In order to successfully implement the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the United States will have to modernize and strengthen its posture in the Indo-Pacific. The Marine Corps will play a critical role in this effort, but will require fundamental transformation to ensure it is postured and equipped to deter Chinese aggression.
On this episode of the NEW Look, Rep. Gallagher is joined by General David H. Berger, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, who laid out revolutionary guidance to ensure that the Marine Corps can deter, fight, and win in the Indo-Pacific. During this conversation, the Commandant and Rep. Gallagher (a Marine himself) discuss the Commandant’s plans for the future of the Corps and why these changes are critical to meeting the challenges of the 21st century. To read the Commandant’s 2019 planning guidance, click HERE.
(This conversation was recorded on December 23, 2020.)
Education serves as one of our country’s great equalizers, giving children of all backgrounds the opportunity to succeed. Lately, however, it seems our education system has missed the mark. For decades, test scores around the country have lagged behind those of other developed nations and recent studies have indicated that right here in Wisconsin, six in ten students can’t read at grade level. At no fault of our nation’s remarkable teachers, we’re failing our kids – particularly those who are disadvantaged. What, if anything, should we do to reverse these trends?
To explore this question, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Dr. E.D. Hirsh, founder and chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation and one of the nation’s foremost education scholars. Dr. Hirsh is the author of bestselling books like Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know and How to Educate a Citizen, and joins the podcast to share his revolutionary views on common knowledge and why he believes it serves as the foundation for literacy. For more information on his work, click HERE.
Nationwide, millions of children, adults, and veterans have endured a traumatic experience which, left untreated, can have lasting health consequences. In the face of increased social isolation and this pandemic, Americans’ exposure to trauma is on the rise. While conversations surrounding the Coronavirus rightly focus on our physical health, we can’t neglect the toll it has taken on our mental health as well. But in what ways can we better prioritize our mental health and support those in our communities dealing with trauma?
On this special episode, Rep. Gallagher examines the concept of trauma-informed care, a transformative way to help millions of Americans overcome the long-term effects of trauma. To do so, he is joined by Wisconsinites who helped champion this practice across the state: Tonette Walker, former First Lady of Wisconsin; Amy Herbst, Vice President of Mental and Behavioral Health at Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee; Ann Leinfelder Grove, President and CEO at SaintA’s; and Peg Burrington, Library Director at Waupaca Municipal Library.
These individuals not only helped integrate trauma-informed care within their communities, but helped make Wisconsin the country’s first trauma-informed state. With their help, Rep. Gallagher breaks down why we need to prioritize mental health and how we can all use trauma-informed care to help our communities get through these challenging times.
The untold story of the past four years may be the level of consensus surrounding the Trump Administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy, which argues great power competition with China, and to a lesser extent Russia, is our nation’s central challenge. In the face of this competition, Democrats and Republicans alike have worked together on a whole host of issues to address this threat, whether it be securing America’s 5G network or condemning the egregious human rights violations in Hong Kong or Xinjiang. The question is: will this agreement continue into the future, or fall prey to partisanship in a future administration?
On this episode, the author of this national security strategy and former National Security Advisor, Lt. General H.R. McMaster, U.S. Army (Ret.) joins Rep. Gallagher to discuss these threats and ways the United States can better protect its interests abroad. Lt. General McMaster also discusses his new book, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World, which outlines the critical role he played in reassessing our country’s security challenges and shifting its priorities to address them, and his video series that goes in-depth on these issues. While they don’t have the same optimism for the Eagles football season, they do share hope that the fundamental priorities outlined by the National Security Strategy will remain bipartisan into the future.
The Coronavirus has been, in many ways, a clarifying moment. One thing that has been made abundantly clear is we are over-reliant on foreign adversaries for critical medicines and technologies. This needs to change. Onshoring these important industries is both an economic and national security, but in order to accomplish this task, the United States will have to grapple with how to accelerate innovation and investment and how to build a 21st century workforce to maintain our competitiveness.
On this episode, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Dr. Michael McQuade, a member of the Defense Innovation Board and the Vice President of Research at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. McQuade, a physicist turned innovator turned academic, is at the forefront of developing talent in fields from 5G to AI, and helps analyze why we need to bring high-tech industries back to the United States, particularly in the Midwest. And while the conversation covers everything from physics to the Endless Frontier Act, given Dr. McQuade’s Pittsburgh roots, Rep. Gallagher makes sure the conversation isn’t without references to Super Bowl XLV as well.
For years, public opinion polling has helped government and corporate leaders alike gauge how Americans view politics, policies, and products. While the industry has endured a whole host of changes through the years, the 2016 presidential election served as a jarring moment for pollsters across the country. By now, we know that certain polls – particularly at the state level – were off. But why? And what, if any, actions have pollsters taken to try and correct these mistakes moving forward?
To explore these questions, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Kristen Soltis Anderson, co-founder of the opinion research and analytics firm Echelon Insights. Kristen, a renowned pollster, helps break down the intricacies of modern polling and ways her industry is addressing the challenges identified in 2016. As the author of The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up), she also shares insight on some short and long-term Millennial trends, and explains why Wall-E is the best Pixar movie (if that even needs explaining). Click here to learn more about her work.
The passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has brought the issue of the Supreme Court to the forefront of American politics. And if the past few days are any indicator, it has also set up an intensely partisan confirmation battle in the U.S. Senate. Drama surrounding presidential nominations to the Court is nothing new -- it dates back to George Washington. But the increasingly bitter politics surrounding the Supreme Court -- from disparaging nominees to pursuing policies like court packing to delegitimize the Court -- is part of a larger, divisive trend. This leaves one wondering: how did a non-partisan institution like the Supreme Court come to find itself at the center of political gravity, and can anything be done to reverse course?
To explore these questions and more, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Ilya Shapiro, director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute and author of Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America's Highest Court. Ilya is one of the nation’s leading Supreme Court scholars, and joins the podcast to share his thoughts on the evolution and politicization of Court confirmations, judicial philosophies, and future nominees we should keep an eye on. To read more of Ilya’s work, click here.
**This episode was recorded on September 9, 2020, before Justice Ginsburg’s passing.
Geographically speaking, the United States is in an enviable position. We have strong relationships with the neighbors to our North and South, oceans to the East and West, and a region that's largely democratic. While this allows most of the foreign policy discussion to concentrate on regions further afield, such as the Middle East and Asia, we cannot afford to overlook problems in the Western Hemisphere, particularly those emanating from Venezuela's political crisis.
On this episode of the podcast, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Ryan Berg, a Research Fellow at AEI whose focus is on transnational organized crime, narco trafficking, and illicit networks. Ryan, a fellow Wisconsinite and expert in Latin American foreign policy, helps analyze the growing threats posed by the Maduro regime in Venezuela and why, from drug trafficking to the Coronavirus, we should be paying more attention to what’s happening in Latin America. You can read more of his work here.
The Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC), co-chaired by Rep. Gallagher, brought together members of Congress, representatives from the federal government, and professionals in the private sector to provide strategic guidance on how to best defend ourselves against cyber threats. For nearly a year, the CSC’s 14 Commissioners met almost every week to discuss issues ranging from election interference to intellectual property theft, and this year published more than 75 recommendations on how to address these threats.
On this episode of the NEW Look podcast, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Suzanne Spaulding, one of the CSC’s 14 commissioners and a senior adviser for homeland security at Center for Strategic and International Studies. Suzanne, who previously served as an under secretary for the Department of Homeland Security focused on cyber issues, has spent a career working to better protect the United States from national security threats, and joins the podcast to highlight the commission’s work and the importance of defending our elections from foreign interference.
The 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) both argue that the United States’ central challenge is the reemergence of great power competition. In the military domain, this competition boils down to the United States’ ability to deter China from attacking the United States and our allies or established partners, which will require a major shift American defense planning and execution. But is the U.S. prepared to make the necessary changes required to meet this challenge, and if not, what questions should defense officials be asking to get there?
To explore these questions, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Dr. Andy Krepinevich, president and chief operating officer of Solarium LLC, a defense consulting firm, and founder of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Dr. Krepinevich, who served on the staff of three different secretaries of defense, has played a leading role in defense planning throughout his career and breaks down the security challenges we face and ways the U.S. can better prepare for these challenges (in addition to demonstrating an expertise in Packers trivia). You can read more of his work here.
Cyberspace is a decisive battlefield that puts every American – wittingly or not – on the frontline of a new kind of conflict. As our world becomes increasingly connected, it’s incumbent upon us all to understand the threats we face and how we can better protect our nation, ourselves and our interests online.
On this NEW Look podcast, Rep. Gallagher breaks down the country’s challenges in cyberspace with Dmitri Alperovitch, Executive Chairman of the non-profit Silverado Policy Accelerator. Dmitri, who co-founded CrowdStrike and served as their Chief Technology Officer, is a well-known cybersecurity expert and helps analyze the national security challenges posed by cyber threats, as well as tips that help us all improve our cyber hygiene. Now in his new role chairing Silverado, Dmitri is helping harvest new ideas and accelerate policy action in the areas of cybersecurity, great power competition and american competitiveness. Follow him on Twitter (@DAlperovitch) for more insights into cyber and national security challenges.
Confusion, chaos, and in some cases outright conspiracy has surrounded the Postal Service this past week, fueled by stories in the media that USPS, allegedly under the President’s direction, was having mailboxes removed and mail sorting machines dismantled as a way to prevent mail-in voting. This is a dangerous lie that has the potential to undermine the country’s faith not just in the post office, but in the upcoming election.
On this episode of the NEW Look podcast, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Kevin Kosar, Vice President of Research Partnerships at the R Street Institute, to discuss how we got to where we are and the perfect storm of events that led to all this chaos. Having studied the issue for more than 14 years, Kevin is one of the nation’s leading scholars on postal issues and breaks down the current outlook for the Postal Service while debunking the myths surrounding post office operations this week. Follow him on Twitter (@KevinRKosar) for more updates and materials on USPS.
Developing a comprehensive strategy to compete with China requires a strong understanding of what’s happening in the Indo-Pacific region, both past and present. To explore the history of Asia and how it impacts the geopolitics of today, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Michael Auslin, the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, on this episode of the NEW Look podcast.
Michael is a renowned historian and the author of numerous books on the subject, including Asia's New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific and the best-selling The End of the Asian Century: War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World's Most Dynamic Region. He has previously worked as an associate professor of history at Yale University, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo.
Cyberspace is a decisive battlefield that puts every American – wittingly or not – on the frontline of a new kind of conflict. Yet while the threats in this domain are severe, the United States has for years lacked a plan to combat these challenges. To address this problem, the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act authorized the creation of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan commission tasked with providing strategic guidance and policy recommendations on how to defend ourselves against cyber threats that is chaired by Rep. Gallagher and Senator Angus King (I-ME).
On this NEW Look podcast, Rep. Gallagher is joined by his fellow co-chair Senator Angus King to discuss these threats and the Commission’s recommendations to ensure our country is better equipped to defend itself in cyberspace. Senator King, who in addition to being an avid Packers fan is also one of three Independents in Congress, also details the unique way in which he came into politics and ways he works to cut through partisanship and build stronger relationships with his colleagues.
In many ways, the Coronavirus has been a clarifying moment for U.S. policymakers. It exposed vulnerabilities in our pharmaceutical supply chain and accelerated calls to onshore this and other critical industries. It highlighted the need to make larger investments in American technological dominance and the technologies of the future. And most notably, it demonstrated the maleficence of the CCP to the rest of the world and brought the issue of U.S.-China relations to the forefront of American politics. While this issue is new to the spotlight, the threats posed by the CCP are not.
“Few have covered these threats better than Washington Post Columnist and CNN Political Analyst Josh Rogin, who joins Rep. Gallagher on this week’s NEW Look podcast. Josh has written extensively about the CCP, from their efforts to use the swamp against us to strong-armingU.S. companies, and shares his expertise on the issue to outline the country’s slow awakening to the generational challenges posed by the CCP and lasting impact of the Trump Administration’s policies to address them. All the while talking Philadelphia sports, the NBA, and sharing expert writing tips for aspiring journalists.
As Rep. Gallagher discussed with Newsweek last week, movies from Red Dawn to Top Gun 2 have altered portions of their films to accommodate the CCP. While some of these changes may seem minor, it’s a part of a larger trend where American companies – from the NBA to Twitter– allow the CCP to have an ever-growing influence on the bounds of acceptable public discourse and American popular culture. This doesn’t mean Hollywood producers are purposely promoting CCP propaganda in their work. Rather, it’s part of a larger debate between companies bottom lines and the values they hold.
To help explore the questions these companies face, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Chris Fenton, a film producer and author of Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, & American Business. Chris, who spent years working with China on projects like Looper and Iron Man 3, shares his personal experience working to gain access to the Chinese market, outlines the problems that American companies face today, and how we as a society can chart a responsible way forward. Mike, an amateur film critic in his own right, also takes time to dive into some of the movies Chris has worked on, get his thoughts on the similar dynamics playing out between Hollywood and the NBA, and learn about Chris’ clever rolodex system as well.
In 2018, Rep. Gallagher wrote an extensive piece in The Atlantic that grappled with one topic: How to Fix Congress. The problem, he concluded, “...is not the people. The problem is a defective process and a power structure that...funnels all power to leadership and stifles debate and initiative within the ranks.” In the piece, he put forward three solutions based on his own observations to help make the institution better serve the American people. Two years later, he decided to explore the topic of improving Congress by gathering suggestions from members who recently announced they would retire from Congress.
On the last of the three special episodes of the NEW Look podcast, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Rep. Mike Conaway, who was first elected to Congress in 2004 and represents the 11th Congressional District in Texas. He may be best known for serving as the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Agriculture, but Rep. Conaway has one of Congress’ most interesting backgrounds being not only a CPA, but a member of the high school football team that Friday Night Lights is based on. And while the conversation, which took place in January of 2020, focuses on reforming Congress, there’s plenty of time to talk about Friday Night Lights and high school football as well.
In 2018, Rep. Gallagher wrote an extensive piece in The Atlantic that grappled with one topic: How to Fix Congress. The problem, he concluded, “...is not the people. The problem is a defective process and a power structure that...funnels all power to leadership and stifles debate and initiative within the ranks.” In the piece, he put forward three solutions based on his own observations to help make the institution better serve the American people, but there are certainly other paths forward. Two years later, he decided to explore the topic of improving Congress by gathering suggestions from members who recently announced they would retire from Congress.
On this second of three special episodes of the NEW Look podcast, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Rep. Will Hurd, who was first elected to Congress in 2014 and is currently a member of the Appropriations Committee and the Intelligence Committee. Before coming to Congress, Rep. Hurd served in both the CIA and the private sector, and shares how those experiences influence his work and perception of Congress. And while there’s plenty of thoughtful discussion on how to improve Congress, there’s still time for the two to discuss their favorite movies and who the next James Bond should be.
In 2018, Rep. Gallagher wrote an extensive piece in The Atlantic that grappled with one topic: How to Fix Congress. The problem, he concluded, “...is not the people. The problem is a defective process and a power structure that...funnels all power to leadership and stifles debate and initiative within the ranks.” In the piece, he put forward three solutions based on his own observations to help make the institution better serve the American people, but there are certainly other paths forward. Two years later, he decided to explore the topic of improving Congress by gathering suggestions from members who recently announced they would retire from Congress.
On this first of three special episodes of the NEW Look podcast, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Rep. Greg Walden, who was first elected to Congress in 1998 and has spent time as the Chairman of both the Energy and Commerce Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee. In the conversation, Rep. Walden not only shares his family’s strong ties to Oregon (which date back to 1845), but also reflects on his more than 20 years in Congress and discusses how we can better protect Congressional power moving forward.
By now, you know the NEW Look podcast is a series of conversations examined through the lens of Northeast Wisconsin, the area of the state Rep. Gallagher represents that is often referred to as "NEW." But there's more to the name than that. The name is also an ode to President Eisenhower's national security strategy, the "New Look," which balanced Cold War military commitments along with US financial concerns. As a self-proclaimed Eisenhower Nerd, it's only fitting that he named his podcast after one of President Eisenhower's lasting achievements. But today, he takes things to a whole nother level by dedicating this episode to taking a NEW look at the New Look.
To help him do so, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Professor Richard Immerman, the Marvin Wachman Director Emeritus at the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy at Temple University, American historian, and author of a number of books, including Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy. Richard is one of the pre-eminent scholars on US foreign relations, and joins Rep. Gallagher for a fascinating conversation on President Eisenhower, the Cold War, and the lasting legacy of the New Look (besides this podcast). But don't worry; while they extensively cover an array of the Cold War’s key issues, the two still leave plenty of time to discuss some of their favorite movies and advice for students from Northeast Wisconsin.