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eastern on c-span. online at c-span.org, or download as a c-span now. our free mobile app, or wherever you get your podcast. c-span, your unfiltered few of politics. welcome to today's "wan journal." we will start with the gallup poll i mentioned, and i will show you the results that are in graphic form. so this goes today, 2023 i should say. and the question is,■o the percentage of the american public that has a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the u.s. military, it is at 60% here. you can see that. this graph shows you that same number but broken up by political party. e republicans on the top at 68% followed by democrats

at 62%. 55% the lowest, for independents. let's take a look at a portion this is retired general mckenzie, who is the former head of central command. [video clip] >> i am personally here today voluntarily to help the families of the fallen, the 13 fallen, and e thousands of fallen and tens of thousands of wounded and countless others who suffer the invisible wounds to g answers. i am humbled to be here today with three gold families, and i know the other families could not make it, by intended to contact them in the coming -- but i intend to contact them in the coming weeks. they know my feelings for them. me or any general or any politician or anyone that can

ever bring back their fallen. all of us can andll of #&us must honor their sacrifice to protect our country and to be forever grateful that they entered the call. 'each of them paid the ultimate sacrifice on the altar of freedom like so many before them to keep our nation safe, and we rs. and i am committed to assist in the effort to get them answers. but we should also not be under any illusion. all of the answers here today. this process will take a considerable length of time. we must also recognize much o the reco i classified and beyond the scope of this open hearing. so over two decades between 2001 an 2021, about 800,000 of us in uniform, the united states military, served in afghanistan and manousands of others from many agencies of government. of those, over 4000 gave

their lives. almost 30,000 were most 30,000 suffered injuries and countless others suffered invisible wounds. we must honor their sacrifice, each of over two decades of fighting the taliban, bringing osama bin laden to justice, and protecting the homeland. we lost over 200 u.s troops in units under my direct command in several tours and multiple years every commander who served in combat knows that we personally issued the orders that gave the task, purpose, place, and time of that soldier's death or wounds. we also know it was the enemy that killed or wounded them. combat is an unforgiving environment. those of us who have served in the brutality of ground combat

live with that dark reality every daan that was retired genl mark milley. we are taking your calls for the first hour on your level of confidence in the u.s. military. here is an article from the associated press. top former u.s. generals say failures of the biden administration and planning led to the chaotic fall in kabulmare buckley exposed for the first time the strain and differences■ military leaders have with the biden administration in the final days of the war. two of those key differences included that the military had advised thatheleast 2500 servicn afghanistan to maintain stability and a concern that the state departmentasot moving fast enough to get an evacuation started. let's take a look at another

portion from that hearing yesterday with the two generals. [video clip] >> you urged the white house and state department to put pen to paper to develop a plan to get americans and our afghan allies out of of guinness tandem right -- of afghanistan, right? >>right. part of the department of defense planning instead of the depart efforts to the secretary about my concern over that, the fact that we were moving pretty fast on this. they were not moving fast, and i wascations based on it. i went to the secretary. we spent some time talking about that. ally followed up with a written idea of some things we could do. 10 recommendations to the secretary of defense on that. >> recollection? general milley?

>> absolutely. executive privilege, etc., my assessments at the time and his assessments, the g military through and including the secretary of defense was that they should omafter the decisioo keep their presence there, the situation to be rated in the summer -- situation deteriorated in the summer and we were pressing for calls. >> they did eventually develop a >> so they had a plan. like i said, it is a requirement to have a plan. it is another thing, the specifics of execution. having a plan, coordinating the actually care you out in the department of defense, that is another set of tasks completely.

>> it was too little, too late. >> it was my judgment that it was far too little, far too late. >> was that your assessment, general milley? >> it was. consistent assessment by me and other members of the military up to and including the secretary that the withdrawal of the military forces andhe contractors in the nato forces that went with it would ultimately lead to a general collapse of the government. as i mentioned, the tension was one of the conditions that was made. host:orning. the phone lines are regional this time. if you are in the eastern or central time zone, (202) 748-8000. in the mountain or pacific time zones, call us on (202) 748-8001 . active or former military, call us on (202) 748-8002. you can also text us or use social media. we will take a look at this from the gallup poll. this is again from the end of

july last year, so before october 7. it says publicceptions of the u.itary have fluctuated dramatically over the past five decades. the aftermath of the war and 9/11 were followed by resounding upticks icether of ts ushered in an era of elevated confidence lasting nearly two decades. withdrawn from both iraq andtely afghanistan, the two most significant military legacies of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the u.s., confiin the military has continued to decline among the public. the decliness year were ross all par identification groups with republicans remaining the most likely to express confidence in independents becoming the least -- and(g■3endents becoming the least likely. we will go to the phones now and start with winston in virginia.

hi, winston. caller: hi. i apologize. i called on the wrong line. i wanted to call because i was in the marine corps and infantry for six years. as well as dutch as the confidence goes- as thexh go to the culture in the military. to the president but also to, what are the missions? what are the operations the military engages in? that isi have a lot of confidenn young people to try to do the right thing. but when it comes to the united states military and its history, i think we can look around the world and a lot of the issues that are really in thebe lookeds that the u.s. military engaged in.

across the caribbean, haiti, cuba, across all africa, some of the destabilization eorts, especially with the middle east. we have to understand the iraq war was a war based off of a light. one million people died -- of a lie, and over one million people died as a result. host: you said destabilization efforts in africa. what do you mean by that? caller: i appreciate the question. going into details, a country like niger has cut off there was an overwhelming support from the united states it is something that is overlapped in haiti as we speak. this has happened throughout the

global south. so that is what i mean. there is a destabilization effort as far as not allowing a populace to have actual sovereignty. that is what i mean. there is not a lot of confidence the united states government is going to be acting in the best interest to actually you know deploy theç" military -- actual, you know, deploy the military and a result that will benefit. host:dean in missouri, good mor. caller: yes. united veteran. we don't need to be in them to begin with. this has been going on since world war ii.

some of understand. some of them not. a lot of them, the iraq war and being in afghanistan the first place, if we are going to take out osama, they should have taken him out from the air. they opportunity to do that. we are spending way too much money on this. the big ships and stuff are really not worth it anymore. we've got the drones. we can do a lot more stuff a lot cheaper. china. the have this big military but they don't even put a quarter of their money in the military like we do. we need to cut back on all that and just use our militarwhen we have to and be ready to go when we have to, but don't get involved with these wars if we don't need to be.

and i ec you. host: steve mentioned the chinese militarso let's take a look at defense spending globally. the united states up on top at $906 billion. this is from 2023. this the rest of nato, nearly $400 billion. china is at $220 billion, russia at $75 billion. that comes from the defense department and brookings. they also say they are not quite sure about the numbers for china and russia given that they are not able to verify those numbers. ed in jacksonville, florida, you are caller: yes, good morning. i am going to say it from where i sit. military, retired army deployed to vietnam 1969 through

1971, deployed to iraq -- excuse me, afghanistan, kandahar, iraq, 2060 2007. -- 2006 to 2007. ■xac today, watching the military work, with all of the additional training on political correctness, so i am concerned very much about balancing the budget as well. you are putting our people in jeopardy with the cr's. i encourage congress to pass the bill. host: how? the sp >> we'll leave thihere to the u.s. house. members about to vote. questions previously postponed. ordering the previous question on house resolut■@io 1085. adoption of house resolution 1085 if ordered and motion to

pass