The NEW Look

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.