Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee

Um, Gingrich, uh, uh, as you say, he was, he was interested in defense issues.

He actually served on the Defense Policy Board for a while, which is a, a group of outside civilians that advises the Defense Department on various things.

Um, but he's always had this kind of like, "I'm looking to the future" sort of thing, where, you know, he's talking about moon bases and, uh, he spent years worrying that, like, we were gonna get hit by an electromagnetic pulse attack.

And it's all kind of, like, crankery, [chuckles] you know? Um, and so, uh, you know, Gingrich has always had these sort of, these weird strains in his whole personality and public persona that, you know, he, he is...

He never served in the military.

He's been on the Defense Policy Board, has taught at various military colleges and universities.

So he's a surprise there.

Knows the ways of Washington.

But there used to be, like, higher standards.

Like, I remember in the years after 9/11, Richard Perle had to leave, um, the, uh, the Defense Policy Board because he was also advising companies.

And his links, uh, this Richard Perle was the original Prince of Darkness, alleged architect of the war in Iraq, and there was a lot of scrutiny of what he was doing.

And now you have, like, Marc Andreessen being appointed to a high-level Pentagon board.

Just to give you a sense of what we're talking about here, here are just a few examples.

One is former Senator Norm Coleman, who is, uh, the chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, and also the vice chair of the Defense Policy Board.

With him, we discuss Iran and working with both sides in conducting oversight and making the government work for the American people.

We talked with Joel Myers, who's the founder and CEO of AccuWeather, about, uh, groundbreaking w- weather-related work, monitoring and reporting, and how that affects all of us in our day-to-day lives.

And Palmer Luckey, the, the, uh, CEO of, uh, Anduril, uh, Industries, one of the m- main non-traditional prime contractors trying to li- li- get, you know, bag big contracts with DOD.

And Newt Gingrich, whom I know well from his time on the Defense Policy Board when I was under secretary, who, who like Elon, is a big multi-galactic thinker, um, but m- who, many of whose ideas, you know, have, have proven to be impractical o- over the years.

What could possibly go wrong with this, with this commission, particularly after, uh, Elon's, uh, DOGE pratfalls, uh, earlier in this administration? So that's what I saw, but t- tell me what I missed, because watching the whole thing m- must have really been a banger.

[laughs] Yeah.

I mean, another one, which I vividly remember from my own experience, in the early phases of the Iraq war, the failure to really try to figure out who are we fighting? And I remember being very frustrated.

I was on the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel.

You just have people saying, well, they're bitter enders or former regime elements.

Actually, we were in the middle of a very complicated civil war, which was also partly directed at us.

Was he in the Pentagon at the time? I believe he was out...

I think he was on the Defense Policy Board, I think.

That's

right.

then also international finance at BlackRock.

Then he's also on the Council of Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institute, Aspen Institute Group, Trilateral Commission, CIA External Advisory Board, Defense Policy Board, and ran, it looks like, the Chinese foreign policy model during the Autopen administration and then returned to BlackRock.

Larry Fink, BlackRock World Economic Forum.

He is the BlackRock CEO.

Yep.

Hegseth has appointed Mark Andreessen, the guy we just pointed to, to the Defense Policy Board.

So not only has he personally been involved with handpicking the people that go into the administration, in defense, in the agency, he's now literally on board with the Department of Defense.

That's technocracy, guys.