BUCK: One thing that the Biden administration does have going for it right now, I suppose, it’s not like we can look at them and say that they control everything. One good thing is we’re not in the midst of a war. So, that’s good. The end of the Afghan war, was obviously a debacle in the Biden administration decision-making. But the situation in Ukraine has not yet brought us into conflict with Russia. So, that’s good. Although, I don’t think the Biden administration is handling that well at all. At least we’re not at war.

I bring that up, because as we talk about a lot of what’s done with this White House, and the constant pushing of wokeness. Whether it’s diversity and inclusion training for all government employees. And the constant focus on the issue of white privilege all throughout the federal bureaucracy, which I hear about from friends of mine, who are still in, for example, the intelligence community. “Oh, there’s all this concern with confronting white privilege.” Wait, I’m working in the intelligence community, I thought we were trying to keep America safe. I don’t think we need a history on white privilege every time we have an HR meeting.

This is very real. And the Intel community, I can tell you, which is the CIA, NSA, DIA. There’s 16, I think they might have added one. But there used to be 16 intelligence agencies. There’s a lot of them. The military services all have their own intelligence branch. And then there’s a whole bunch of others. A lot of letters. A lot of acronyms. But they’re quite woke. Not only at the HR level, but also at the level of executive decision-making authority. The people that run these agencies now have been picked specifically because they go along with the diversity and inclusion rhetoric and belief system. And this is true also of our military. And we are seeing something that is, just by the numbers, a real challenge, Clay, going forward.

This is from the Associated Press. “Army cuts the size, and then unprecedented battle for recruits.” An unprecedented challenge in getting new recruits to join the United States military. Okay? Here’s what we’re looking added right now. They’re projecting in the Army, they’re going to have a total force of 466,000, down from the expected 476,000. All in, it’s looking looking they’re going to only achieve half of their goal, recruiting goal of 60,000 soldiers for this fiscal year. So they’re down tens of thousands from the goal.

The force structure is eventually going to have to take into account. Whether it’s brigade combat teams. Other military formations and entities. That they don’t have the ability to recruit what they need. To fill those ranks. They’re changing, Clay, all the time now. You know, or they’re trying to change. No high school diploma of any kind, or GED. Well, maybe we’ll make an exception. Tattoos on your hands and your face, maybe we’ll make an exception. They’re making all of these — body fat requirements, for body fat percentage. Because military fighting, being fit. This is all tied in together.

The people who I talk to — a nd we have a lot of current and former war fighters in our audience. The people I talk to say, folks who would be — you know, the guy who was the defensive tackle on the college or high school football team, who wants to go and be an Army ranger, wants to be a war fighter, saying, “I don’t want to do this. I’m not going to sign up, given what’s going on here, given they’re firing thousands and thousands of National Guard members over the vaccine, given that we’ll get constant lectures about diversity inclusion, or the threat of white supremacy from inside the United States military.” This is an actual thing that they lecture people about. I think we have a big problem here.

CLAY: I think it’s a massive problem. And I think it’s a massive problem that cuts across so many different parts of American life. Let me explain what I mean here: We want the best military possible. What’s the number one goal of the military, that I think almost every American should agree on? We want people who can kickcass. We want people who are badasses. And when you allow the target to move from we want ass kickers to we want people who represent the overall population of American life. Everybody is not equally adroit and adept at serving in the American military. And we shouldn’t try to create a military that is designed to fulfill a cosmetic diversity quotient, when it doesn’t fulfill the ultimate goal that is underlined, which is to be the most efficient at kicking ass as possible.

And I’ll tie this into a story. I don’t know if you saw this, this morning, Buck. It’s turning into a massive story in England, that there’s too many white women on the English Women National Team.

BUCK: Soccer?

CLAY: Yeah. In soccer. I saw this story, and I thought to myself, this perfectly epitomizes where we are as a nation. No one is arguing right now, oh, these girls aren’t talented enough. The argument is, they aren’t diverse enough. And I want to read — The Athletic had a big story about this. And I thought it tied in well with the struggles our military is having right now. Here is the headline which is up on the athletic, which is now owned by the New York Times. “England’s Women’s Soccer Team Has Been successful in Recent Years, But the Team Doesn’t Look Like the Country It Represents. Its Players Are Almost All White and It Has a Long Way to Go to Improve Diversity.”

The goal of every sports team isn’t to be “diverse” it’s to put the best team on the field regardless of race. If these women are the best, why does their race matter at all? The NBA & NHL All Star Games have no Hispanic or Asian players. Do they have a long way to go too? pic.twitter.com/FwRvgy5Nfo

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) July 20, 2022

Why the hell do you care what the race of the soccer team is, if they’re the best soccer players in the world? And there is a difference. And I think this is significant. And a lot of people miss it. There’s a difference between providing equal opportunity, and getting equal results. You could have a completely diverse and representative team, NFL team in America. Half of them could be women. 60 percent of them could be white. 30 percent of them could be Hispanic, 4 percent Asian. That team would lose every football game they played, Buck, because they aren’t the best possible football teams.

And I tie it in with our military. Because we are focused now, not on creating the greatest fighting force in the world. We’re focused on trying to make the fighting look like America. That often times doesn’t correspond. And I think that’s why a lot of people aren’t going to work in the military.

BUCK: I mean, I remember being in Iraq as a civilian CIA analyst many years ago, and being on U.S. military bases, and there were big placards. You know, “diversity is our strength.” And I remember spending time with these guys and gals. And their strength was actually strength and being badasses and being willingly to go out there and defend each other and defend U.S. interest and just kick some ass.

I don’t care what the military looks like from a demographic perspective. I want the United States military, to have pilots who can shoot down Chinese fifth generation fighters. Which may become a big thing for us in the years ahead. I want Green Berets and Navy SEALs and Army Rangers and Airborne, who can do, you know, 100 push-ups like it’s nothing, carry their rucksack for 15 miles, engage the enemy, shoot them at 200 yards with iron sites. I want the best of the best. And, by the way, that is what our military has for a long time been producing here.

CLAY: It’s what they should be. It’s the job.

BUCK: But now we’re starting to see a shift in focus. And I think that shift in focus is a big part — I’m not saying it’s the only part — but a big part of why it is, you have people who are war fighters. Military service is military service, but there are people who are serving in much more logistics capacities, which that’s honorable service, I’m not putting that down. But they’re never going to be outside the wire. They’re never going to be shot at. They’re never going to be in harm’s way.

The people who are war fighters are overwhelmingly, in my experience, the door kickers, they are people who when they’re told, that, you know, 6-year-olds in school, need to be lectured on trans ideology, and that there needs to be, you know, mixed units of male and female infantry on the front lines. All this different gender identity stuff, they do not go along with that.

CLAY: I think you’re 100 percent right, Buck. And we know that our foremost enemies do not go along with that. China and Russia and Iran, are not recruiting people into their militaries by advertising pronouns. That’s what what’s going on right now, in our United States military advertising. It is this woke diversity and inclusion propaganda.

And I think somebody — you probably saw this. I think we even might have texted it back and forth. The way that Russia is recruiting soldiers right now, is we want the baddest ass of the badass. This is before I think they invaded Ukraine. But China is trying to do the same thing. And the way that we’re recruiting soldiers is by saying, we’re going to make sure that we respect your pronouns. And I’m sorry, if you’re 17 years old, and you want to decide what you want to do with your future, most people want to try to become elite. They want to become elite at something.

There’s a great deal of demand, especially among young men, to find ways to finally their bodies, take their minds to a different level. All of that. They don’t want to sit around, and talk about pronouns, and white privilege. And I think that goes across all the way, by the way, white, black, Asian, Hispanic. The badasses among us, do not want to be recruited into a woke military. And I think it’s a massive issue, with why we’re having trouble recruiting. I really do.

BUCK: If you’re out there, and you’re personally, a door kicker, served in the U.S. military, or you are close to people who are, and are hearing the the same thing. Or you were somebody who was going to sign up even, and you decided, I’m not going too reenlist. I’ll be curious to hear about this, because I hear from people who say this all the time. That it’s really damaging. The ethos of wokeness from the top down of the military brass is really damaging the recruitment and the esprit de corps of the the people that you really need, which is the people who are going to run, run toward the sound of the machine gunfire.

CLAY: The woke virus destroys, and I think you used this, the woke virus destroys everything it touches. And trying to turn our military into a woke military, is going to destroy its military ability. Just like it’s destroying many companies out there from the inside.

BUCK: And we can talk about it and be honest about it as we do, Clay, or we can wait until we lose a war. And then we’ll have a whole bunch of other problems, folks. Start working on your Mandarin.