{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.cramer.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cramer-questions-air-force-chief-of-staff-nominee-general-wilsbach-on-importance-of-airborne-isr-modernizing-nuclear-triad", "Cramer Questions Air Force Chief of Staff Nominee General Wilsbach on Importance of Airborne ISR, Modernizing Nuclear Triad", "2025-10-09", "2025", "2025-10", "Republican", "Senate", "ND", "Kevin Cramer", "C001096", "www.cramer.senate.gov", "cramer", "https://www.cramer.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "***Click here to download video. Click here for audio.***\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 The Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing today to discuss the nomination of General Ken Wilsbach, former Air Combat Command (ACC) leader and fighter pilot, to be the 24th U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff. Upon confirmation, General Wilsbach will be responsible for the organization, training and equipping of 689,000 active-duty, Guard, Reserve, and civilian forces serving both in the United States and abroad.\n\nDuring the hearing, chair of the SASC Airland Subcommittee U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) thanked General Wilsbach for answering the call to serve.\n\n\u201cI have to say, I can\u2019t imagine a person better prepared and equipped than you are for this job,\u201d said Cramer. \u201cI\u2019m really grateful you said yes, and I\u2019m really grateful you got the call.\u201d\n\nCramer, co-chair of the Senate Defense Modernization Caucus, began with comments on the Sentinel program, which was established to replace the 50-year-old Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) weapon system with the LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM. Minot Air Force Base (AFB) in North Dakota is the only base in the nation to house two legs of the nuclear triad, including B-52 bombers and Minuteman III ICBMs.\n\n\u201cThank you for your commitment to the Sentinel program,\u201d said Cramer. \u201cIt\u2019s really important to us in Minot, having two of the three legs [of the nuclear triad], to know that we\u2019re going to see it all the way through. We\u2019re not going to stop two-thirds of the way. In fact, I maintain that if you\u2019re going to stop anywhere along the way of developing Sentinel and putting those new missiles in the ground, you shouldn\u2019t start. [\u2026] I really appreciate your commitment to Sentinel.\u201d\n\nCramer then questioned General Wilsbach about his plan for maintaining or acquiring airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities as \u201cspace catches up to the demand.\u201d For the last two years, Cramer has sent a bipartisan letter to the Secretary of Defense in both the Biden and Trump administrations, highlighting concerns over the Air Force\u2019s escalated retirement of airborne ISR capabilities and emphasizing the necessity of the platforms. The letter echoes concerns expressed by combatant commanders on the need for airborne and the insufficiency of space-based ISR alone.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re exactly right,\u201d said General Wilsbach. \u201cThe RQ-4, the MQ-9, both are really important to us, especially prior to the conflict. Admittedly, if they go into a high threat environment, they could be shot down. But, if it\u2019s not a high threat environment, we can get great value out of those platforms to do missions that if we didn't have them, and you didn\u2019t have that capability on space, you would have to go without. So as we go forward into the future, we need to balance that. And frankly, it\u2019s a simple math problem, right? You take the entirety of the collection that you wish to have, and you determine what you\u2019re actually collecting. And if you have a big gap, then you can easily make decisions, resource decisions, on what you want to keep and what you can afford to get rid of, because you have, you know, have that capability to collect elsewhere.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.cramer.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cramer-questions-air-force-chief-of-staff-nominee-general-wilsbach-on-importance-of-airborne-isr-modernizing-nuclear-triad"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8546249009668827, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}