Sen. Cotton rails Navy officer's reading list: Sailors should focus on ‘fighting real wars,' not culture wars

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Sen. Cotton rips Navy top officer over reading list

Senate Armed Services Committee member calls Admiral Michael Gilday's recommended reading a 'waste of time.'

Naval Operations chief Admiral Michael Gilday’s recommended reading list for Navy recruits includes racially-pointed literature that Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., described as "a waste of time" on "Your World with Neil Cavuto" Tuesday.

Cotton: Well, at best, it's a waste of time of our sailors to be reading such nonsense. They should be focused on basic seamanship or maritime strategy, naval history, leadership and so forth. But more likely, it actually subverts morale and unit cohesion when the chief of naval operations is recommending a book that says capitalism is essentially racist, racism is essentially capitalist. 

But the only remedy for past discrimination is present discrimination, that there are certain races that are inherently oppressive or collectively guilty of America's past sins, or that certain races are inherently victimized or oppressed. That's not the way to build a cohesive fighting force. I wish the Navy would focus on fighting real wars rather than fighting culture wars. 

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW:

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