During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) spoke about President Trump bypassing Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and federalizing the National Guard amid anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.
00:00Thank you. Thank you very much. Senator Cain is next.
00:06Well, just to respond, the issue is not, is there lawless behavior that can be controlled by local law enforcement.
00:13You either believe in a federal system or you don't, where a governor requests the National Guard or doesn't,
00:20and you either believe in a civilian military division or you don't.
00:25Now, President Trump has addressed this topic in September of 2020.
00:30Look, we have laws. We have to go by the laws. We can't move in the National Guard.
00:34I can call insurrection, but there's no reason to ever do that.
00:38Even in a Portland case, we can't call in the National Guard unless we're requested by a governor.
00:46I'll set aside all the ad hominem partisan attacks and just say this.
00:51Senator Cotton brings up the example of Little Rock.
00:54President Eisenhower, Republican president, did federalize the Guard in that instance. Why?
00:58Because it was the governor that was violating federal law.
01:05There is no suggestion that Governor Newsom is violating federal law.
01:09In fact, he said, arrest me if I'm violating the law.
01:11And yesterday, the chief border agent for the United States said, there is no cause to arrest you.
01:16You are not violating federal law.
01:18And so the right balance in this instance is to let a local official, mayor, governor, seek assistance if they need it.
01:27If the president decides more assets are needed, we wouldn't even be having this discussion if he said in federal law enforcement, FBI, DEA, federal law enforcement.
01:38We're having this discussion because the president, in an unprecedented way, without a request and over the objection of the local elected leadership, has sent in the United States military.
01:50And that is unprecedented.
01:51General Smith, I want to just compliment you.
01:56You listed three pillars of the area you're working on.
01:58And number three was quality of life.
02:01Yesterday, I was at Yorktown Naval Base, and I visited your Marine Corps Security Force Regiment to see advances they're making on Barracks 2030.
02:10And it was very, very impressive.
02:11And I just, I told them that this is a real template for what we ought to be looking at marine-wide and DOD-wide.
02:18And I just wanted to compliment you on that.
02:21To Secretary Phelan and Admiral Kilby, Senator Fischer has asked you about Columbia class.
02:26I was going to ask, but let me just focus on, can you talk about where we are in trying to get Virginia class production up to speed?
02:36Yeah, I'll start, sir.
02:37We're not where we want to be, and we're not satisfied with it.
02:40We're at a 1.1 when we need to be on a 2.0 pace for us and 2.33 for the ultimate goal here with the AUKUS program.
02:50And just the timing of that, we need to be at 2.33 kind of in the early to mid-30s if we're going to, you know,
02:57be able to meet the commitments that we've made to the Aussies who've invested in our workforce to do that.
03:02Isn't that right?
03:03That's correct, sir.
03:04We have a heavy lift, 1.1 to 2.3 within 10 years.
03:07Yes, sir.
03:08I do think there's been a bunch of investments that we've enjoyed because of your approval in the maritime industrial base
03:16and the submarine industrial base in particular that I believe will help us here.
03:21But we do need the prime contractors to deliver and sequence work and get it done and focus on productivity just as Secretary Phelan laid out.
03:29Let me ask you this, Admiral Kilby.
03:33There's been a lot of attention to a couple of the mishaps in the Truman Carrier Strike Group,
03:38but the group did such good work.
03:41We had a committee briefing about this last week,
03:43and I think some of the positives of the work that was done under very difficult circumstances haven't really been described.
03:49Could you share with the committee?
03:50I certainly can, sir.
03:52I was privileged to go out and visit that strike group returning home the day before,
03:58the two days before she returned home.
04:00Just to kind of give you a quick sound bite,
04:03that strike group defended themselves, other ships or other countries, 160 times successfully.
04:10They conducted 670 strikes into Somalia, either from the air or from the land.
04:15They conducted the largest single airstrike ever launched from a carrier with 124,000 pounds of munitions
04:23that detonated within two minutes of each other in Somalia.
04:27They participated in eight named operations.
04:30They worked for three different combatant commanders.
04:34They did great work for our nation.
04:37And they did not just the nation, but the world.
04:39They really did good work.
04:40I have some questions about why other allies didn't do more,
04:43but I'm glad that we did what we did.
04:44And finally, Secretary Phelan, I've been hearing good reviews of your traveling around to the shipyards,
04:49and you talked about it a little bit.
04:51But what would be some insights that you have on the procurement side
04:55in terms of improvements that you believe you want to explore further based upon your tours thus far?
05:02Thank you for the question, Senator.
05:04Look, I think some of it is how we contract things,
05:07how we locate things in terms of where our vendors are in terms of proximity to shipyards.
05:17I think we have to really look at the manufacturing process of modules and what we're doing.
05:23I think in the next Virginia class, we have to really consider having HII build and EV build
05:31versus the two of them co-building.
05:34I think we need to introduce some competition back into the system.
05:38And I think one of the issues we've dealt with, particularly with Virginia,
05:42is some of these boats were first of class.
05:44It's a, even though it looks the same, it's very different.
05:47I think we're getting over that curve and learning faster.
05:50And I think candidly, it's just, you know, one of the things I would say,
05:56interestingly, every company I met with, every public shipyard I was at,
06:00they all bragged about their training.
06:02But when I sat down with all the workers,
06:04the one thing they said they didn't have really good was training.
06:07And so we are really, I think there are better ways to train them
06:11and get them in there and get them up to speed faster.
