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real talk. Subscribe to the pre-read, presented by Workiba. From the opinion pages of the Wall Street

Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Welcome to Potomac Watch, the daily podcast of the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

I'm Kate O'Dell, and today we'll be chatting with two special guests and contributors to the opinion section.

We'll be talking about their provocative op-ed in Wednesday's newspaper called

how DEI, that is, diversity, equity, and inclusion, caused a military recruitment crisis.

Joining me are the authors Mike Gallagher and Kevin Walston. Mike is the head of defense at

Palantir Technologies. He's a former member of Congress, where he was chairman of the House Select Committee on China.

And most important, Mike is the United States Marine.

Kevin is a professor of political science at California State University Long Beach.

And he also wears a hat as a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Mike and Kevin, thanks for joining the show.

Look, I want to just dive right in and Kevin, thanks for joining the show.

Look, I want to just dive right in and talk about your op-ed piece in Wednesday's paper,

how DEI caused a military recruitment crisis.

Mike, why don't you start us off?

I mean, when several years ago, I remember the Army came up about 15,000 soldiers short, I think in fiscal 22, the worst year for recruiting since the introduction of the all-volunteer force in

1973. And at the time, the view was really, this was here to stay, that services would

struggle to recruit talent for years to come. And at the very least, that's simply not exactly what's

happened. The Trump administration has been trumpeting that it has made a lot of progress

...