342 | Trump's Last Defense Secretary on Cutting the Pentagon Budget, Base Closures, Forever War Accountability, and New Threats with Christopher C. Miller

The Realignment

Saager Enjeti, Technology, Policy, News, Marshall Kosloff, International Relations, Politics, News Commentary, Public Policy, U.s. Politics, National Security, Economics

4.8 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2023

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Christopher C. Miller, former Trump administration Acting Secretary of Defense, retired Army Green Beret, and author of Soldier Secretary: Warnings from the Battlefield & the Pentagon About America's Most Dangerous Enemies, joins The Realignment to discuss his time in the Trump administration, his special forces career during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, how the Pentagon does (and doesn't) work, and his call for major cuts to the defense budget along with a broader reorientation of America's troop presence abroad.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Marshall here. Welcome back to the realignment.
0:08.3	Today's episode is with Christopher C. Miller, who served as President Trump's final secretary of defense.
0:13.9	His new book is Soldier Secretary, warnings from the battlefield and Pentagon about America's
0:19.1	most dangerous enemies. We can't allow different topics in the episode. We discussed a quick take on
0:24.8	the spy balloon controversy. We also discussed his call to cut the Pentagon's budget, 40-30%,
0:30.9	transition our overseas bases, who's responsible for the failures of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
0:38.4	and more. I hope you're all going to agree on everything, but I really appreciate how open he
0:43.6	was to having an honest conversation. For we get into the episode, quick shout out to the links
0:49.5	you can find in our show notes. One, you can go to realignment.supercast.com and get access to the
0:55.6	exclusive Q&A episode that's hard to I go into release tomorrow. Two, there's also a link to the
1:03.0	realignment subject newsletter that goes out every week. Last but not least, you can find all
1:08.8	of our guests and this book at our bookshop where we get 10% anything to purchase at the bookshop.org
1:16.0	link also included in the show notes. Hope you all enjoyed this conversation and thank you
1:21.2	to Lincoln Network for supporting our work.
1:38.2	Christopher Miller, welcome to the realignment. Marshall, finally, I get on a podcast that
1:46.0	I just motivates me beyond belief. Thanks for having me on. I've seen your list of people you've had
1:51.3	on here. You had the other Chris Miller chip, or is that a great book? And I love to get confused
1:56.1	with him because people are like, hey, I read your book. I'm like, chip or? No, yeah. Oh, that's not mine.
2:03.2	That's the good, that's the good book. I just, that's a great book. And you know, he was in DC
2:08.5	as a reporter for quite a while. I think he's moved the way, but I know you had him on there.
2:12.5	And then to be, come on, man, you've got, you've got like everybody on this show Steve Case, Richard
2:17.6	Haas. I would have, I got to listen to the Philip Bump one about the baby boomers because you know,
	...

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