Lawfare Archive: General Austin as Secretary of Defense
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From December 9, 2020: President-elect Joe Biden has selected a new defense secretary, retired general Lloyd Austin, former commander of Central Command. The selection has received somewhat mixed reviews, and to discuss why, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Brookings senior fellow Mike O'Hanlon, a defense policy analyst, and Kori Schake, the head of defense and foreign policy at the American Enterprise Institute. They talked about why people are upset about General Austin's nomination, his background, the experience he has and doesn't have, who would have been a better choice and whether it matters that this is the second administration in a row that begins by putting a retired general at the head of the Pentagon.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair, that's patreon.com slash |
| 0:16.8 | LawFair. Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | or no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:39.2 | I'm Caleb Benjamin, intern at LawFair with an episode from the LawFair Archive for September |
| 0:44.1 | 30th, 2023. This week, House Republicans approved a measure to cut defense secretary Lloyd |
| 0:49.8 | Austin Salary from more than $221,000 annually to less than $1. Republican lawmakers pointed |
| 0:56.5 | to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the military's recent recruiting shortfalls, and |
| 1:01.2 | COVID-19 vaccine policies as reasons for their dissatisfaction with Austin's work. While |
| 1:06.1 | the pay cut has a little chance of becoming a wall, it reflects increasing hostility from |
| 1:10.0 | conservatives towards military leaders. For today's Archive episode, I picked an episode |
| 1:15.0 | from December 9th, 2020, in which Benjamin would have sat down with Michael Hanlin and |
| 1:19.5 | Corey Shockey to discuss the nomination of General Austin in 2020, why it was controversial |
| 1:25.1 | Austin's background and who might have been a better choice. |
| 1:38.1 | I'm Benjamin Wittes and this is the LawFair podcast December 9th, 2020. |
| 1:44.8 | President-elect Joe Biden has selected a new Secretary of Defense, retired General Lloyd |
| 1:52.5 | Austin, former commander of Central Command. The selection has received somewhat mixed reviews, |
| 2:00.8 | so we thought we'd have a conversation about why joining me in the Jungle Studio yesterday |
| 2:06.5 | morning was my Brookings colleague Mike O'Hanlin, Defense Policy Analyst extraordinaire, |
| 2:13.5 | and in the afternoon, Corey Shockey, the head of Defense and Foreign Policy at the American |
| 2:20.0 | Enterprise Institute, we wove these two conversations together, so it sounds like we're all in |
| 2:26.8 | the Jungle Studio at the same time, even though we weren't. Why are people upset about General |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.