SFR is with Rep. John Fleming (LA-4)

FRANK GAFFNEY: Welcome back, I couldn’t be more pleased to say we are joined by a man I admire greatly in the United States House of Representatives, he is Congressman John Fleming, also happens to be Doctor John Fleming. He serves with great distinction on the House Armed Services Committee and has duties on its Tactical Air and Land Forces and Strategic Forces subcommittees. That seems to me to pretty much cover the waterfront, but it’s great to have you with us, Sir, representing the people of the fourth district of Louisiana with great distinction. It’s always a delight to talk to you, welcome back.

Rep. JOHN FLEMING: Yeah, thanks, Frank. And I’ll mention that Barksdale Air Force Base, which is home of global strike command, is located in my district, so obviously the two legs of the three legged nuclear stool is really headquartered out of my district.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Yeah, and well, I wanted to congratulate you on the second bomb wing getting the best bomber wing in the United States Strategic Command in just the past couple of days. Let me ask you, Sir, while we’re on that topic, kind of more broadly, the defense budget situation as you see it. I know that there’s been a letter written recently by your Chairman Mac Thornberry that you cosigned and I’d like to get your thoughts on the contents of that letter and the necessity of the actions that it’s calling for.

Rep. JOHN FLEMING: Well, absolutely. Remember that, the Pentagon programmed in a half billion dollars of cuts before sequestration, then we had sequestration that cut even deeper. Finally, sequestration was lifted, but now we have a situation where we’re at the lower ragged edge just to be able to get by and now the President is coming out with his budget, and he wants to convert some of the baseline budget of our military into overseas contingency funds. In other words, he’s expanding, he’s finally fighting back about ISIS a little bit, it’s going to cost more money and rather than going to Congress and looking for those dollars, he wants to dig into the base budget, which is again going to cripple our military, our national defense.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Yeah, this seems to be really, the pattern, unfortunately. But, what is somewhat extraordinary, Sir, is that you are known to be a deficit hawk, together with Congressman Jim Bridenstine and Trent Franks, and Mo Brooks, you all have been known for being, properly, quite concerned about deficit spending and yet you’ve joined in this letter from Mac Thornberry, and I guess I’m keen to find out what it is that has moved you to do so in the present circumstance.

Rep. JOHN FLEMING: Yes, I am a deficit hawk, I believe that we need to balance our budget. But, the most important dollar we could ever spend in the federal budget is for national defense. That is my most important responsibility, Frank, as a Congressman. And if we can’t get that right, if we can’t protect our borders, if we can’t protect our nation’s interest, and project power around the world, which really saves dollars over the long term, and I think President Reagan proved that, if we can’t do that, then nothing else really matters. So, that’s why we want to balance our budget so we will have the adequate dollars, not only to run our nation, and to make sure the trains run on time, so to speak, but to insure the nation’s safety, and so I have no problem. In fact, I would tell you that I do think we do need to significantly increase defense spending because the threats are only getting worse, you’ve talked about it many times, the Chinese of course are modernizing and projecting power, you’ve got the Russians, I mean, Putin is up to no good. And then we’ve got the growth of ISIS, so, it’s going to take more dollars and the longer we wait to modernize and to build our defense, the more costly it’s going to be, not only in dollars, but in lives.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Well, as you understand so well, Congressman John Fleming of Louisiana, the real problem is that if you haven’t done that competently, you are almost certainly going to get into wars that had been avoidable had you prepared properly and maintained proper deference. In that regard, let me ask you specifically, as I mentioned, you are a member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee and you do indeed have in your district a command that is overseeing two legs of our triad, what is your current assessment, Congressman, of the adequacy of the investment we’re making in maintaining a safe, reliable, and effective nuclear deterrent posture.

Rep. JOHN FLEMING: Frank, we’re behind the curve on that, we have parts in some of our nuclear devices that really go back to 1950s-1960s, technology and we are in a modernization program, I don’t want to leave the impression we’re not, but, I don’t think the resources are adequately placed in order to do that. We’re not building new nuclear weapons, you know, we’ve reduced our stockpile, but the ones that we have, they need to be safe, they need to be reliable, and if ever we have to call upon them, they need to work 100 percent of the time. So, we need to do more in that area and again, it’s been a tough, tough, road trying to get this administration to wake up to it. But, I will say that the Department of Energy, the DOD, and the Departments under the President, I think are on top of this. I think they’ve got their heads right, but they do have to struggle with the administration, and sometimes Congress, to have the resources to complete this.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Yeah, well, the larger problem in a way is the President of the United States is committed to a policy of, well, ridding the world of nuclear weapons starting with ours, as far as I can tell. This is a non-trivial problem to say the least. Let me turn to another area you’ve been active in, Congressman. You’ve understood and objected strenuously to what the President’s been doing in another misbegotten initiative, namely helping the Iranians get nuclear weapons, I’m afraid. You have encouraged legislation, and voted for legislation called the Terror Finance Transparency Act, sounds right, tell us what its about and what its prospects are.

Rep. JOHN FLEMING: Well, I think it would pass the House without any problem, getting the President to sign it is a not likely proposition. But, it basically sheds a light on terrorism and state sponsored terrorism and it puts us in a better position to deprive funding of these things and, so, you know, we’re just once again trying to bring light on this problem and again, the President as you know sort of ignores it by, if you don’t really acknowledge it, it doesn’t exist. And so this helps bring it out, so the American people will see that Congress does recognize it’s a huge problem.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Well, it pains me tremendously that we didn’t, you know, prevent this deal from going through in the first place, and then we missed the omnibus appropriations measure, as a means of really forcing this accountability and ideally, the prevention of money from flowing to these very bad actors, it’s mind boggling, and I fear, again as you said Congressman that we’re going to see peoples lives lost, sadly, as a result. Lastly, let me just as you talk about North Korea, I talked about it a moment ago with Ambassador John Bolton, and you, in Congress have been working on sanctions legislation yesterday, the Senate unanimously adopted some. Is this really too little too late at this point, or are there things that could materially impinge upon what the North Koreans are doing to threaten all of us?

Rep. JOHN FLEMING: Yes, I mean, I certainly support more sanctions against North Korea, but I would say this is tantamount to pulling up in an ambulance after someone’s already jumped off the cliff, the patient probably won’t survive. You know, North Korea, and how we dealt with North Korea, how Bill Clinton allowed North Korea to get the nuclear arms that they have today and ballistic missile technology, informs us of exactly what Iran is doing now under Obama. So, if you want to know what Iran is going to like in ten years, just look at North Korea today and, in fact, it may even be less than ten years. So, yes I still support those things but it’s much better to do it early, and Iran is exactly in the place we need to do those today.

FRANK GAFFNEY: Amen. And you know, this really is, such a travesty that we’ve seen this playbook run on us before, seen this movie before, as they say, and we’ve learned so little from it. You know, I’m reminded, Congressman, as I’m sure you know, that when the North Koreans launched the satellite, not this most recent one, but the previous one, I believe it overflew your state, among others, coming up from the South in a way that looked an awful lot like a test for an EMP attack against this country, as some of our colleagues have argued, could well be what they have in mind. This is serious business; we so appreciate you being on the case and on the Armed Services Committee, Congressman John Fleming, and keep it up Sir, come back to us very soon.