Adam Smith

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stanton).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chair, I will have remarks in a moment while, regrettably, I am not supporting this particular bill. That doesn't change how much respect I have for the process and for all the people who participated in that process. I want to make sure we understand that. One of the things I always say, I believe in democracy more than I believe in my own opinion, which means that the process is important and the way we put that process together and that we move through it. In particular, I definitely thank the staff, certainly our staff on the House Armed Services Committee that has done an outstanding job, the Rules Committee staff, as well, but also the floor staff and the parliamentarians and the folks who have to put the amendments together and put the legislation together. Throughout this process from the very start, when the original bill was introduced, to all of the amendments, we have to run through these numbers, it is in the thousands, basically, of amendments and ideas that are submitted. From the moment we put together the initial bill, we amend it in committee, they deal with Rules, they amend it on the floor--we are talking literally thousands of different pieces of legislation and ideas that have to be brought together. Members don't do any of that. We spout out ideas, and a whole bunch of staff work really hard to get that done. I thank them very, very much for all of that work to make this process go forward. Mr. Chair, it is a good, robust bipartisan approach. We have the amendments, we have the debates, and we resolve it. One thing I will make clear, I am not thrilled with the outcome of the Rules Committee, but that is the nature of being in the minority. When you are in the majority, the Rules Committee does what the Rules Committee does, and the minority complains about it. That is the way this place works. That is fine. I might have done it differently in terms of trying to figure out how to pass the bill. At the end of the day, I don't have any process objection here. The amendments were put on the floor, and they passed. I am not concerned about that. I am concerned about the outcome, and I will explain that later. Mr. Chair, I will take a moment to really make it clear how much I thank all the people who put this process together, in particular, I thank Chairman Rogers for his work.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. Mr. Chair, it is not as easy as it looks. Let me just sum that up. There are a whole lot of things you have to manage, including the minority part. Chairman Rogers has done an outstanding job of doing that in his first year as chair, and I appreciate that and I respect that. I thank everybody for the process they put together. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Houlahan), who is a member of the committee.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Strickland).

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what DEI is, and there are certainly examples and there are many anecdotes of bad DEI, of DEI that goes too far in the opposite direction, as has been described over and over and over again. But the basic idea that we need to make sure that our military is inclusive and focus on diversity and equity, as we have argued throughout the day today is inarguable. There is a history of racism. There is a history of sexism. There is a history of bigotry. As was pointed out, we wouldn't even allow trans or gay people to serve in many instances. Now that we have allowed Black people to serve in the military, they are not getting promoted at the same level. If we are going to recruit from the diverse population that we have in this country, we have to at least focus on it. If folks want to focus on some minor bad aspect of it, we can talk about that, but what you are doing is you are completely eliminating like 10 times--talk about shooting a dead horse. We have now shot this thing like 15 times in the course of the day. You are completely eliminating any consideration of this Nation's history and how we are going to recruit and retain members of the military. These amendments are terrible ideas for the national security of this country, and I, once again, urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, it is obvious to me that the Republican majority doesn't understand what diversity, equity, and inclusion is, so I am going to attempt to explain it this way. We need to be intentional in recruiting from populations that have been historically discriminated against. I will use myself as an example. I grew up in a neighborhood that was 95 percent White. My friends were White. My family was White. I moved into a responsible position. I started to hire people. Typically, you either hire people you know, or you hire people who you know know. That is where you get it. I looked around, and I was hiring a bunch of White people, all right. That is who I knew. What I did is I affirmatively reached out to groups that worked with Black people or Hispanic people or gay people. When I had openings, I said, okay, who have you got? I don't have those relationships, and I built those relationships. That is what diversity, equity and inclusion is, and it is sorely needed in a country that at least until about 30 or 40 years ago was really racist, okay. To correct that, we have to work with communities, diverse communities, to make sure that we recruit the people diversely.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. We are not missing our recruitment goals because we are trying to expand the people we are recruiting. We are missing our recruitment goals primarily because of COVID, and also, by the way, because a lot of Republicans are running around talking about how terribly weak our military is. If they would stop spreading that message, maybe people would believe in our military and join. That is what DEI is. Eliminating it is a huge mistake.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield the balance of my time to Mr. Crow.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Strickland).

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, I want to answer the most important question: What does this have to do with national security? It has to do with unit cohesion and with recruitment. Interestingly, the survey data shows that almost three times as many people say they are worried about joining the military because of their concerns about discrimination as say that they are worried about the military being too woke. That is the point of this. The training is to make sure there is unit cohesion, number one, and number two, that we can recruit from the entire country. It really comes down to whether or not you believe that we have a history of discrimination against people of color, the LGBTQ community, and women. If you think that that just didn't happen and we don't have to worry about it, then I guess this approach makes sense, but the history of our country tells a very different story. We need to address this in order to make sure that if you are a woman, if you are a Black person, if you are trans or gay, the military is going to give you a fair shake. Let me remind everybody here. Just 13 years ago, we finally allowed gay people to serve in the military. Every single Republican voted against that. Every single one. Do we really think that our national security would be stronger if we drove all the gay people out of the military? We need all the resources, all the talents from this country, and regrettably, we haven't always done that. In what is shown, we need to address these issues. Now, the Republicans exaggerate this. They act like this is all we do in recruitment. I have spent a lot of time with a lot of military people. This is not all we do in training the military. It is something that needs to be done to meet our recruitment goals.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chair, what this amendment before us says, it says you cannot teach that the Constitution is a racist document. As Mrs. McClellan pointed out, the Constitution says that Black people are three-fifths of a person. The problem here is that we are not allowing with this amendment to have an honest discussion. Within the military, within society as a whole, you can't have a functioning unit, a functioning institution if you don't understand this history properly. This amendment requires us to literally whitewash history. If you are a Black person thinking about serving in the military, and you know that is the military you are walking into, you are going to be worried about it. What DEI does is it gives an opportunity to assure people that they will be treated equally, assurance that they are needed precisely because of amendments like this. Our country has a rich and complicated history. A lot of it is very good, but we need to be honest about what it is if we are going to recruit from the diverse population that we need to recruit from. Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, it is one of the great myths of this situation that we don't have a mission. The Biden administration has laid out a very, very clear plan, as I said at the outset, and that plan is to do everything we can to help preserve a sovereign democratic Ukraine without going to war with Russia. That is the administration's plan, and they have made it clear over and over and over again. There are a lot of different people that have different opinions. This amendment does not ask for Joe Wilson's plan. This amendment asks for the White House--the administration's plan, which we already have. If you want to get Joe's plan, he is sitting right there, and I suggest you ask him. The administration has a very clear mission. That mission doesn't have anything to do with regime change or trying Vladimir Putin. These are all things to discuss. The mission in this conflict and the reason we are supporting Ukraine is to preserve a sovereign democratic Ukraine, which means helping them take back as much of their territory that they can. How much they can take back is hard to say. We are supporting them and because we supported them, there is a sovereign democratic Ukraine. We are also at the same time having conversations with Ukraine and trying to have conversations with Russia about getting to the peace table. Right now Vladimir Putin isn't willing to do that. He wants to destroy Ukraine. We are helping Ukraine protect themselves. The mission is clear. Using this excuse of a report to cut off the funds for the mission is not the right approach. You can disagree with the mission if you want. I understand that. It is a democracy, and we can have that conversation, but let's please stop saying that there isn't clarity. There is absolute clarity. President Biden, Jake Sullivan, Chairman Milley, and Secretary Austin have said over and over and over again that we are helping Ukraine defend itself so we can preserve a sovereign democratic Ukraine and stop Russia from wiping them off the map. That is the mission. Thus far, it has been successful. We want to help them retake more territory. Mr. Chairman, I urge opposition to this amendment.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, first of all, we haven't actually used the lend-lease provision yet, so there is nothing to exercise oversight on. It is not clear whether or not it will be used. Mr. Chairman, I want to address the larger issue which has been raised, and that is the idea that there is a lack of accountability for the funds going to Ukraine. Number one, that is a big Russian-Putin propaganda talking point; and, two, completely wrong. It has been investigated by the IG and a bunch of other folks and determined that that is not happening. These weapons are going precisely where they are supposed to be going. We know this because if they weren't, Ukraine would have lost a long time ago. They are under attack from a military roughly five times the size of theirs that is much more well-armed and much more well- equipped. In order to defend themselves, they have to effectively use the support that the United States, and again, 53 other nations are providing to them. They have been effectively using that, which is how they have been able to retake some of the territory that Russia took from them a year and a half ago and protect the rest of the country that Putin was trying to take. Let's not buy into this myth that somehow this money is being wasted and is not proper oversight. There is a legitimate argument to be had about what you feel about the importance of Ukraine, but it is not based on this money being wasted. The money has been incredibly effectively used. That is why Ukraine has been able to defend itself. Again, I believe we should help Ukraine defend itself, which is what we are doing. As with all the other amendments along these lines, I urge opposition to this one.

Mr. SMITH of Washington

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.