{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.wicker.senate.gov/2024/10/enator-wicker-discusses-defense-spending-shipbuilding-china-vp-harris-and-israel-on-the-hugh-hewitt-show", "Senator Wicker Discusses Defense Spending, Shipbuilding, China, VP Harris, and Israel on \u201cThe Hugh Hewitt Show\u201d", "2024-10-08", "2024", "2024-10", "Republican", "Senate", "MS", "Roger F. Wicker", "W000437", "www.wicker.senate.gov", "wicker", "https://www.wicker.senate.gov/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Yesterday, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, joined \u201cThe Hugh Hewitt Show\u201d program and discussed several national defense topics, including the October 7th Anniversary, China\u2019s shocking growth in naval shipbuilding, and the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s weak record on China.\n\nThe interview follows Senator Wicker\u2019s October 7th Anniversary statement which was released on Monday.\n\nRead selected excerpts from the interview below, or watch the full segment here.\n\nOn a Harris presidency & China policy: \u201cIf it\u2019s any indication of how her party has done with their leader in the U.S. Senate, yes, it\u2019s very much a concern [how Harris would do with China]. Every time we\u2019ve wanted to spend a few extra dollars \u2013 a few percentage points of our huge economy \u2013 to defend ourselves, the Democrats say: \u201cwell, we won\u2019t do that unless we can increase domestic spending, too.\u201d So, it\u2019s been like pulling teeth getting a few extra ships built.\u201d\n\nOn shipbuilding: \u201cChina has 200 times the Navy shipbuilding capacity we do. When you talk about [how] we need to increase the number of fighter jets, or submarines, or ships, some people say: \u201cwell, we don\u2019t even have the industrial capacity. We don\u2019t have enough manufacturing plants.\u201d And of course, the answer to that is: let\u2019s get some. We\u2019re going to have to increase our national defense to keep us out of a war. The idea is to keep the peace by being so strong that nobody will take a chance on us.\n\nOn a future DOD budget: \u201cWhat we need to do \u2013 and what I\u2019ve advocated \u2013 and what military experts past and present are saying is that we need to go back to Ronald Reagan\u2019s \u2018peace through strength.\u2019 And that does involve about five percent of our economy used to get us ready to defend ourselves in a war\u2026if we spend five percent of our gross domestic product on defending America, we can save hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars by staying out of a war\u2026the last time our Senate Republicans met with President Trump, he was very clear that he shared our determination to increase our Navy and get it back up to the point where we\u2019re able to protect America and deter somebody from attacking us. So that was very much an encouraging statement from President Trump.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:57:20Z"]], "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.wicker.senate.gov/2024/10/enator-wicker-discusses-defense-spending-shipbuilding-china-vp-harris-and-israel-on-the-hugh-hewitt-show"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.135637914761901, "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"}