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Fox News "DEFCON-3" - Transcript


Location: Washington, D.C.

This afternoon, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) appeared on the FOX News Live show DEFCON-3 with host and national security analyst KT McFarland. Calling the sequestration policy "badly misguided," Rep. Brooks discussed the consequences of drastic defense cuts on America's economy, unemployment levels, and national security.

Excerpts from the interview:

Sequestration and Unemployment
"The House Armed Services Committee has estimated that one of the options under sequestration is strictly personnel cuts. Under that scenario you're talking about 700,000 uniformed personnel, DOD civilian support workers, and private sector support workers losing their jobs. Then you add into that the multiplier effect with the National Association of Manufacturers talking about over a million private sector jobs that will be lost. Yet, we have a White House and United States Senate that readily want to put our national security at risk and cost America in excess of a million jobs."

Sequestration and National Security
"[With sequestration] you're talking about America having the smallest Army since World War II, the smallest Navy since World War I, and the smallest Air Force in the history of our country. Those are big impacts on our ability to project power and influence as we try to preserve peace around the world. One analogy is to look at the capabilities of the United States in our defense. Estimates are that this sequestration will reduce America's national defense capabilities by roughly 25 percent. That's a big hit."
"If sequestration does in fact take place, you're looking at the cancellation or mothballing of one, maybe two, carrier battle groups. Not just the aircraft carrier, but all the supporting vessels. When you lose those kinds of capabilities, you also lose the capability, or have a diminished capacity of protecting the sea lanes in places like the Persian Gulf that supply so much oil that is vital to the world's economy. I don't know what's going to happen after sequestration if the United States no longer has the capability of influencing Persian Gulf events and keeping that supply of oil available to everyone that consumes it around the globe."

"Unfortunately, this sequestration that has been foisted upon us by Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats, along with the President of the United States, [is] very counterproductive, it puts us at risk, and it enables our foes to do what you're seeing now with China."

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