releases: https://www.wicker.senate.gov/2024/10/enator-wicker-discusses-defense-spending-shipbuilding-china-vp-harris-and-israel-on-the-hugh-hewitt-show
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| 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 “The Hugh Hewitt Show” | 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 – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, joined “The Hugh Hewitt Show” program and discussed several national defense topics, including the October 7th Anniversary, China’s shocking growth in naval shipbuilding, and the Biden-Harris administration’s weak record on China. The interview follows Senator Wicker’s October 7th Anniversary statement which was released on Monday. Read selected excerpts from the interview below, or watch the full segment here. On a Harris presidency & China policy: “If it’s any indication of how her party has done with their leader in the U.S. Senate, yes, it’s very much a concern [how Harris would do with China]. Every time we’ve wanted to spend a few extra dollars – a few percentage points of our huge economy – to defend ourselves, the Democrats say: “well, we won’t do that unless we can increase domestic spending, too.” So, it’s been like pulling teeth getting a few extra ships built.” On shipbuilding: “China 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: “well, we don’t even have the industrial capacity. We don’t have enough manufacturing plants.” And of course, the answer to that is: let’s get some. We’re 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. On a future DOD budget: “What we need to do – and what I’ve advocated – and what military experts past and present are saying is that we need to go back to Ronald Reagan’s ‘peace through strength.’ And that does involve about five percent of our economy used to get us ready to defend ourselves in a war…if 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…the 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’re able to protect America and deter somebody from attacking us. So that was very much an encouraging statement from President Trump.” | 1 | 2026-03-30T01:40:41Z | 2026-04-07T21:57:20Z |