My guest today on RIGHT IN DC is Jessie Jane Duff. Jessie served 20 years active duty in the US Marine Corps and retired as a Gunnery Sergeant. In 2014, she became a Senior Fellow with the London Center for Policy Research. Jessie provides military, veteran, national security, business and economic analysis for major television and radio news networks and is a contributor to various blogs, articles, and opinion pieces.
In this episode, we discuss three hot current topics—and she doesn’t hold back:
• President Trump’s comments about Sen. John McCain and her thoughts about McCain and his involvement in the fake dossier and Obamacare
• Her thoughts about the 12 Republicans who voted against the border wall national emergency and the so-called setting a precedent excuse
• The recent court ruling that women should be eligible for the draft and her thoughts about women in direct ground combat and why this issue isn’t about equality
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RUSH TRANSCRIPT
GT
This is Gayle Trotter, host of Right in DC. Today our guest is Jessie Jane Duff. Jessie Jane served 20 years as a gunnery sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. She became a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research in 2014. Jessie provides military, veteran, national security, business and economic analysis for major television and radio news networks and is a contributor to various blogs, articles, and opinion pieces. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jessie Jane.
JJD
Oh, good morning, Gayle. It’s exciting to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
GT
You’re a good friend of mine and a great American and I thought there was no one better to talk to this week, because we have so many interesting military stories that you are an expert on. And as a woman vet, you have also the insights that many of us do not have. I thought it was important. The topic that seems to be the biggest controversial topic this week is the comments that President Trump has made about the late Senator John McCain. Now, many people in the press have been going nuts that President Trump has, as they called it, disrespected Senator McCain. Yet I feel like they are not giving the whole story about why President Trump suddenly is engaging the memory of Senator McCain and that seems like an important detail that the mainstream media is leaving out of their coverage of this latest development with President Trump and Senator McCain.
JJD
Yes, I just tweeted about it this morning. I took a pause for a few days. I’ve always been on the fence about tweeting anything about Senator McCain for a multitude of reasons. I do know his son, Jimmy McCain. He was a United States Marine. I really respect Jimmy a lot. It’s always been a struggle for me for a variety of reasons. I supported Senator McCain, as many of the conservatives have, Republicans did, when he ran for president. But I did have my own feelings that were negative toward him, but I felt I would keep that mostly to myself.
So in full clarity, I lost a lot of respect of him over time, particularly his last few years as senator, starting with the repeal, the ACA, where he voted against after promising, promising, in multiple videos, multiple campaign stops, and [inaudible 00:02:47] promising that he would repeal it, and then he turned around and didn’t. I have supported Kelli Ward running for Senate, so this to me was a slap in the face to the votes in a most flagrant way. I’ve lived in Arizona briefly.
Then we go on to this Steele dossier. Everyone had discussed this. It came out, it was common knowledge, that he had released it to the FBI. He felt that it was important documentation.
GT
Wait, what is the Steele dossier, for those who are not familiar with the Steele dossier?
JJD
Apparently there was this camp that Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC had paid that a man named Steele, I believe, was it – Michael Steele is his first name. He had confined a lot of what they thought was intelligence on President Trump’s ties to Russia. Much of it turns out to be flagrantly false or made up. Basically this dossier was put together and Senator McCain, at the time sent an aide to England. I believe it was, correct me if I’m wrong here, London, to pick it up and bring it back, because this was the Intel that was going to take President Trump down, supposedly. At the time, he was running for president. They were trying to show some type of collusion with Russia to enable him to become president of the United States.
Now, all of us, yourself included, and most conservatives who have been following this, even if you’ve only been remotely following this news, that this dossier was fake. We knew this early on, and yet this is what caused the investigation by Mueller to investigate the Trump campaign for collusion with Russia. Let’s get back to
GT
Right, and James Comey even called it salacious and unverified, so even people
JJD
Exactly.
GT
[Overlapping]
JJD
And that was in 2017 before he was fired. Essentially there was no evidence this is factual, yet we’ve spent millions of dollars on this investigation for collusion with Russia to only find out that there is no evidence of collusion with Russia. They found other discrepancies with other people that are now being prosecuted that had nothing to do with the campaign. Michael Cohen’s one of them, who has obviously been deceitful with his taxes. He has tried to mislabel the President as a racist, doing anything to save his own rear end, although he was an attorney for the President for over a decade. So every single of these clears — now, Manafort had not made any public statements against the President, but he is looking at being prosecuted for his relationship with the Ukraine, which is not Russia, for those who are not aware of that. That is not.
And there’s other problems that they find.
[Laughter]That’s why we don’t necessarily like – this happened with Kenneth Starr in the investigation with Bill Clinton. All kinds of other things come out and this is why independent counsels often — democrat or republican, you need to be cautious before you have this, because other things may surface that have nothing to do with what you’re originally investigating. Back on track with Senator McCain.
GT
Right, and it becomes a fishing expedition. I think a lot of fair and independent-minded people, as we get more and more information about this, see this as a silent coup attempt, that there was this idea –
JJD
Well the investigation, I can’t unequivocally say that Mueller was doing a silent coup. He is doing what he was appointed to do. He was given free reign to do whatever he wanted. He’s falling within the guidelines. I do think that he’s gone beyond the guidelines, because Sessions, who was with the DOJ at the time – I’m sorry, he was the – how do we say that? He wasn’t the Department of Justice. He was the attorney general at the time – had recused himself, but he recused himself from the investigation with Russia. What happened is Mueller started expanded the net and I am surprised that the Department of Justice didn’t reel him back in, but I am not a legal expert on that.
The coup itself was the dossier. The activity of the FBI in exploiting the dossier in every part of it –
GT
Right, with Andrew McCabe and Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe has said that there was an attempt to try and oppose the President, so the coup was not more, but it was what happened before and then the appointment.
JJD
The foundation.
GT
Yes.
JJD
Exactly. And Mueller had a lot of respect from both sides of the aisle, and if he’s really going to be honorable, he will come out and say this. I don’t know that he will, because everyone he has selected in the investigation to support the investigation, including Lisa Page, and – he didn’t select Strzok, but he did select Lisa. These are people that had supported openly Hillary Clinton. There were no supporters of President Trump in the investigating team. You know that would influence or tarnish the outlook that they have on the investigation.
Back to McCain – McCain was a critical piece of this, because he’s the one that got his hands on this dossier, funded by the Clinton campaign, funded by the DNC, and Christopher Steele – I’m sorry, his name was Christopher Steele. Christopher Steele has never been implicated in it, because he was funded to do exactly what he did. He never made these allegations himself. Duh, here comes McCain on the white horse, thinking I’m going to save the country and hand it over to the FBI.
It has never been a secret of his disdain of President Trump, never has been. This has been something that has gone back and forth for some time, but when it started influencing and impacting the American people is where people like myself say, okay, now I’m going to speak up. It’s one thing if he disagreed with the President, but this was designed to dismantle the presidency, designed to dismantle the legitimacy of this election, and he was knowingly was involved in it.
So the President did tweet out basically his disgust of Senator McCain. He indicated that he came out last in his Naval Academy class. Some people would maybe call that a low blow, but he went straight for the dossier and did comment on him handing it over to the FBI and his involvement in it. My comment is this as a veteran –
GT
Do you think people are most upset because President Trump is, quote, “attacking,” end quote, a dead person or do you think people are most upset because President Trump is supposedly attacking a vet who was subjected –
JJD
I think people who are upset are not necessarily – I think it’s a faux outrage. I think anybody who supports President Trump already knows what the issue is, already understands this. They already understand why President Trump responded the way he did. Because it has been disclosed in legal documents that this dossier was artificial. It was manmade, it was created, it was designed to destroy the presidency, and Senator McCain was directly involved with it. His fingerprints are all over it.
With that said, people who are claiming to be upset are the same people that are trying to blame President Trump for the shootings in New Zealand, okay? These are the same people that are coming up with some type of “now there’s more white extremism than any other crime.” These are the same people that are portraying their anti-Semitic views, because they don’t want to have to support Israel. These are all faux outrages. Anything the President is doing, they are trying to contradict.
John McCain was a controversial man. We can all agree to that. I don’t care if you’re on the left, I don’t care if you’re on the right. That is controversial when you’re making campaign promises that you’re not upholding. Yes, the left was thrilled he upheld Obamacare and the right was not thrilled with it. But we can all agree that was a very controversial act on his part in his later years of his life. We’re talking the last two years of his life. And we can all agree – I don’t care if it’s Jay Capiter [ph] [00:10:45], I don’t care if it’s – who will be my conservative that I could do a shout-out? Lou Dobbs, let’s say. Yeah, I don’t care what flag you’re on. Being [inaudible 00:10:54] Steele dossier is controversial – controversial.
So let’s be clear on this. He’s a controversial person and he had direct impact upon this President. The President has every right to make a comment. So let me speak now as a veteran. I saw Jay Capiter’s tweet this morning that said that he had gotten a message from a combat vet who felt that this was very unfortunate, he was deeply disturbed by President Trump’s comments concerning Senator McCain, and why won’t the republican leadership speak out against it. I really was cracking up in myself, because I said, “Okay, Jay, you got to use now a veteran to validate these comments against a veteran, so that makes it okay?” That’s what makes it right, because it was a veteran’s feelings? Let me be very clear to the audience. We got 22.5 million veterans out there. We are not all heroes. We are not all wonderful people. You have a lot of people that served, who have gone on and done dishonorable acts, and you have the majority of us who have not. But let’s not make any mistake and blanketly sweep everybody into the same bucket where we are untouchable and beyond criticism.
There was no, no secret to Senator McCain having disdain for this President, no secret of that. And I think once you’re a public official and a senator, nonetheless, you are open to and you must be subject to the same criticism as anyone else. And if the trust of the American people no longer believes in you, you cannot fall back on your POW or veteran status to be immune from that. That is not a shield of honor. And there is a lot of dispute and discussion about his status as a POW. I won’t even go into that. That’s before my lifetime.
[Laughter]Or maybe as a child. I don’t know what year it was. We’re not going to disclose the years so everybody knows I still think I’m 25.
GT
Yes, neither of us will.
JJD
Right.
But with that said, let’s talk about the last two years here that directly impacted the President of the United States and tried to dismantle election. I find it insulting when people start using veterans to legitimatize their feeling about John McCain, like, “These veterans are upset. This is a combat veteran, so it must now be offensive, because there’s a veteran out there offended.” Well, I’m a veteran also. And I may not be a combat veteran or a POW, but I will say just because I served this great nation doesn’t mean that I can’t have a different opinion about Senator McCain and it doesn’t mean that Senator McCain was a legitimate person in his activity with this Steele dossier. I dare to say there was malice in his heart, and that is an assumption on my part, but there was malice in his heart for this president, based upon the actions that we saw. The thumbs up for the Obamacare repeal was defeated, because he gave the thumbs up, was shocking to most of us who had been desperately trying to get this across the finish line. We were stunned and there was malice in his heart, because he deceived the Arizona voters and he turned on the President of the United States, because it became him against the President. Honestly, he’s the biggest reason we ended up having President Obama, because he could not defeat him in the election, and that is a direct result of Obamacare.
GT
That is so fascinating, because I think, like you’re saying, opponents of President Trump want to use the shield of combat veterans who are upset about this to try and make the point that they already have a negative opinion about President Trump. And when you think about John McCain – you might remember. I mean, we’ve been involved in this for a long time – the Republican Party as a group said, “We can’t oppose Obamacare, because we don’t have control of the House of Representatives.” So what happened? The American people gave the Republicans control of the House of Representatives. Then the Republican Party said, “We can’t repeal Obamacare, because we don’t have the Senate.” So what happened? The American people gave the Republican control of the Senate. Then the Republican Party said, “We can’t repeal Obamacare, because we don’t have the Oval Office.” So then what happened? The American people give the Republican Party the Oval Office. Then that becomes a crucial juncture when Obamacare and its ill effects on the American people can be repealed.
So I think the American people were upset that John McCain was a stumbling block. Now, maybe the bill that was suggested was not as thorough or vigorous as a lot of opponents of Obamacare wanted, but it was certainly a step towards Obamacare repeal and it went down in flames. There’s been a lot of back and forth. I know you follow this on Twitter, where it was given the impression, the President and the administration was given the impression that John McCain was on board. It was seen as a last-minute betrayal on something that the Republican Party had campaigned for, what, 16 – many, many years. I mean, you can even go back to Hillary Clinton’s effort to get a nationalized healthcare system.
So I’m so interested in your view on this. I want to switch to another topic that I think is a similar topic. We saw 12 republicans who voted against President Trump’s national emergency to try and stem illegal immigration at our southern border. What do you make of this betrayal of these principles?
JJD
I’ve had various feedback from others on what their defense is. They feel that this is just going too far with a national emergency, that the President should not be utilizing this, it will set a precedence so if a democrat gets elected, such as a Cory Booker, will they be able to do it? First of all, this is a first national emergency that President Trump has declared. There have been, what, over 51 by other presidents, 40-something national emergencies? Every last one of them has declared a national emergency. So that’s a false argument, number one.
Number two, if you’re afraid of a precedence, then why did Congress grant the authority to the President of the United States to declare a national emergency? That’s a false argument. That authorization came from Congress, and now senators have said, “We don’t want to set this precedence.” By golly, then let’s just not have a president. We don’t want a precedent that could be bad.
[Laughs]Heck, let’s just get rid of the president and put Congress in charge of everything, because you guys are the end-all and know-all. That is complete arrogance to say we don’t want a president. Then we do we even have a president if you don’t want a precedence? Because you’re going to have that every four years. And if a president gets re-elected, the American people have selected him to make that judgment call and essentially a senator to cover his hide. I don’t remember which senator it was that said that, that we don’t want to set this precedence. I thought that is such a weak, weak argument.
Now, we know that ones like [inaudible 00:18:25] Romney did, it’s purely because he can’t stand the President of the United States. He gets right up there in the camp with Senator McCain. It seems like the two losers that God gave us President Obama are the biggest ones leading the charge against President Trump. It’s almost as if they’re still trying to relive their campaigns from 8 years ago and 12 years ago. It’s kind of absurd. Well, one has since passed on, may he rest in peace. But with that, you got Romney getting out, blazing the trail of being the head of the establishment now. And then you have Lisa Murkowski, who never fails to disappoint us in disappointing us.
[Laughs]She has always managed to do that. She is the song and dance that keeps repeating itself, and yet people keep wanting to believe in her. Now, the only one that I would be willing to give a pass to would be Susan Collins, because she single-handedly is the reason that we got Justice Cavanaugh. She’s going to get a lot of grace from me for a long, long time.
GT
[Overlapping]
JJD
I already knew who she was. Right. And I knew who she was a long time ago, so when people show you who they are, believe them. But there’s others that are on this list. Let me read some of them off. We have Senator Toomey, Senator Moran, Senator Lamar Alexander, Blunt, Lee, Portman, oh, Rubio, the gift that keeps on giving also, another guy who’s bitter that he lost, and Rand Paul, which really surprised me, and then Wicker. Rand Paul probably surprised me the most. You’re a libertarian. You don’t want open borders.
You don’t like globalism. I’m sorry, which side are we flipping to now? You’re not a libertarian. You’re a flagrant independent when you couldn’t support the president on this. Of all people who understand the impact of what not having protecting your own borders, I would have expected from somebody who runs with libertarian. Needless to say, many of these I’m very depressed or maybe unimpressed. No, depressed was the right word – very depressed over. The North Carolina senator is one that is potentially going to put himself at risk for re-election because of this move, not supporting the President and stopping human trafficking, which is 10,000 children a year, which is a fact. And the liberals have this false argument that only, oh, 98 percent of the drugs come over through the ports of entry. No, liberals, 98 percent of the drugs are caught at the port of entry.
We don’t know how many are getting over the border and the unmarked locations or where there’s no wall where there’s an open border. That is a false argument that many conservatives have fallen for. I was told that very argument by a well-known conservative that you and I both know, she said, “No, Jessie, This is not an argument the ports of entry is where the drugs are largely trafficked.” No, that’s actually where they’re caught and we’re aware of because they’re caught, due to the dogs, due to the agents, and due to the high-tech security. Where you have no wall, there is no way of being able to determine how much is getting over or not.
Not only that, that is not the only reason for the wall. What about the human trafficking, the women and the children? They are consistently finding children that are coming over with – these are not their legal guardians. They’re coming over to be trafficked. And then when you look at the mere fact that people are getting over that are criminals, because a criminal is going to go to the ports of entry. A criminal with a record is not going to go through that. It’s too much work.
We have to enable our border to be strong and fortified and 12 republicans voted against the President, but this is not going to happen. It was his first veto. He declared a veto. Actually, I messed up earlier. It was not his first national emergency. This has been first veto. I want to stand corrected on that. First veto when multiple presidents have vetoed an excess of 20 to 50-some-odd times during their presidency. Needless to say, we will always have the enemy among us, which is a popular term for outside enemies, but they are within our own party. They are going to do everything they can to ensure that the willingness of this president to make our country great again is derailed every step of the way.
GT
It’s interesting to think about what motivated them to do it. Was it principle, which is what they would say? Was it political? Are they trying to position themselves for future re-election efforts in their states? Or are they trying to position themselves for possible presidential runs down the road? Or is it just oppositional to this administration? President Trump’s gotten a lot of support on other things that he’s tried to put through, but is this really the radioactive third rail? Stay tuned to that.
I want to switch to this other topic that I think you have a lot of great insights on. We had a court ruling a couple of weeks ago about the draft. Historically, only young men have had to register for the draft. Correct me if I’m wrong, we haven’t implemented the draft since the Vietnamese War.
JJD
That’s right.
GT
But this is something that is required by law that young men – I think it’s when they turn 18, is that correct?
JJD
Yes.
GT
They have to register for the draft. So the federal government has a registry, a list, of all able-bodied men who could be drafted if there was a national need to call up the draft and engage in military beyond the amazing and wonderful volunteer service that we have right now. And this court case said essentially that that was violative of equality of equal protection and now wants to require young women to also register for the draft. You have been in the military for 20 years, so obviously you’re a supporter of women being in the military, but what do you think of this court ruling? Do you think that this was inevitable after the Supreme Court’s decision in the VMI case? Or do you think that this is a wrong direction for the court to take in this case?
JJD
No. Well, it’s the wrong direction and it hasn’t gone to the Supreme Court yet, so I believe it will. It is an absolute wrong direction, and this is a result not of any Supreme Court ruling, but it is a direct result of President Obama lifting combat exemption for women in 2015, I recall. I believe it was 2015. And the date was Tax Day. It was April 15. I remember that date very well, of all days. It went by without a whimper or a cry-out by anyone other than people like myself and [inaudible 00:25:17] Donnelly, a center for military readiness, and a very good friend of mine who served in Iraq on the female engagement team dutied in.
We are three people that have really been vocal on this. There are people that have been not helpful on this argument, people like Martha McSally, who is now a senator for Arizona, along with Lieutenant Colonel Giordano, who was also relieved of her command in Parris Island, South Carolina, due to the fact that she did not treat the female recruits within the regulations and guidelines. She actually tried to increase their standards, because she felt that the reason we’re not the same as men is because we’re not trained the same as men, which is a false argument. Women have 45 percent muscle mass. We have 20 percent less lung capacity. You would never have the same standard as a men in a physical fitness test. The physical fitness test is not a statement of combat readiness. It is a statement of fitness. And that’s why the physical fitness test is different for people in different age categories.
A general with 30-plus, 40 years in the military is not going to have the same running standard –
[Laughter]– as a 19-year-old who has a pack on his or her back. So President Obama lifted the combat exception. What does that mean? It means women could now be assigned – and they didn’t say this at the time – they said they could volunteer for infantry positions. Well, inadvertently, you can’t have one group allowed to volunteer and another group involuntarily assigned. Inadvertently, women now can be legally involuntarily assigned to the infantry. I’m talking about ground combat, people. I’m not talking about flying over, like Martha McSally did from a fighter jet. I’m talking about on the ground, where you are carrying over 100 pounds of gear, where you have to run, you have to throw grenades, and you’re in the field for over six months at a time. And I don’t want to hear one person tell me, well, if she wants to, let her. No, because combat readiness is about an entire unit being capable to meet the standard.
Number one, I don’t want to hear one person tell me, well, she passes the training, let her. Okay, training is every day, people. It is not just a three-month class or the one-month class that you have to go through. You have women now that perform at a lower level than men in the infantry, point blank. The Marine Corps did a study. I have the evidence of it, a over $30 million study was made. The only people with the cajones to fight this were the United States Marines. They fought President Obama. They said, “We need an exception from this ruling.” They did a $30 million study, took women, and put them into infantry training environment, the integrated units. These were the top women, by the way. They already graduated infantry training school. Remember, you passed the school, you should be able to do the job now, right? BS.
The women that were volunteered for the school – 400 were volunteered, only 35 percent graduated. That’s compared to a 98 percent rate among men. Right there, 35 percent. What happened to the other 65 percent? I want to know how many of them were injured or disabled? How many of them lost their careers because of that training? You’re talking hard, heavy impact. I knew a 29-year-old female who had to have two hips replaced due to the combat-bearing load.
GT
Wow.
JJD
So the 35 percent that graduated, they get out of that a select few that were the top of the class, the best of the best as far as females go, and put them in this training that went out to 29 [inaudible 00:28:42]. For six months they trained, and they watched, and they observed. And the Marine Corps [inaudible 00:28:46] it would be a lethal mistake. It’s a lethality issue. You now have women. They were performing at a much lower rate than the men. I’m not surprised. It’s not about your mind. It’s about what your body is capable of doing. Their shooting exercises, they were performing at a lower rate. I can outshoot most men, but that’s on the rifle range, not when I have to run, kneel, fire, run again, go roll in a cave, and then hide in a ditch.
That’s a whole different thing. Your heart changes. Your lung capacity is not capable of even having the same endurance as a man. So what did the Marine Corp do? They finally got one female through infantry officer’s course after 20-some-odd women failed and were repeatedly allowed to go through multiple times. And I dare to say, they had to modify the standards so that they’re gender neutral. That tells me one thing. The standards get changes, so that means a less qualified man is allowed in also. That’s not beneficial to the United States Marines or the Army when it comes to them serving in a combat unit. You also now have somebody taking a spot of a more qualified male. And don’t tell me she may be more qualified. Show me that there was not a more qualified man physically than her and that the infantry is not about just your integrity, your honor, how you can read a GPS, or how you can land that. It’s primarily a physical job. That is one of the most important skills of being an infantry men. It is one of the most critical skills.
So now because that ruling was lifted, that combat exception, now women can be involuntarily assigned to the infantry, make not mistake about it, you’re going to get men on the left saying, “Hey, wait a minute, why does she get to volunteer? Why aren’t all women screened for the infantry just like we can be?” That’s why the court ruling said it is not longer valid to say that only men are eligible for the draft.
Now, here’s where the ruling is wrong: I gave all the reasons why women have no business being in the infantry. I’ll tell you why the draft is wrong. Because the draft is to replace combatant forces. It is not an equality measure. People are confusing the purpose of the military. It is not about equality, because if it was, we would let overweight people in, we would let people in with diabetes, we would let the transgenders in before they even had the surgery. It is not an equal issue. It is about being able to deploy, which is why the transgender ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court, because they cannot deploy if they haven’t had their surgery. They’re going to transition. And then they’re on bed rest after the surgery and all that does not allow for a combatant force.
The same with women – if you’re going to draft women, what percentage is going to even be qualified for the infantry? A very low percentage – I’m talking a handful of women. And now you essentially have wasted all these resources. And what are you going to do? You can’t put them in the administrative job, because we don’t have a draft for the administrative jobs. A draft is to replace your combat [overlapping 00:31:41].
GT
That’s a great point.
JJD
Yes, we have enough volunteers and there’s many men who get drafted who may not qualify for the infantry who will be put into the administrative job. But we don’t have the draft to replace the band members and the public affairs officers and the photographers. It is to replace your deaf and disabled men on the firing line.
GT
Right, and we love the band member. It sounds like you’re saying the draft, if we do it like that, it’s essentially drafting people to go play a trumpet who’s never played a trumpet before.
JJD
No, no, I don’t want to disparage the band in this. That’s just my sarcasm.
GT
I love the band. I love the band.
JJD
Actually, nobody gets drafted for the band. Honestly, the Marine band is one of the hardest to get into. I recruited four young men who qualified for it and they still go through boot camp. They are not the President’s [overlapping 00:32:31]. These are the field men. Yeah, they go through a lot.
GT
Yeah, and being [overlapping 00:32:33]. And they are so amazing.
JJD
And they play at grade level 4 of music. I guess what I was trying to make is the point of that. The draft is not to replace people like I was a truck driver. You’re not replacing the truck drivers. You’re not replacing the administrative people. That you have the forces for. There’s enough males that are drafted. There is no need to draft women. We have no combat readiness need. Yet they’re going to make it about an issue of equality. Wait a minute, is this about equality or winning the dang war? If we have to implement a draft, I assure you we are doing it because we need a force of readiness to man the beaches, man the guns, and get in there and fight on the ground.
Now, fortunately, we have not had to do that, but what if we were to have such an upsurge of another group, a radical Islamist group such as ISIS? Or what if North Korea should take it to ground combat? You’re only going to accomplish so much with air support. And if you have, what is it, the second, third largest army in the world is North Korea and they want to start stomping over into South Korea, you’re going to have combat and troops to attack that, to deal with that. There’s only so much you can do with air support, because if that were the case, we would never have to have infantry men in the first place.
GT
So you think this will go to the Supreme Court and what do you suspect that the Supreme Court will rule?
JJD
I think the military will be able to present a need. But here’s the problem the military has: They already determined that women can serve in ground combat. So until the Pentagon gets their act together on this and recognizes that even in Israel, they do not serve in ground combat. They remove them from all of the combat roles they have. Basically they serve on borders that there are treaties, so essentially they’re doing guard duty. I don’t want to have any disrespect of any women, but please don’t tell me we are the same as a man. We are not. We are not biologically the same as a man. And the endurance and muscle that is needed for this type of role requires the fittest of the fit.
And when people throw at me the Kurdish women, I say God bless them, but not the [inaudible 00:34:37] in the world’s national security, because the United States is all over the world, deploying throughout the world. American women would be the same as Kurdish women if somebody was coming over our borders. We would all take [inaudible 00:34:49]. But that does not make us qualified to be infantrymen.
People who want to tell me that this is what we need to do have yet to be qualified for the infantries themselves. Martha McSally was not qualified to serve in the infantry. Gee, I would dare to say until you have done something yourself, I think that you need to listen to the leaders who have served in those capacities and look at the empirical data, look at the unequivocal data. Look at sports medicine. I sat there and polled the President of the United States. We would have women fighting against ISIS and hand-to-hand combat. That’s equivalent to sticking a women in a MMA case with a man.
She’s still maybe the best of the women, but he is the best of the men. And we wouldn’t do that. If that were the case, why aren’t women wide receivers in the NFL where they can get a strong safety knocking the snot out of them at the rate speed, having a 200-pound strong safety wipe you out like that. America would be aghast. And are there women who can do it? There’s one young girl in college who apparently got a scholarship to go. She was featured in the Super Bowl. And I admire her to pieces. But college and high school is not the same as getting into professional football. And we all know that you can be fast, but you knock one of those women down on the ground, she still does not have the muscle mass and it would destroy her physically.
GT
Right, and it’s not necessary.
JJD
Absolutely, and I dare the VA and the military to release the records on how much disability that the women have higher rates than the men. I dare them to. This is the data that’s not being released. So here’s what I propose to the military: If you’re going to keep sticking women in the infantry, then you need to come out with dull disclosure that you can be involuntarily assigned to the infantry. You need to release the data on what the rate of injury is.
Women in the study with the Marines were injured at six to ten times the rate of men. That means you’re having to get pulled out of the combat unit and be replaced. By what? Probably another man. So you’re going to be injured at six to ten times the rate of a man and we’re already injured at a higher rate than men. The physical demands for a United States Marine female is still very, very high. But in this quest for equality, they need to stop and realize we’re not biologically equal. A woman cannot equally defend herself.
GTR
Right, which is, I think, something that people who are really focused on this don’t want that information out there. So I think we’re going to keep track of all these issues going forward and we hope we will have you back again as a guest. Where can people find you online if they want to keep of these subjects? You’re talking about a lot of really good subjects and newsworthy controversies, Jessie Jane. Where can people find you online?
JJD
You can find me on Twitter. I don’t tweet as much as I retweet, because it seems like I see so many great tweets. I’m like, “Wow, I can’t say that now. They already did.” But I do tweet at jessiejaneduff – that’s J-E-S-S-I-E-J-A-N-E-D as in David, U as in uncle, F as in Frank, Frank. And my Twitter account is very active. I do have a feedback public account that gets some posts. And a lot of them are the core issues that we talk about every day, trying to bring [inaudible 00:38:11] the message. We have to have our grassroots active. We have to have people getting out there and voting and participating and letting their voices be heard, otherwise this anti-Semitism that we’re seeing in Congress, this resistance by our own party for national security issues, such as the wall and enhancing our border security, all of these issues, and women fighting in ground combat. It is all going to be a wash. Oh, and let’s not forget the Steele dossier. It cannot go down in history as something that was righteous. It was not. And Senator McCain, God bless him, I appreciate his service, at the same time, what he had done to conservatives cannot go ignored. Just because you’re a veteran does not mean your stuff can be removed from any criticism.
GT
Well, I’m not going to criticize you, Jessie Jane. You’re a hero to me, so thank you so much for joining us.
JJD
Thank you, Gayle, and any time. I appreciate being invited.
GT
This is Gayle Trotter. You can like me on Facebook, you can follow me on Twitter, you can follow me on Instagram. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. You can subscribe to this podcast, Right in DC, on iTunes, and you can leave a review. Most importantly, you can support this podcast on Patreon. We have great T-shirts as gifts for patrons, courtesy of Hard Hits Custom Apparel. We’d also like to thank Trio Caliente, a local DC group, for the music on our podcast. This is Right in DC.
MV
You’re Right in DC with Gayle Trotter.
