During today's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to consider the nominations of several ambassadors, Trump NSA Mike Waltz claimed the private sector could fight Russian and Chinese propaganda and do a better job than the US State Department has.
This was a farcical answer. Corporations have no interest in doing the job of the State Department, and they are not equipped to handle such an undertaking, nor should they be.
Sen. Chris Murphy outlined Trump's decimation of our foreign services to Trump's former NSA, Mike Waltz, and asked him how that helps the US.
MURPHY: Why did you believe that it advanced U.S. national security interests to shut down our most important agencies that try to win the information war, which is a, which is a war that whether we like it or not exists in this world and we're not fighting it today while our adversaries are?
WALTZ: Thank you for the question and I think we're in violent agreement that we have to win the information war.
Violent disagreement is one way to look at it. Trump has taken a sledge hammer jackhammer to our entire infrastructure with no reason or forethought.
Waltz claimed that US services have been ineffective in combating Russian and Chinese propaganda.
WALTZ: [We are outpaced in many ways] in the information space, yet for decades, we've had these entities that have become expensive and quite bloated.
I think the best way to block and tackle our adversaries abroad is through our amazing private sector, through innovation, through, uh, what we're seeing in our leadership role, uh, in AI and in other spaces.
And so as, uh, the president, as the secretary looked across, uh, the interagency and those uh, entities, uh, they made those decisions.
If an administration truly believes these services have been ineffective, you don't fire it all and replace it it with nothing. Trump just wanted to cut, period.
MURPHY: But the private sector isn't going to fight Russian and Chinese propaganda around the world, right?
I mean, that has to be an essential function of U.S. national security policy, correct?
Well, uh, what they are going to do is show the power of free markets through the power of entrepreneurship and, and show, uh, really the, the power of the U.S. uh, in terms of a free society and, and, uh, with our values.
Frankly, but I don't think, I think we're actually, I think we're actually more aligned than what you think.
And what we were looking at is the actual effectiveness, uh, it's the tool, uh, that, uh, that we questioned and then the, you know, the president, the secretary made a decision to reallocate resources.
Listen, I, I hope the administration does rethink this.
