Tom Cotton: Anonymous tip line ‘flooded’ with calls about woke ideology in military
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., discusses efforts to combat growing woke ideology in the armed forces and responds to the Iranian national soccer team refusing to sing country’s national anthem at the World Cup.
A report from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, detailed efforts by the Biden administration to push woke ideology in the military and root out extremism.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., expressed his concern Tuesday about the report, which warned it's weakening the U.S. armed forces and pushing down "already low" recruitment numbers.
"We established our own anonymous tip line last year and we were flooded with hundreds of instances of inappropriate training sessions or other kinds of commentary or misplaced priorities in our military," Sen. Cotton said on "America's Newsroom" Tuesday.
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Cotton said he's raised the issue numerous times with military and Pentagon leaders.
The diversity and equity efforts have highlighted critical race theory and gender identity theory among other woke initiatives.
"The liberal progressives have an effort to neuter our military, not just by cutting the budget, but by engaging in left-wing social engineering," Cotton said.
"A lot of these progressives seem to worry more about training social justice warriors than actual warriors trained to kill, or whether our drill sergeants are teaching soldiers the right pronouns as opposed to teaching them small unit combat tactics."
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The report from GOP lawmakers found that "antiracist" approaches were used to teach soldiers about how to understand American society and acknowledge the county's racist past and present.
The report also found that the military covers the costs of transgender procedures and allows soldiers to serve as their preferred gender. Recruitment videos have even shown these efforts by showing members using the rainbow pride flag.
Cotton told Dana Perino there is "no question" this is hurting recruitment.
"When you have a recruiting base in particular that comes from rural America or working-class America, whether it's in south Arkansas or south Boston, and there's so much attention being paid to these kinds of left-wing social engineering fantasies, it's unfortunately not surprising that some young men and women want to take a pass," Cotton said.
Another effort from the Biden administration and the Department of Defense is to root out far-right extremism through these antiracist initiatives.
"I served in the military … our young people are some of the very best we have. They're not extremists."
Many GOP critics are sounding the alarm on the woke agenda pushed in the armed forces, demanding more attention go into military preparedness instead of political correctness.
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"They join the Army to learn how to kill the bad guys. They don't join the army to learn how to speak like they're in a faculty lounge."
Fox News' Patrick Hauf contributed to this report.
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