Latest / Follow the Leighder / Hegseth, Military Leadership, and a Senate Run | Lt. Col. Amy McGrath (Ret.)
Transcript
- Leigh/@followtheleighder: Howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson. And yes, the background does look a little different. I'm in a hotel out of town. I'm speaking at a women's conference this evening. But this morning, bro, this is so exciting from Kentucky. bring to you Lieutenant Colonel Amy McGrath. Welcome Lieutenant Colonel. Thank you for being here. Amy McGrath: Hey, great to be with you. Yeah, this is wonderful. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ my god, absolutely. I have the utmost respect for you and for folks who do not or are not familiar with her military service, Lieutenant Colonel Amy McGrath attended Naval Academy and graduated in 97. She started her 20-year Marine career. She flew 89 combat missions and was the first woman to fly F-18s in combat. Once you got out... Once you finished your Marine fighter pilot career, you didn't just, you know, retire. You stayed very much involved. I see that you were part of the U.S. Armed Services Committee. You got your masters in global security. You worked in the Pentagon and USAID. I mean, you've spent your entire career in service. Thank you for your service. How does this shape why you're running? today and why you're looking for the open seat of Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. Amy McGrath: Well, thank you again for having me on. ⁓ I think when you look deep inside yourself and you start to look at why am I doing the things that I'm doing in life? And I look back and I'm now midlife. I look back and it's been about service to country for me, defending this country. Now I've done it in different ways. 24 years in the military defending this country. And then when I got out of the military, I decided to go into politics for that same reason, to defend this country, to defend our constitution, our way of life. The defense was different. ⁓ It was in a political sense. But when I left the military in 2017, I felt like our country was in peril then. that the leader that we had even at the very top was not the leader that our country needed. And that my belief, and this is what I was taught in the Marine Corps is, you if you want better leaders, you need to be one yourself. And so that's why I left and jumped into politics for that reason. And here we are still today in 2026. where things have not gotten any better, things I believe in our country have gotten worse, and we still need better leaders. And so ultimately, if you just strip down everything else, that's what it's about for me. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. And you have seen so much, you've accomplished so much. When you hear someone ⁓ like Pete Hegseth, who is sitting as the head of the Department of Defense, or, but ⁓ your career completely contrasts everything he's saying. This portrayal that he has of women as weakening the force. as not being able to quote hang, as being a liability, your entire career defies that, as does many women in the service. Talk about what that is or what that feels like to, ⁓ whether it's your service or hearing other stories, when you hear Pete Hegseth make comments about women in combat, how does that feel? Amy McGrath: Well, first of all, you have to look at who it's coming from. ⁓ This is a deeply insecure, weak man who couldn't make it in the National Guard, was kicked out. ⁓ And, you know, for him to say those things, first of all, I knew it's a lie. The hurtful part of that is for him to have a platform. to be able to stand up there in the hearings, the confirmation hearings in front of a bunch of senators and say these lies without having a lot of pushback. And that was the frustrating thing for me because they are lies. ⁓ No one wants standards to be equal more than women for these jobs. And we have pressed for, to make sure that that is the case, you know? has always been the case, particularly in aviation. But even in the ground side, when women were integrated, it was a very conscious decision to make sure that there was no lowering of standards. And so, and we have seen lots and lots of women meet those standards and exceed them. And to ⁓ sit there and lie about is just such a slap in the face to the women and men who frankly met the standard that Pete Hexeth never did. And that's kind of the way I think about it. And unfortunately, he is our Secretary of Defense. And to tragic results, by the way. This is a man who very much thinks tactically and does not think strategically. ⁓ It's astonishing to me that we're watching this man in charge of our entire Defense Department. He's so unqualified. I don't even know where to begin. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and it's interesting too because they ⁓ did a number of staffing changes within the military very quickly when Hec-Zeth was first brought in, looking like the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We talked about also promotions being changed for women. Can you kind of talk to us a little bit about or update my audience? What exactly— ⁓ are some of the big staff changes or policy changes you've seen with Hexeth this year. Amy McGrath: So basically what he did was, first of all, he fired a bunch of very high level generals and admirals, mostly women and minorities. And that in and of itself was pretty obvious. He also fired the top Jags. These are the lawyers, the top lawyers in the military. That's really important because The lawyers are there to help the commanders make sense of what is ⁓ legal and what is not. We have an honor concept in the military. We abide by the laws of war. There are certain things that we can and can't do, and the lawyers are there to help a commander figure that out. And so to fire them was a signal of, you do what we tell you to do, or you're out, regardless of whether it's legal or ethical. And that's a big shift. ⁓ And then he proceeded to go on and berate ⁓ all of the high ranking generals, bring them back to Quantico, Virginia, so that he and the president could give them a dressing down, which had never been done before, to stand up there in front of all of our top ranking generals and admirals and basically talk about hair standards and just stuff that a secretary of defense should have nothing to do with. Again, it's just this focus on all of these low level things, Leigh. I mean, when you were in the service, the person that set the ⁓ for how many pull-ups you do and what your hair should look like, that is not ⁓ top ranking person in the Pentagon. Okay. That's like somebody in the admin department of a service. And why that's important for people need to understand is that the top ranking person in the Pentagon, they have really important job dealing with the rise of the Chinese military and the Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific and the war in Ukraine. And what are we going to do about the Middle East and all of these things, you know, potential terrorist attacks and things like that. We're focused on hair standards. It's it's ridiculous and it shows you where this guy's head is I mean he is he's focused on really low-level stuff and then he's really focused on getting rid of the quote woke Which of course is whatever you want to define it as it's mostly getting rid of minorities and women just this week there reports that he inserted himself in the promotions process from colonels to one-star generals in the United States Army in order to remove women and minorities, take them out of being promoted. That is unheard of for a secretary of defense to get involved in that kind of stuff. And it's very worrisome because our military is not political. It is not supposed to be politicized. And so when the secretary of defense, who's very much a political figure, determines who gets promoted and who doesn't based on what they might've wrote their master's thesis on 10 years prior, ⁓ but clearly it's based on gender and ethnicity and race, that's a problem. ⁓ really big problem. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and ⁓ the announcements about trimming the faith codes, again, like getting real involved in all of it, just a complete overhaul of the culture. When I served in the Chaplain Corps as a candidate in the Air Force Reserve, ⁓ I was pleasantly surprised with how many people, not even pleasantly surprised, like so many people did not care that I was serving in a female clergy role. Like that I talked to everybody. I talked to fighter pilots. I talked to SACO. I talked to everybody. ⁓ but it was clear there were a few ⁓ high ranking or, you know, folks that outranked me that that did seriously have a problem. And these were my chaplain. These were like a lieutenant colonel and a major. And it was very specific. The antagonism, I very clearly remember it. And I'm curious, did you experience anything like that as a fighter pilot? Did you feel like, hey, a ton of people actually don't care at all. And then you have a very concentrated small group that is just so passionately upset about this. Was that your experience? Amy McGrath: Yeah, that's real. ⁓ that small passionate group is now in charge. ⁓ think what we're seeing right now, but I, experiences like yours, Leigh, ⁓ I say 90 % of the men and women, but mostly men that I serve with were fantastic. You know what they cared about? Can you shoot? Can you drive the tank? Can you fly the plane? Can you drop the bomb? Do you have my back when I'm getting shot at? Are you a person of integrity? Can I count on you? Are you competent? And if you, if you, the answer is yes to all of those things, you're in and they, they wanted you ⁓ in their team, our team. ⁓ You're a warrior. You've proven yourself. And that was, that was that. And, and is what I loved about the United States Marine Corps. There were, there were, a few in the minority, but they did not have much power in my time. A lot of those guys, frankly, were the ones that couldn't cut it. And so they ended up falling by the wayside like Pete Hegseth did in his National Guard career. And now, of course, I think what you're seeing in the military is ⁓ from the top, coming from the top, these guys that Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Amy McGrath: you know, are not the best of the best, but that have real animosity toward minorities in charge. And that puts ⁓ the service in a real, I think, does a real disservice because you're not allowing talent to rise. You're impeding talent. Not everybody, you know, we have a force in the military that is over 40 % minority, persons of color or women, over 40%. And ⁓ we have a very, very few, I mean, the vast majority of leaders of our military are white men. And you know, there's something there. And so the idea is we have to make sure that we have leaders that reflect who they're leading. Leigh/@followtheleighder: huge. Amy McGrath: And ⁓ also we have to make sure that we have allowed talent to rise and not pluck them out, which is what Pete Hegseth is doing right now. And that's not even to get into his far right Christian nationalist rhetoric, which is also very damaging to our military. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Mm-hmm. Oh, it's, it is. And it's, whether it's bringing in Doug Wilson for these prayer breakfasts or making very clear, you talked about earlier, this is a secular position. This is not a, it's not, it's definitely not a religious role. So to be telling or instructing Americans to pray on your knees in the name of Jesus is a, I, had to take a walk. I was like, we are rapidly heading into something very, very, we are, we were here. And one of the things in my research was that I found that he loves in his books, he has American Crusade and battle for American mind about public education. But in both of these, he references his respect for the Roman state cult. And I can't help but think that he is looking at the military as his, this is his, I mean, it is his domain. He thinks he is divinely called to be there. And right now he is fully living in his glory moment. And we can sit here and watch this as it's just delusion and chaos, but. The Christian Nationalists, I'm glad you brought that up because I have that on here. ⁓ It's just so concerning and this is coming from, I very much value my faith and the faith of others. This is not a anti-Christian or anti-religious concern. It's just not at all appropriate to bring in ⁓ church and state at the level that he is doing. ⁓ What have... When you look at this landscape, I'm not too familiar with your faith, I don't want to put that on you, but how are you seeing his religious rhetoric intertwined with his views towards women? Amy McGrath: Well, I grew up Catholic ⁓ and my father was in the seminary for a while and ⁓ I went through Catholic schools and you know, I'm very much a Christian. That is my belief. That is what I am ⁓ teaching my children. ⁓ But my experience in the military has taught me that this country is not, we're a country that embraces all beliefs and all religions or no religion at all. I served with men and women who were Catholic, who were Christian, who were Christian fundamentalists, who were ⁓ Muslim, who were Jewish. or who had no faith whatsoever. And we all wore the uniform. And we all serve this country. And I'm a very staunch believer in the fact that the Constitution was written for a reason, in such that our country should not be the champion of one faith over another. And as much as that First Amendment where, you know, government should not be telling you what faith you should hold, ⁓ but also we shouldn't be inserting our faith into others, you know, in our country through government. I just believe that, and I think that that's really important. What the Secretary of Defense has done in this is, in my belief, outrageous because you do have a force that is of multi-faith and you're their leader. And so to me, I think it's okay to have a personal viewpoint, but then as a leader, you have to make sure that you're not imposing that on others. And also you are the head of our, the United States' military who is now at war in the Muslim world. A war in which we started. ⁓ A war in which we, we arguably, I would say not even arguably, assassinated the leader of the Shia Muslim faith in the middle of Ramadan. And so to turn around and have this as this front and center thing, I think just does real damage to our country. makes it seem to others like this is some holy war. You know, just the other day, I'll read this off to you, ⁓ Hegseth at a Christian prayer and worship service at the Pentagon, prayed for Almighty God to quote, pour out your wrath. and quote, break the teeth of the ungodly. He begs the Almighty to sanction the quote, overwhelming violence against those who deserve no mercy. I mean, I don't know how that's different than any of the fanatical rhetoric that we hear from leaders in the Muslim world, like in Iran. And so we've just turned ourselves into this and we may not see it, but other people around the world see it. And that's the problem with Pete Hegseth, the leader of our military, our Defense Department saying these things. ⁓ It's un-American. I remember, I'll tell you one quick story, ⁓ the way I think it should be. I did three tours in combat. I did two in Afghanistan. I did one in Iraq. My third tour in Afghanistan was in 2010. And I was in Helmand province. The head of our forces was a man by the name of General Dunford. He was the head of ISAF, which was ⁓ all of the forces, not just the American forces, but all the forces in Afghanistan. And I will never forget him coming to our base ⁓ to do the work that he was doing ⁓ as the commander, talk to the commands, find out what's going on. He was not based at our base, but he came in for a couple of days. And one of those days overlap with a Sunday. And we had a chapel tent ⁓ on that base in Hellman province called Camp Leatherneck. And ⁓ I would go to mass every Sunday when I could. It was very informal, you know, we had a chapel in there that would give that mass. General Dunford came to mass while he was there. He did not go to the front row. He did not make a big speech. He went and he was in one of the side pews next to me. And I remember looking over, ⁓ there's the four star general next to me. He was there and you could tell he was a man of faith because he was there. But there was no fire and brimstone. about this. We were there to do a job and that's the way it should be. You know, he was not standing up there ⁓ preaching or saying that this war was a holy war or bad mouthing other face, any of that, because he's the leader of the United States forces and all of the forces that were with us. That is the professional nature of the type of leadership we should be seeing, but we're not. Mm-hmm. Right. Well, let me ask you because I don't know as much. I read about the insignia change and I can't really remember. ⁓ What I thought was you had the chaplain insignia on one side and then you had to rank on the other, similar to the medical corps. Is that so how is it changed you basically he wants it on both sides without a rank at all. Well, you know, I do feel like it's going to be a disservice to our country and to our military because military members also come from a broad range of faiths. And they're not going to necessarily want to trust chaplains ⁓ if they are only of one certain faith or if they push ⁓ their own faith onto others in ways that are really pushy, you know? And I've felt like, and I'd be interested in your take on this, in my career, I saw over time that members of the military, many of them needed more counseling. And maybe this was because of the 20 years of war in which I was in ⁓ during my years. ⁓ People needed more counseling. They needed more help. in many areas and the military I felt needed to do a better job of mental health providers and a lot of that type of stuff was sort of like, go see the chaplain. And the chaplains in my time were really good and most of them were really amazing, but they did not necessarily have the training or expertise to deal with some of the ⁓ mental health concerns that we saw. And that was something that I, I don't know, you know, what your experience is, but I felt like a lot was dumped on the chaplains that they weren't really ⁓ trained for. And I worry that that's probably worse now. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. ⁓ Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay, you're kind of cutting out just a little bit. I don't know if it's me. Might be me. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Okay, good. You were cutting out a little bit, but... Yeah, I heard you to about halfway through it. Yeah. Yeah. We're in the height of stupidity right now ⁓ with the leadership of our military. mean, just pulling out ⁓ our officers from colleges, from very reputable colleges and universities around the country at the higher level degrees, ⁓ shutting down ROTC units because you don't like those institutions, ⁓ not promoting men and women to positions because they've something in when they were getting their master's degree on something you don't like. mean, one of my friends, she did her entire master's and then PhD on the role that women play in peace negotiations to end the conflicts, the role that women play in in conflicts and how all of that, what the data shows. What, well, to boil it down, the data shows that if more women are at the peace table, guess what? We have more structured and longer lasting peace agreements. And isn't that the whole point? Peace, right? ⁓ And so that person would probably never even be promoted in our military because we have such crazy leadership right now that doesn't want the truth. if it doesn't align with their very narrow view of the world. And that just does a disservice to all of us. know, when you think about ⁓ just winning wars, just defending our nation, wouldn't you want ⁓ all of the data out there? Wouldn't you want people who aren't all trained the same? I one of my jobs when I was in the Pentagon was the Marine Corps ⁓ liaison to all the other government agencies. And it was a position that the commandant of the Marine Corps ⁓ started that year because we were finding out that we didn't work very well with USAID and with the State Department in many ways and with some of these other agencies. And one of the things that I did was try to expand the number of Marine officers that did what do you want to call them, fellowships or a year. a year away from the Marine Corps with some of these other agencies so that we could embed ourselves in those other agencies. And those other agencies could know what the Marine Corps could give them. Because we're all on the same team. And that has been gutted now. Now we're sending Marines at that level all through the same training. Why would you want that? If I had a group of colonels or lieutenant colonels, I want them to have a basic level of strategic knowledge, of course, but I don't want them to all be ducks. I don't want them to all think the same. I want them to have different experiences. I want one of them to be at the United States Institute of Peace for a year. I want one of them to be on the Hill in Congress. I want one of them, a couple of them to be over at the State Department. I want a few of them to be at USAID. Why? Because these are the places that when we deploy, we're deployed with these people, you know, and with their ⁓ authorities and with their ⁓ expertise. I want one of them to be maybe at different colleges and universities, trying to figure out, ⁓ trying to listen to the best minds in the world, like over in Stanford, for example. ⁓ I want some of them to be out in the private sector. at Amazon or at other places so they can learn so we don't all think the same. It's just basic leadership 101 of big organizations. But we're now led this massive organization of our military is now led by a man who just doesn't. who is at the level, like I said, of ⁓ an 03, know, and acts like somebody that just wants to go to the gym. ⁓ That's not what we need from the leader of... There's one thing to do that, to be part of the troops and ⁓ to show that you're, you know, motivated and all of that, but the... The focus on that and not the focus on the things that we need, which is more of a strategic level, is really going to do our country a disservice. Yeah, I, it's no, I, I, I agree with you that the, the memes and the videos of bombing, and then you overlay video game music. And it's just something I never thought I would see at that kind of level, ⁓ being tweeted out by the white house and, know, as if this is some game. And that is just, it's really offensive. ⁓ And I mean, it's just juvenile. ⁓ And ⁓ I don't understand it. It's beneath what the United States, the professionalism of our military, ⁓ it's not something that we sit there and beat our chest over and And also, I think we also have to go back to something really important about this war in Iran and then the war that we have been doing, the strikes that we have been doing in places like Venezuela and off the coast is that there's a real moral hit to this. It's borderline illegal. because the president never asked, never got an up or down vote from Congress. There's been no authorization. There's been no justification to the American people for this. There's been no attempt to get our allies. There's been no attempt to go to the UN. There's nothing. So we're using our military in somewhat unprecedented ways right now because we have not even tried to make this legal or justified. And I think that also that compounded with the fact that we are putting out these memes of bombing that we bombed a girl's school in the first day and the commander in chief denied it and the secretary of defense or war, whatever he wants to call himself today denies it. And that ends up hurting us morally. We're our moral ground is gone. ⁓ And the military, our United States military has always kind of had that. I mean, it's this concept that we have and you, I'm sure felt it in the Air Force. It's this concept of honor. Of honor. We don't do certain things. We don't shoot people in the back. Okay, we don't execute people. We don't, we don't. ⁓ put videos out of us bombing people and celebrate it. We might show that video to show that that target is destroyed, but we don't sit there and celebrate it. Like we're some 12 year old playing a video game. And that's just not been something that the United States military does outwardly. And I do worry about that shift in what it does to us. morally. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's not only been attacked by Hegson, he's been attacked by our president, sadly. you know, for somebody who who served their country and is a member or a senator, like John McCain served the country and was a senator, to be attacked by the president of the United States is in such a personal way is really terrible. And also the reasoning behind it. mean, these members of Congress were simply ⁓ reminding the military leadership that they do not need to follow illegal orders. And that is like not only true, that is like their duty is not to follow illegal orders. So what these members of Congress said was basically just restating the law. Now, why on earth would we attack people for restating the law? I think these members of Congress, including Mark Kelly, felt the need to say this right now because of all of the craziness that this administration is doing, Leigh. And we just talked about the craziness, the fact that they have these strikes in the Caribbean. that had no declaration of war, no debate in Congress, no argument or reasoning. The reasoning kind of went all over the place. Lots of lies, people killed unprofessional behavior by the higher ranking people and putting out memes and bombing. You the president of the United States saying bombing because it's fun. And then you add that into, you know, that was what was happening at the time when these guys did this video. And now look at what's happened. Now look, look, we started a war in Iran with all that same stuff. it's like times 10 what we were doing. And so I think that the videos were simply just trying to ⁓ remind the military and that, you know, that's not, there's no crime there. And so it's, but it's a, it's a way to try to say to retired military, shut up. You know, you may know that this stuff is is wrong and unethical, immoral. Don't say anything because we will go after you. We will go after your retirement. We will go after your rank. We will silence you. And you and I both know in the military, you can't say anything. When you're active duty, you can't say anything. You got to shut up and color. So who can in our country? Retired military, members of Congress who have been in the military, they are the ones with the credibility, the credibility to be able to push back. The only ones with the credibility because our current active duty military can't do it. And so what this is trying to do is to silence those people, to say, Well, you you've done your 30 years and you're now on the board of X, Y, and Z. Make sure you don't say anything or we're going to go after you because you might lose your pension. You might lose your board position. And so I think that there are a lot of retired military who take a look at that and say, you know, it's not worth me speaking up. And that's unfortunate. I do think that there are some retired military who are speaking up. and they're there on the news and they're saying the truth. But ⁓ they take a risk. I take a risk for running for office. I take a risk for speaking out. You know, when this thing happened to Mark Kelly, I thought my husband and I looked at each other and we're both retired military and we both thought, he's gonna come after us next. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Well, thank you. I think Kentuckians, first of all, politicians of both sides of the aisle have sold out to big corporations, to billionaires, to Mar-a-Lago for way too long. Mitch McConnell is a perfect example of that. Another example of this just more broadly is in the health insurance industry. and I'm running here in Kentucky to be a voice for every Kentucky and for all Kentucky is not for corporations, not for billionaires, not the way Mitch McConnell, who, really didn't care very much about our state or our people. He really just cared about the power. ⁓ I'm running to be a voice for Kentucky. And that means a focus on what Kentucky ends, not Amy. but Kentuckians care about. And what I'm hearing from Kentuckians when I go around the state is they're really worried about the rising cost of everything from energy bills to groceries to rent. I talk to people every day. I talk to people who have said, have gotten a raise in the last five or six years, but I'm broke. My paycheck doesn't go as far because the cost of everything is higher. So I want to focus on getting those costs down. I want to focus on getting rid of the tariffs, for example, which is just a tax that hurts our bourbon industry and hurts our farmers and hurts all of us. And then the other thing I hear from Kentuckians is about health care. You we were a state that expanded Medicaid because we had a democratic governor and all of that's being thrown away right now because of this bill that was just passed last summer. So we've lost all this funding for Medicaid, we have lost the Affordable Care Act subsidies. I have talked to folks who, know, they're just in last three months, their premiums for health care work full time, full time job as a nurse. Her premiums went up from from 300 bucks a month to 1300 bucks a month, completely unaffordable. And people are in this this you can either, you know, it's unaffordable, they either have to get rid of their health insurance or roll the dice and not have it. This is just wrong. So I want to focus on on get clawing back all of that funding and then fixing what we know is a broken health care system that is because of private insurance based on money and greed and it hurts all of us. So health care, getting prices down and then fixing our democracy. And I know that sounds lofty, but we can't keep going the way we're going. Government shutdowns every three months now. Yeah, it's not working. We need to have term limits and Mitch McConnell is a perfect example. Nobody should be in office for 42 years. Term limits, ending gerrymandering, getting rid of money and ⁓ dark money in politics. We've got Elon Musk just put $10 million into this race in Kentucky. He's probably never set foot in this state, but he's going to buy who he wants. That's wrong. We got to have leaders that get into office that are dedicated to fix these big structural things. And those are non-partisan things. Yes, I'm a Democrat. I married a Republican. My loyalty is to Kentucky and to our country and our democracy first. And so that's why I'm running. I think, you know, ⁓ this is a message that Kentuckians are hearing from me. And we're working very hard in this race to fill this seat. Sure. Well, we have a website, amymagrath.com. People can volunteer. They can definitely support. As I mentioned, we're up against sort of Elon Musk and all of his money. That's really important. Resources are very important to run a credible campaign. That's how you get your message out. So if people can support, that's important. And we'll continue to fight here in the state. This is a winnable race. We have a Democratic governor who won in sort of an off-cycle election twice. That's a very similar electorate to this midterm. So this is a race to watch and support. Well, good to be with you.