickly than you can in a democratic system where you have checks and balances and policies with regard to who we sell arms to and under what conditions. And so you're right.

the saudis can buy arms from them a lot more quickly um and they also uh the saudis like the fact that the chinese policy is that china will not interfere in other countries affairs and so both countries like that policy so you know a lot of times our foreign policy our arms cells in particular come with strings attached about what they can and cannot do and express our values and so

These are things that we have to deal with on the global stage, us and our Western-leaning allies as well, as we try to make sure that we deny China and other autocratic regimes what they're seeking around the world.

One of your big focuses in office was really streamlining the Department of Defense, particularly procurement, in trying to secure new weapon systems. Because we hear a lot in the newspaper about whether it's Russian or Chinese systems that are advancing beyond where the U.S. is. How vital is that? And has the Biden administration continued that path that you began? Yeah.

Look, it's very important. I made big gains as Secretary of the Army. I stood up Army Futures Command in Austin, Texas, which is a hub of innovation. And we did a number of other things to accelerate the Army's modernization. And I tried to do the same as Secretary of Defense, but had to juggle a few other things as well.

I think the Biden administration is trying to do those same things. But look, the problem is you face an intractable bureaucracy that is very risk-averse and does not want to take risks when it comes to these young, innovative startup companies that may have great ideas. And part of that risk aversion is due to – nobody wants to be called up on Capitol Hill and –

you know, chastised for not seeing a weapons program come through. So, look, we have a lot of cultural issues

hurdles and bureaucratic obstacles to deal with within DOD. But the fact of the matter is so much of the innovation is happening in these non-traditional firms who have great technologies. And we at DOD simply are not adopting them quick enough. In some cases, it takes 18 months, two years, three years before you can ever get a contract. And that's a long time for a startup to survive out there in the wilderness. Yeah, absolutely. It's an enormous amount of time. And U.S. history is replete with

pretty expensive weapon systems that we spent money on. They didn't come through, but they led to other breakthroughs.

Right, exactly. I mean, you have to accept failure. You have to take risks if you're going to do great things. And look, there's a lot of fantastic technologies out there, particularly in spaces where we didn't think about in the past, whether it's AI, machine learning, robotics, quantum physics, biotechnology. Those things aren't happening at many of the traditional defense firms. They're happening a lot in Silicon Valley and places like that.

Yeah, absolutely. I think when we come back for the next segment, we wanted to talk about the Space Force because I thought that was, frankly, a signature accomplishment of yours and of the Trump administration that people at the time didn't treat fairly. And that since –

We haven't seen the Biden administration try to roll that back. It's incredibly important for our future, Chuck, to have that capability. Absolutely. We've got just about a minute and a half before we go to break here. Folks, Secretary Mark Esper, 27th, I believe, sir, the 27th Secretary of Defense of the United States.

23rd Secretary of the Army. You can get his book, A Sacred Oath, Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense during extraordinary times right now on Amazon.com. And I haven't read it yet, I have to admit, but Chuck has. He's scoured through it this weekend. Where else can our audience find you and learn more about your writings and so forth?

Well, I have a website, marktesper.com, where I have a lot of my writings and media appearances and other information about me and what I did during my tenure at DOD. Fantastic. Before we head to break here, we have just a very quick segment. If you were telling folks right now who are considering their kid was considering a military career, what would you tell them to focus on in school?

I would tell them that the military is a great place to serve. You'll never regret serving your country. You will learn extraordinary skills from, you know, arriving to work on time and organizing yourself and working as a team, but also leadership and responsibilities and all those important things that once you leave the service, a civilian employer will scoop you up in a minute and you'll only go on to do greater and bigger things. Fantastic. We'll be coming right back with more from Secretary Mark Esper.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us right now, former Secretary of Defense Dr. Mark Esper. Dr. Esper, thank you so much for joining us today. During your time as Secretary of Defense, we actually launched the U.S. Space Force during that period.

And I was actually surprised. I thought that was a brilliant and necessary move by the Trump administration. But I was surprised at the amount of pushback from the broader media and folks. There were a lot of memes and jokes made about it.

But a Space Force right now at this time, that's no joking matter, is it? No, absolutely. I thought it was a great initiative as well. You know, it's implemented by the Bush, I'm sorry, by the Trump administration, but it began in Congress as well. And so there was, you know, two branches of government supporting this. And look, in the future, and as it is now, space will be the ultimate high ground, the domain in which we're going to see continue challenges by countries like China,

Russia and China. And so it was very important that we create that as a warfighting domain and put a command in charge of it. And, you know, the history between the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army was a guide and was what convinced me that this was a great way to move forward.

There's been for a number of years a sort of theory, I think more an academic theory than a functional political one, that we should not weaponize space and that there should be some sort of gentleman's agreement to avoid that. But the truth is we can't sit by because if we don't take on this area, China is going to do it. Russia is going to do it.

Yeah, look, absolutely. It'd be great not to weaponize space because so much of our – not just our security, but really our economy, our business, our lives are driven by what's up in space. An ATM transaction or navigating your car from point A to point B relies on assets in space. But the fact is the Chinese and Russians have weaponized it.

They have demonstrated the means to knock satellites out of the heavens. And so we have to be prepared to defend the country, our economy, our way of life from those types of threats. So it's the world we live in. How much of the innovation in that area right now is being driven by U.S. government spending versus how much is coming from these companies like SpaceX and the others that are exploring commercial space?

Well, you know, so much of it's interrelated. SpaceX, I think, has DOD contracts in many other countries as well. But it has been the companies like SpaceX who've broken through with regard to cheaper, quicker access to space in a way that we couldn't do it before without relying on the Russians. And then there are other satellite producers, other companies that are putting instruments in space that are absolutely critical

to our security. So again, this gets back to the innovation ecosystem and so much of it is happening in areas where – and in garages and startups where young people are coming up with great ideas to try and move us forward.

We're with Dr. Mark T. Esper, 27th Secretary of Defense for the United States. He just wrote a book called The Sacred Oath. I recommend you pick it up at Amazon. I got mine at Barnes & Noble, so there's a plug there for Barnes & Noble. As you wrote this book, there's a quote I've always read that came across my mind. It said, we write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

As you wrote your book and you looked at it with some retrospection, what did you learn writing the book that you wish you had known when you were actually serving?

Yeah, it's a great question. And the easy answer is there's so much more I wish I'd known in many ways because, you know, at the time you're living the job, you're going through it, you're fighting the fight every minute, every hour of the day, and you don't have time necessarily always to step back and see the bigger picture or to dig a little bit deeper here and there. And so as I wrote, because I knew I was writing for history and a very important part of our history from a

cabinet officer, I try to be very objective and accurate and fair. And so what I'd done is I'd divvied out chapters of my book to, I think, nearly 3,000 four-star officers and senior civilians and others throughout the government. And when they came back to me with comments, I learned things that I just didn't know at the time that

Maybe this was happening behind the scenes that I was not aware of, or there was a certain gap in terms of what we were doing that I wasn't tracking. And so you learn things in the process, but it helped me, I think, at the end, craft a fuller, better story about these tumultuous, you know, my 18 months as Secretary of Defense, but I also addressed my time as Secretary of the Army as well.

Well, it's interesting. I mean, how many of your predecessors in the Department of Defense who were secretaries wrote books? Do you know? Well, you know, in some corners there was criticism for writing the books, but I had quickly pointed out that nearly all of my predecessors wrote books. And so this is not an unusual thing to write books. Actually, I think it's good. It's part of –

Americans should know their history. They should know how government works or doesn't work. And I think it's important for folks to tell these stories and to give greater transparency. It only helps us get better, not worse. It's important to memorialize all those things. Well, yeah, it'd be nice if you had time if you're for the next, the 29th one or 30th that they read, you know, a sacred oath and the other ones, because you can learn so much from it. For example, you would learn that we don't have 250,000 troops to put on the Mexican border.

They don't exist, right? Right. That's right. I mean, it sounds good on Fox News, but it's not reality.

It's not reality. I did read Bob Gates' book. I did find instructive parts in there. So one of the audiences I wrote to, I wrote for in my book, was not just the American people but for people in government, particularly in DOD, to give them insights into how I was thinking, how I was trying to navigate through a process and not just share my wins with them but my places where I made mistakes as well because they need to learn from those things themselves.

Also, again, if I can benefit some future leader, some future sec def or undersecretary, then it's all worth it because I think it's too important for our country that we have to get these things right and better. Dr. Esper, we have one minute left. What is the message you can leave our audience about why America is the greatest nation in the world and why she's worth fighting for?

because it's based on that beautiful document called the United States Constitution that was crafted so thoughtfully over 240 years ago. And it's our guide, and it's the oath that we take to guide us while in office, hence the title of my book, A Sacred Oath. So I think it's critical at the end of the day that anybody serving in government in whatever branch make sure they understand that oath and take it seriously because that oath is to the Constitution and to the values and principles inside it.

not to a president, not to a party, not to a political philosophy. And I think if everybody stays focused on that oath, we could do so much better together instead of fighting from opposite sides of the aisle. No question this would be a better country if all of our high-serving public officials did just that. Secretary Mark Esper, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Good talking with you. Thank you. Well, Chuck, how's your portfolio looking?

Well, I've invested in YRefi, so it's looking fantastic. See, I need to do the same thing because I am concerned about stock market volatility, especially with Joe Biden in office. And there is a portfolio out there, folks, that you can invest in with a high fixed rate of return that's not correlated to the stock market.

A portfolio where you'll know what each monthly statement will look like with no surprises, where you can turn your monthly income on or off, compound it, whatever you choose. There's no loss of principal if you need your money back at any time. Your interest is compounded daily. You're paid monthly and there are no fees.

So it's a pretty good deal. And this is a secure, collateralized portfolio, delivers a high fixed interest rate. And by investing, you can do well for yourself by doing good for others. So talk to our friends at YRefi. They are local. You can meet with them. They are trustworthy and honest. Chuck is an investor.

And they are a due diligence approved firm. You can earn up to a 10.25% rate of return. That's right, 10.25%. So folks, just log on to investyrefi.com. That's invest, the letter Y, then refi.com. Or call them at 888-YREFI24. That's investyrefi.com or call 888-YREFI24. And make sure you tell our friends at YREFI that Chuck and Sam sent you.

Breaking Battlegrounds coming back in just a moment. You deserve a home that's beautiful and stylish. At Overstock, you don't have to choose between low prices and quality. Find new on-trend home goods that reflect your taste and don't compromise on value. You can be proud of your home and design a space where you feel like you, all under budget. Plus, you get free shipping on everything in the continental United States. Overstock is where quality furniture and decor cost less. Welcome back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. On the line with us, our next guest today, U.S. Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. Congressman Bacon also served in the Air Force for 30 years, retiring as a brigadier general. Very impressive career, first helping serve and defend this country and now in Congress, helping guide its future. Congressman Bacon, thank you so much for joining us today.

Well, thank you so much, Chuck and Sam. I look forward to this. And my greetings to all your listeners. Well, so you are obviously an expert in national security and defense issues based on both your experience in Congress and in the Air Force. Congressman, what do you see as the biggest threat facing America's future today?

I look at things domestically and, you know, internationally. So on the international front, Russia is no doubt the near-term acute threat, as the administration says. I hate to always hate to agree with them in this case, but I think they're right here. But Russia is doing everything they can to undermine us, whether it's in the cyber world, with our alliances, with, you know, energy. They are dedicated to weakening our country. The long-term threat is clearly China. They're

Their economy is nearing ours and GDP. They're building a nuclear force to match ours. They want to be the biggest power in Asia now and globally in about 20 or 30 years. And then we have still threats like Iran trying to build a nuclear weapons. We've got a lot of international threats. But I also say domestically, I'm more worried about getting our country where we can be Republicans and Democrats but not hate each other. Despite this radical...

anger and hyper vitriolic hate towards the other side of the aisle is not good for our country we got to find ways to work together if we want to be able to compete against China and Russia and and be the dominant economic power in the world in the in the decades to come so I worry about a little bit about the unity and the and the ability just to work together across the aisle we got to do better let me ask you this question I I find interesting is that's an interesting point you're making

You're labeled by some as a moderate, but yet you voted 85% of the time with Donald Trump. If we can't even get to a definition of what a moderate is, I mean, in no real world are you a moderate. You're a conservative legislator. You're pro-life. You are a general in the Air Force, and you're now a moderate? How does this happen?

I was actually 93% until the election. And then they marked me down because I voted to certify and so other things. But actually, a lot of the pragmatic Republicans had a higher...

agreement with President Trump than the Freedom Caucus. It actually was in the 80s. And so some of this stuff is sort of backwards. And, you know, I'm a conservative, but I also want our country to work. And I'm willing to work across the aisle to find areas we agree on. If I could get our border more secure,

Fighting areas of agreement with Democrats, that's better than demanding 100 percent and getting zero. Sometimes people who demand 100 percent, they get rated higher. But yet if you can fight some areas of agreement, then our country moves forward. That's what I want to do. I have always said that if you find a politician who agrees with you 100 percent of the time, you've found a liar.

Congressman, when you were talking about rebuilding that sort of American spirit, the ability to talk across the aisle, to have decent conversations, I thought that was a really good point because at the end of the day, the United States' strength has always been in our unity and our national purpose, and that is really missing right now.

We're not going to be able to compete with China, compete with Russia, remain the dominant economic power unless we find areas of agreement across the South. If you hate the other side so much that you don't care if our country falls behind China, well, we've got a problem. So my colleagues say, you know, we want to burn the place down. Well, that's not healthy. That's not healthy for our country. I want America to be this –

the greatest country in the world for my grandkids and my great-grandkids. And we've got to protect this country.

constitutional republic and this free market system and and so that we can thrive in you know for 100 years to go i want my great great great grandkids to be thriving in this great country but we got we got to do that now and and and it takes working with folks that we disagree with but you got to find areas that you can come together and make you know i believe in hitting singles if you can't hit home runs or doubles okay let's hit singles that's better than striking out the

Fantastic. Congressman, we're going to go to break here in just one minute. Before we do, folks, we're talking to Congressman Don Bacon, who represents Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. Congressman Bacon served nearly 30 years in the U.S. Air Force. He was awarded the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal, two Legions of Merit, two Bronze Stars, and was selected as Europe's top Air Force Wing Commander in 2009. Congressman, how do folks stay in touch with you and keep up with your work?

On Twitter, on the political side, it's Don J. Bacon. On the official side, it's Rep. Don Bacon. And my website's www.donjbacon.com. Fantastic. We'd love to have people stay in touch. Breaking Battlegrounds will be coming right back with more from Congressman Bacon in just a moment.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts, Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us right now, Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. Congressman Bacon, you served almost three decades in the United States Air Force. You're now been a congressman. I believe this is your third or fourth term. What has surprised you about both jobs?

And what did you learn in both jobs? You know, the main thing about leadership, I think this also applies to on the political side. People have to trust you. And it's all about trust. And the foundation of trust is character. You know, having the integrity to be honest, to be selfless about putting other people before yourself. Also having moral courage.

to do the hard things that may not be popular. But when you do those things, people, you earn that trust. And I tell you, in the military, trust is the coin of the realm. If people don't trust you, they're not going to follow you into battle. So I think the foundation of military leadership is that trust and character. Another thing that I found very important in the military is you realize how important alliances are. America's the strongest military in the world. We have the strongest economy in the world. But we cannot face...

Russia with NATO, Iran in the Middle East, China in the Far East. You can't conduct wars against terrorists like al-Qaeda by yourself. We are the indispensable power, but in the end it's going to take NATO countries, Japan, Australia, hopefully India down the road, these free countries. We've got to work together if we want to defend NATO.

uh... the values of free countries so those are some of the mikey takes a takeaways from the military on the political side or on the congressional side i realized in the one fifteen congress that while we were passing

records amount of legislation out of the House. It was great conservative legislation. None of it, or hardly none of it, was getting passed in the Senate. So after two years, I looked at myself and I go, well, we really feel good in the House. We passed all this great legislation. But very little of it got passed out of the Senate. What do I learn from that? Well, in the end, if you...

you've got to get sixty votes in the senate even a republican health senate you gotta get enough democrats on board to get legislation passed which means you got to accept instead of a hundred percent maybe sixty percent or seventy percent it depends on you know what the majorities are in both houses so i learned after the one-fifteenth

You've got to become part of bipartisan teams and find ways you can make deals that both sides can agree to. And it may be half of what you want, half of what they want, but that's the only way you get things done. So in the 116th Congress and the 117th Congress, I've been part of bipartisan teams trying to figure out what can we agree on that we can get out of the House and the Senate and pass. Because

America cannot afford to be stuck in neutral. I want to be in fifth gear, but I can't get in fifth gear because that's just the way the system of government is built. So if I can get it in second gear, I'll take it. Yeah, that would be sort of it. So it's sort of don't don't let the perfect defeat the good. Absolutely. And I tell you, we have people in Congress that demand perfection. And James Madison designed a system of government that makes it hard to do. Well, that's a good point, because our system is designed for compromise between the parties.

It doesn't work without it, and yet you have a lot of elected officials and the bases in both parties demanding that their elected leadership not compromise. How do we start messaging them that, hey –

To have the world you want, you have to give some folks on the other side of the aisle something of what they want also. Yeah, James Madison designed a system, and in the Federalist Papers, he is quoted as saying, he built a system to have ambition counter ambition.

and that no one faction, that's what they called parties back at that point, that no one faction could control government. But he did a pretty good job of it with the bicameral legislature and through branches of government and all the separations of power. But I think we start by saying, I don't use the word compromise. That sort of has become a bad word in our political dialogue today. I talk about consensus building.

Common sense governance. We want to govern. And also how I try to broach the subject that if you want, we've got to govern. If we don't govern, America will not be the first great power, you know, 10 years from now. And so it's about finding consensus and agreement, vice compromise. That's sort of how I phrase it.

Congressman, I did not know until I read the information that I was given by our fantastic assistant here, Kylie Kipper, that we had a foster youth caucus. But you are co-chairman of the Foster Youth Caucus Association.

It's a huge issue here in Arizona with our foster system. Tell me what that does and what your focus on there is. You know, my background is my wife and I, we met at 18, got married at 20. We had two sons early in our marriage. And as we got older, we thought, well, we'd like to have a bigger family. Should we have a kid of our own? And then we prayed on it. And we just felt, well, you know, so many kids in foster care looking for homes. So we ended up through foster care adopting a brother and a sister.

They were eight, nine years old. Today they're 26 and 27. And it's been, first of all, extraordinarily challenging when they're teenagers. And we look at ourselves like, what did we just do here after we did this for four or five years? But today they're such wonderful sons and daughters. My daughters are darn near our neighbor, married, going on with their second child, a great mom, great wife, great daughter. And it's just one of the pride moments.

one of our prides of our life, watching how both our son and daughter have grown up. But it got me involved in the foster care caucus. We have 400,000 kids in foster care, and these kids who age out of foster care, they're the number one group of homeless folks in their 20s and 30s.

They're the most primary kids who are being trafficked and drug abuse. Because what happens is these kids age out of foster care. They don't have anybody they can fall back on. They don't have a safety net. And so we're trying to come up with ways to transition them. Yeah, it's horrible what we do to them. I mean, here in Arizona, they're literally kicked out of the foster home they're living in and given a trash bag to put their belongings in. And that's it.

Bye-bye.

You give them a mentor. Like I talked to a kid that was 23 years old that came out of foster care. He hadn't had health care since he was 18. I said, why? He says, because I told him there's community health centers. He goes walking to a community health center. They'll take care of it. Well, he didn't know. So part of this is giving them access to the resources that are there

But extending those resources for housing and trades and education, that's what I've been working on. Helping them get access to the trades, housing stuff, access to a mentor that can help them find the resources they need, and helping them get off the streets and a pathway to being a successful, productive adult. And I'm involved in other areas. I'm trying to influence...

states to make it a priority to keep siblings together. You know, if you're put into a foster care situation and you're also separated from your brothers and sisters, it's even more traumatic. We're trying to find ways to help on their first day of foster care, helping, you know, advocating for states to give them five sets of clothing. A lot of these kids only have the clothes on their back, right? Also, you'll find your foster care kids have

I have a hard time getting a driver's license because it's just not in the priorities of the foster parents to do so. So we're trying to help these kids get their driver's license easier. So there's a whole different way, a lot of variety of ways we can help make foster care better. I'm a big advocate for Boys Town. We have Boys Town here in Omaha. I love this institution.

institution. I'm a big partner of it. And so this is just one of my callings. I'm a general. I'm about national security. But foster care is very important to me. Well, I personally would like to thank you for doing that because it's a huge hole in our system. And quite frankly, folks, if you're listening out there, while that might sound like spending money, the truth is at the end of the day, it's not spending money. It's actually going to save us money long term when we don't have to provide for homeless shelters and all those other things for these kids.

If you invest in these 20-year-olds and get them into the trades and get them that pathway, you're right. We're saving money in the long run, and you're saving a life. Exactly. Congressman Bacon, you are a co-chairman of the Electronic Warfare Working Group.

That's an issue Sam and I talk about a lot, but if we talked about it to anybody else, they sort of rolled their eyes. What are you talking about? Why is this an important working group and what is the threat to the United States about it? Well, you know, there's all of our land, sea, air, space issues.

All the domains, that's what we call warfighting domains, they all use the electronic magnetic spectrum, whether it's radar, radios, GPS, I could go on and on. And we were so dominant in the electronic magnetic spectrum in the 80s and 90s, we literally kicked Iraq's butt in this area. And it enabled us...

to bomb wherever we wanted to bomb and had freedom of maneuver because we dominated the electronic magnetic spectrum. But we were so dominant in the 90s that the military decided to not fund

electronic warfare, war fighting in this domain. And over time, we just atrophied. And I was an electronic warfare officer. I was a jammer on a platform called the EC-130s. I was also a signals intelligence guy in the RC-135s. It was all electronic warfare related.

But by the time I was a general in 2011 and 12 and 13 and 14, I was working in base command but also at the Pentagon, I told the three and four stars, we have fallen behind. China and Russia studied us, and they embraced what we were doing.

what we were doing electronic warfare in the 90s and they made it a priority and to the point where they had better electronic warfare capabilities than we did and as a one-star tried to advocate for it but there wasn't any attraction there wasn't any desire but they want bombers they want subs they want aircraft carriers and fighters and electronic warfare just wasn't a sexy thing to to spend money on well lo and behold i get elected to congress

I wrote it in the law that they're going to have a two-star general in charge of electronic warfare in the joint staff, one-stars in the services. They're going to have electronic warfare strategy, implementation plans, funding lines. I am the only electronic warfare guy in Congress, so I just sort of took it. And today we have a strategy leadership team.

and plans and funding like we've not had in two or three decades. And basically I wrote it in the law, and I bring them in about once a quarter, and I say, what are you doing? I want to see results. There was a lot of talk for years, and I'm tired of the talk. I want to see action. What are we doing? I feel like we're pointed the right way and going the right way, but it's taken a big stick.

And Congress to make it happen. Yeah. Congressman, I was I was talking the other day with a guy who's looking at potentially running for Congress, and he is a professor of space sciences at Arizona State University. A lot of high tech materials and that sort of thing that he works on in his lab.

One of the things I like about him is he would go there with that unique experience, just like you were just talking about with your background in electronic warfare, you being the only person in Congress who has that background. How much does that give you the ability to talk to people, other members of Congress, even on the other side of the aisle?

and say, hey, look, this is an area I really do know about, and you can get things done because of that expertise? Long story short, right up front, it makes a big difference. I had a lot of credibility with folks across the aisle and in our own party, and I said, hey, I want to write this into law. We need it.

nobody's in charge of electronic warfare the military they'd also a everybody's a charge of our bridge a church notice a charge as also i want to start general in the joint staff i think it's always about when this is a work of right and we need to have somebody responsible for these programs and i just wrote a lot we made it happen so we got to start general today that's gonna run e_w_

But when I was in the military, I couldn't make it happen as a one-star. They were just – they wanted to spend money on ships, planes, tanks, and EW wasn't – On things they know. Congressman Bacon, I am so pleased you were able to join us today. We can't thank you enough. We would love to have you back on the program again. And thank you for your service both in Congress and to this country.

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