Veterans in Congress Come Together 'For Country'
War on the Rocks
War on the Rocks
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2019
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
Have you heard of the 'For Country' caucus? In a political moment defined by acrimony above all else, this caucus brings together members of Congress who have served in the military — Democrats and Republicans. They meet regularly and work together on interests of common concern, including defense, but also beyond. And shortly after the president was impeached, on a week that might be the peak of partisan peevishness, four members of the caucus — Representatives Don Bacon (R-NE), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), and Michael Waltz (R-FL) — sat down with Ryan to explain why they are still friends and what unites them.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs. |
| 0:16.4 | My name is Ryan Evans, I'm the CEO of War in the Rocks. |
| 0:19.7 | We keep hearing about how our country is hopelessly divided. There's certainly no shortage of |
| 0:24.2 | reasons to feel pessimistic about this political moment but on this week of Christmas I'd |
| 0:28.1 | like to focus on one reason to be optimistic. The bipartisan four country caucus in the House of Representatives, an example of something that seems rarer by the day, |
| 0:37.0 | Democrats and Republicans working together in a spirit of camaraderie and shared values. |
| 0:41.0 | This caucus, in their words, aims to provide principled military |
| 0:44.6 | veteran members of Congress a platform to work together in a nonpartisan way and to |
| 0:49.8 | create a more productive government. For this episode I sat down four members of the Four Country Caucus, |
| 0:54.8 | Representative Jimmy Panetta, a California Democrat, |
| 0:57.1 | and a U.S. Navy veteran who co-chairs the caucus, along with Representative Don Bacon, |
| 1:01.5 | a Nebraska Republican, and a U.S. Air Force veteran, as well as Representative |
| 1:05.8 | Prissy Hoolaham, a Pennsylvania Democrat, also a U.S. Air Force veteran, and Representative |
| 1:10.8 | Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican who still serves as a U.S. Army Special Forces officer. |
| 1:15.0 | Enjoy the show. |
| 1:17.0 | A lot of people, a lot of Americans hear about these caucuses and vaguely know they exist but don't really understand what they're for. |
| 1:25.0 | So what is the purpose of this caucus and what function does it play? |
| 1:29.0 | This is Representative Don Bacon. |
| 1:31.0 | I'll get it started. This is the four country caucus. We started out with |
| 1:34.8 | 10 Republicans, 10 Democrats. I think we're at nine Republicans, 10 Democrats |
| 1:38.5 | right now. But we are veterans who want to work together find areas of agreement and so we can get things |
| 1:45.0 | moving in Congress. There's a lot of gridlock, a lot of rancor and partisanship and |
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