Rep. Matt Gaetz grilled Secretary of Defense Austin and General Milley on Wednesday in a hearing which covered recent instances of drag queens being invited onto US Military installations and putting on sexualized shows in front of children. Gaetz asked a series of questions to both officials, but he specifically addressed GEN Milley when he referenced several news articles and said, “finally, Ramstein cancels drag queen story time for pride month following criticism.”
Milley responded by saying, “Can I just..can I get copies of those, ’cause I’d like to take a look at those myself, actually..take a look and find out what actually is going on there because that’s the first I’m hearing about that kind of stuff. I don’t read those news stories; I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’d like to take a look at those because I don’t agree with those. I think those things shouldn’t be happening.”
While Milley claimed this was the first he was hearing of these events, evidence shows that’s likely not accurate. On May 28, 2022, the official Joint Staff Pentagon Public Affairs Media Analysis email account sent this exact story to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs as part of his morning brief.
Attached to that email was a PDF with all of the top news stories and links to their individual websites along with the highlighted summaries from each story directly on the email itself.
The exact article Rep. Gaetz referenced in the hearing was sent directly to the Chairman by his own Public Affairs Officer who clearly felt that it was important enough for Milley to see. While it’s possible GEN Milley missed this email and didn’t have time to read his morning brief, it’s very unlikely these weren’t topics of conversation being discussed among his staff. There is an entire team of personnel whose job consists of keeping the Chairman informed and personally curating his news.
In fact, the summary of the article itself highlights Sen. Marco Rubio questioning the Secretary of the Air Force about this event and demanding he “immediately cancel this politically divisive event and take appropriate disciplinary action against all involved in allowing this gross abuse of taxpayer funding to place children in a sexualized environment.”
GEN Milley telling Rep. Gaetz this is “the first I’m hearing about that kind of stuff” tells me one of two things: either Milley doesn’t communicate with his staff, doesn’t keep abreast of fights his service secretaries are getting into with Congress, and doesn’t read significant news stories involving the military he’s the senior most officer of, or he lied. Either option does not bode well for the United State’s national security nor the thousands of families stationed on US Military installations throughout the world.