Welcome to Pushback. I'm Erin Matte. Joining me is Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, the former

Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, now a professor at the College of William

and Mary. Colonel Wilkerson, welcome to pushback. Good to be back with you, Aaron.

I wanted to get your take on Joe Biden's cabinet picks, especially in the foreign policy

field.

Let's start with Defense Secretary, General Lloyd Austin, misgivings among some Democrats that,

and Republicans, that for the second time in a row, a incoming president has picked somebody from the military who will require a waiver.

What is your take on this issue of another former general being appointed to run the Pentagon and this question of civilian leadership?

I don't know the general at all. He could be the most reputable person on the face of the earth,

and I'd still say what I'm going to say, which is that in a nation of 200 million adult souls

that pretends to be a liberal democracy, it's rather astonishing that for the second time in a row,

we can't find a civilian to be the Secretary of Defense. One of the postulates, as it were,

that was created by people like James Farnes, Fstall and Ferdinand Ebersstadt.

I'm thinking of all the people who were there to creation, if you will, of the

1947 National Security Act.

And as a part of that, the defense establishment then later turned into the Secretary of Defense, an actual civilian over that apparatus.

Principally at that time for budget purposes and budget control because Truman in particular was concerned about that.

Whoa, would Truman be concerned today?

Eight, nine billion dollar budget has turned into almost a trillion dollar budget.

But that was the reason civilians were supposed to be in there.

And to argue that the president is a civilian and to argue that there are other civilians

involved is really to miss the point, the man who heads the

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