The 80th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion included many reenactment jumps, but none as visually captivating as the one in Mont St. Michel. A jump that featured multiple sorties of C-47s and some of America’s most important leaders donning the battle uniform of our airborne predecessors.
Included in this stick was Florida Congressman and fellow Green Beret Mike Waltz. After a quick exit and soft landing, Congressman Waltz spent some time with Fran Racioppi on the drop zone to talk D-Day, World Order and the current state of Congress.
With Mont-Saint Michel in the background, and jumpers still falling, they dug into our national security challenges in the Middle East, Ukraine and China; and how immigration policy is rapidly becoming the decisive issue. They also unpacked the need for professionalism in Congress, how polarization is affecting getting things done and what we can expect from our political leaders as we gear up for an election cycle that looks more like a night combat jump with high winds and a small drop zone.
Take a listen, watch, or read our conversation from one of the most surreal spots on the globe then head over to our YouTube channel as we share the lineage of America’s first Special Forces in the Jedburgh Media Channel’s first documentary, Unknown Heroes, Behind Enemy Lines at D-Day, the story of Operation Jedburgh.
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Congressman Waltz, welcome to The Jedburgh Podcast from Mont St. Michelle and the job zone. You just fell out of an airplane dressed as a World War II soldier.
I did, honoring the OSS, the Officer Strategic Services, the predecessor to the Green Berets and the CIA. What a place to jump. What an epic jump. That was the original C-47. We were able to jump out of the placid Lassie, an 81-year-old bird. Nothing like bringing the 10 members of Congress with you.
The aircraft are still flying. New parachute stuff.
I promised Speaker Johnson because we only have a one-seat majority as Republicans in the House. He said, “Michael, we have a very thin majority.” I said, “Vintage birds, vintage uniforms, but the parachutes are new, Mr. Speaker, so don’t worry.”
There was a lot of talk about that one-seat majority. What if somebody gets injured? Let’s talk about D-Day for a second. We’ve been here for a week now. This is the last day, and we’re heading home. Yesterday, June 6, 1944, 80 years ago, we talked so much about Operation Jedburgh too. We released our documentary on the heroes behind enemy lines at D-Day.
The story of Operation Jedburgh. Being here on these grounds, though, brings it all together when you visualize so much of the cost of war and the sacrifice, but also the fact that that day began to set the conditions and the foundation for the world order that’s lasted for the last 80 years. What does it mean?
I wish I could bring every single high school graduating class from the United States here. There is nothing like walking the ground, seeing the cliffs at Point DeHawk, Omaha Beach, and the rows and rows of crosses from the men 18 or 19 years old who just never made it home. The thing that always jumps out at me that you can’t experience unless you come here is the gratitude of the French people. 
When you see huge banners in every village, “Thank you, America.” “Welcome to our liberators.” “Thank you for our freedom.” “We love you.” To see little kids running around in World War II uniforms, I thought they were the kids of American reenactors until they started speaking French and they’re French kids with t-shirts of Patton, Ike, and Bradley. That gratitude and appreciation is something I wish every American could see and frankly, I wish every American could experience and have themselves.
I think that’s one of the biggest takeaways that I look at when I analyze and think about what we’ve seen here. The very first flag we saw when we came to Normandy was an American flag. All these folks, as you said, who are dressed up and driving around in these World War II vehicles are not Americans.
No. They’re French. You see more American flags on French homes than you do on Main Street USA for the 4th of July. It’s striking. To see the actual World War II veterans in their parade, and yet everyone clapping, cheering, hugging, and kissing them, they’re not saying. Thank you, they’re saying, “Merci.” They’re French. It’s just very difficult to describe and something I wish everybody could experience.
I mentioned the world order. I want to talk about that. We have a tremendous amount of, I’d say, tension going on in the world in several different regions. We’ve seen what’s happened in the Middle East. We’ve seen with Israel and the Gaza situation over there. We have China. You and I talked a lot about China the last time we spoke.
I’ve had a chance to sit down with a lot of the senior leadership, specifically in Special Operations Command, as well as a Sergeant Major of the Army, and we’ve talked about this next fight. Where are you now in your role as a congressman when you analyze the next fight, where America needs to be focused, and where is it?
First, let me talk about where we are in Europe. Frankly, the president missed an opportunity in his speech at Omaha Cemetery to call many of our allies to the carpet. We can come together and we can be allies. You can be in the family but have tough conversations. The fact that we have what’s going on in Ukraine, Putin on the march, we have, as close as we are going to get to World War II, right now going on, on Europe’s doorstep, and you only have 11 of 31 NATO nations meeting their bare minimum.
Two percent of GDP that they’re spending on defense. You have your frontline Eastern European countries going above and beyond, but the big economies of our allies Germany, Italy, and France are falling way behind. When I take a step back to answer your question, I look at the fact that this year is the first year ever in American history that the interest on our debt will eclipse our entire defense budget.
This year is the first year ever in American history that the interest on our debt will eclipse our entire defense budget.
We literally can’t afford to subsidize European defense anymore. We had to step in and stop Putin. The Ukrainians are doing the fighting and dying. They asked us for the beans and bullets. That’s fine, but going forward, we can’t keep asking the American taxpayer to dig deeper and deeper into their pocket while the European taxpayer isn’t being asked to do the same thing.
One of the challenges that I look at when I think about the fight in Ukraine, I think about the Russians, and also, we’ll say, I think about the Chinese like this too, but we haven’t seen them in a fight yet. Do we have an enemy who’s willing to lose everybody? That’s right and to throw as much as it takes out there and they don’t care about life we do. How do we combat that?
I think that isn’t fought necessarily militarily, and that’s part of my frustration with the Biden administration’s strategy in Ukraine. Multiple analysts and the intelligence community have confirmed to me, that if you drive the price of oil below $55 a barrel, not only does Putin’s war machine dry up, but his economy is now in survival mode.
We should be flooding the world with cleaner, cheaper American oil and gas. Not only do you drop Putin’s war machine on the fritz, but you also take care of Iran, which is selling 90% of illicit oil to China of all things. I think you need a much broader strategic approach, particularly when it comes to energy, rather than just throwing more and more weapons into what has now turned out to be a stalemate. You need a much broader strategic approach, particularly when it comes to energy, than just throwing more and more weapons into what has now turned out to be a stalemate.
We need to enforce the sanctions and drive down the price of oil, and European burden-sharing needs to step up, particularly the big economies. This is a much broader strategic approach. To answer your other question about the next fight, I don’t know that we’re ready. I’m the chairman of Readiness on the Armed Services Committee.
When you have 29% of Joint Strike Fighters full mission capable, 40% of our submarines, our last big advantage in the Pacific, can’t get out of the yards. The Marines are about to go two years without having any big amphibians. We have a recruiting crisis going on where the Army has to cut whole units. When I say we need to put everything we’ve got into facing the threat of China, Europe has to step up and share their burden.
I mean it. You look in contrast to Japan as a critical ally, they are doubling their defense budget. They are truly investing in their defense. I think that’s a model. When you look at our allies and what it’s going to take, China’s going to be a tough adversary, but us, Australia, Japan, India, and our dominance with global energy, I think we can do it.
Is it a money issue or is it a willingness issue? When we’re here, we’re talking about World War II and the approach of the whole society. All the vehicles that we see driving around here were made by Dodge, Chrysler, and Ford. These companies in the American industry stopped making commercial goods and began mobilizing for the war effort for years they did. A whole-of-society approach is something we know and have proven to work.
I know I think it’s a great question, but my answer is yes, it’s money, and yes, it’s a whole-of-society approach. The Chinese Communist Party knows that. That’s why they’ve deliberately cornered the market on certain types of supply chains and on pharmaceuticals that they can turn off. They control global shipbuilding now. About 50% of the global market, they’re buying up ports left and right. If they can turn the screws on the American consumer, we saw how the country reacted when we just had a baby formula shortage.
What if you could no longer buy antibiotics? What if the shelves were empty? What if they unleash cyber attacks like the Volt Typhoon, which was no longer designed to steal data but to destroy pipelines, ports, and grids? This is going to be an all-of-society conflict if it comes to it. We have to deter it. What I want is that every time Chairman Xi gets out of bed and looks across the Taiwan Strait, he says, “They’re still too tough. We’re not ready.” This is going to be an all of society conflict. If it comes to it, we have to deter it.
How much do you think they look at our actions in other places of the world? Primarily, I’d say actions in other places of the world, but also taking it back to Congress in decision because of tensions between the two parties in Congress.
[00:11:01] Democracy is messy. Democracy can be difficult. Winston Churchill said, “American democracy is the worst system of government in the world, except all the others.” We tend to get to the right answer after exhausting all the wrong ones, but at the end of the day, I’ll take our free market, individual liberties, the openness of our society, and our form of government over this all day long. Back to the Jedburghs and bringing it back home.
I want her to wake up worried about a Uyghur uprising. I want her to wake up worried about the Tibetans. We need to start rattling his cage a bit more internally. We need to be supportive. In the Cold War, Soviet dissidents or Russian dissidents were household names across the United States. You look at the movements in Eastern Europe that we supported through Voice of America, through communication means, overt and covert.
I think those are the things that we need to be thinking about asymmetrically, not to mention the great work that our special operators are doing in the neighboring countries, in Mongolia, India, and Southeast Asia, to train, advise, and assist our allies. The more the Chinese Communist Party is looking over their shoulder, the less they’re looking across the Pacific. Special operations will have a huge role going forward.
Let’s talk about special operations. You’re a Green Beret, I’m a Green Beret. We talk a lot about Green Berets, and the Green Beret Foundation is the reason why we’re here. We put this whole thing together. There’s been a push from the big army DOD to reduce soft forces.
I’ve been fighting it all day long and the secretary of the army keeps telling me, “No, these are the intel folks and the logistics folks and the support. These aren’t actual Green Beret trigger pullers.” I just think it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what those special operations trigger pullers need. We need embedded intelligence.
We need embedded targeters. We need logisticians who understand the unique needs of an isolated ODA on the other side of the world in a combat zone or out of a combat zone. Now, I think that having to reach over to a big army to get those assets and compete for those assets is a tremendous mistake. I’m fighting it every turn on the last defense bill and this next one.
Soft truth number five. It takes the whole team. It’s not just about the special operator.
You can’t mass produce the support network as well. I’ll take three civil affairs, a half dozen PSYOP soldiers, you put them on some of these Pacific islands, and you are making game-changing gains against the soft power that the Chinese Communist Party’s implementing. Those who support men and women in the special operations community keep us out of wars. Those are the left of bang. Those are the ones who establish deterrence and soft power that we need going forward. That is the absolute. We shouldn’t be cutting it all. We need to fix this recruiting crisis, but to the extent we are, it shouldn’t be them.
I have to ask you about immigration. I live outside of New York and we have a lot of wildness going on in the city right now with immigration, especially in the metropolitan area. I’m talking about Manhattan itself and the levels of crime in Manhattan. A lot of it’s because of the immigration influx. There are just no more resources to deal with it, but we’re seeing it all over the country.
I’m not in government. I didn’t study a whole lot of math. I became a journalist, so I didn’t have to be all too smart about a lot of things, but I looked at the problem there, and what I said was that it looked like we had an open border. We have this influx of folks we can’t handle and then why is it so hard to just close the border and be stricter on who we let in the country?
I can’t get inside the president’s head. He said for the last three years that he needed additional legislation, but then he finally took an executive order in his power to at least partially close the border. I still disagree with it. If you’re looking at $2,500 a day, you’re almost a $1 million a year still that they’re letting in.
Unvetted from over 170 countries, many of them human trafficked, about 40% of the girls and women are sexually assaulted, raped, and sold into human trafficking, which is just heartbreaking to me. The strain on our resources, with upwards of 12 to 15 million people just in the last three years, is truly disheartening.
The piece that kicks me is every time I talk to a homeless vet or I talk to any veteran who’s not getting what they need, I talk to a teacher that her classroom is maxed out. Those are resources that American citizens should have. Finally, former Navy SEAL Congressman Dan Crenshaw and I introduced the legislation to authorize the use of military force on the cartels. The cartels are behind all of this.
They are working with Chinese companies and chemical manufacturers to pump fentanyl which is killing over 100,000 Americans a year. They’re making billions off of human trafficking. If you changed out the names Sinaloa and Jalisco with ISIS and Al-Qaeda, it wouldn’t even be a debate. However, I am not advocating, as the media has spun it, for sending the Marines to Mexico City.
We’re talking about law enforcement space assets, drone assets, and offensive cyber assets. We can start interdicting their communications, interdicting their bank accounts, putting them on the back foot. And if they’re afraid of a hellfire flying through the window in the middle of the night, and that keeps them up all night, unless they can plan and operate against us, I’m okay with that too. We know from Plan Colombia how to take down cartels. We took down the Medellin Cartel by, with, and through the Colombian government. I think we can do the same.
The last question I want to ask you is about the next six months. We’ve got a very polarized populace between the split of the parties. President Biden is going to be facing against President Trump again. How are we as a country going to remain unified? Regardless of who wins, that leader is going to have to stand up and unify this country if we have a shot at it.
I’m not going to sugarcoat things. I think, if you’ve got another five years of Biden, it’s going to be not only horrible for the country. I think what you’re seeing around the world right now is what a world looks like when deterrence starts crumbling and the order that our forefathers put in place post-World War II starts seriously eroding.
If President Trump wins, I think the progressive left is going to, frankly, lose their mind. To answer your question, how do we come together? I think President Trump says it right. Our success will bring us together. When we have an economy that is booming and a crime that’s under control, criminals are being prosecuted, and there is a secure border.
Our success will bring us together when we have an economy that is booming, when we have crime that’s under control, criminals are being prosecuted, and a border that is secure.
If you just look at the Middle East, when you have ISIS on their back foot, Iran is broken, the Abraham Accords are breaking out with Israel, and that success is unifying. I think you’re seeing in this campaign that you want to go back to four years of a booming economy, secure border and crime under control, and a world without wars, or what we have now? I think the contrast is very clear, but regardless, success ultimately will be the unifier.
I would argue that we have no choice but to succeed. The world is a calm place when America is strong.
One of the reasons that I’m passionate about getting more veterans elected, not just to Congress, state legislatures, city councils, and mayors. If we were all willing to die together, on both sides of the aisle, then we could come together and roll up our sleeves and take the tough votes, the tough solutions that we need to move the country forward. We’ve declined. We talked about this before. 75% of the Congress were vets in the 1970s.
Fifteen percent by 2018. We’ve increased that now back up to 25% and climbing. All you vets out there, you’re not done just because you went down range and came home. You don’t get to sit at the bar at the VFW and tell war stories. We need that mentality of accomplishing a mission and coming together, leadership, discipline, followership, and teamwork. We need it back in our national leadership. I think that, as a society, I want to get us back to national service.
We have to take the long game. We can’t fight.
That’s what grain berets do. 
Exactly. We can’t keep living in two four-year stands. We have to look where we want to be in 10 or 20 years, set that commander’s vision, and get after it.
You got it, brother.
Thanks for all you do.
Good to be with you.
