Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday defended his Pentagon plan in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, which would address recruiting woes by stripping the military of so-called “woke” policy.
“You clearly have a problem with recruiting,” DeSantis told Tapper. “And at this level everybody has acknowledged these recruiting levels are at a crisis.”
“Why is that the case? I think it’s because people see the military losing its way, not focusing on the mission, and focusing on a lot of these other things,” the 2024 presidential candidate said.
DeSantis earlier Tuesday unveiled a plan that would eliminate diversity initiatives, punish former military leaders who engage in politics and end programs designed to ready the country’s national defense system for a climate change future.
He would also revoke a policy that allows transgender personnel to serve in the military in their preferred sex, reinstate personnel who were dismissed for refusing a coronavirus vaccine and end Department of Defense efforts to combat extremism. The plan would also put in place gender neutral standards for women and men who serve in the armed forces, and he would oppose including women in a military draft.
Research conducted by the Army and obtained by CNN, however, ranks “wokeness” in the Army below concerns over discrimination against women and racial or ethnic minorities as a barrier to entry to enlisting.
The research, used by the Army’s marketing arm, asked respondents to evaluate potential barriers to entry into the military branch – putting aside worries over possibility of injury or death, emotional or psychological harm and leaving friends and family, the top three barriers to entry.
Without those three worries on the list, concerns over the Army placing “too much emphasis on ‘wokeness’” ranked ninth, while concerns over discrimination against women and minorities ranked second.
According to the research, “putting the rest of my life on hold” ranked as the most important barrier, with a “preference share” of 21%.
The report says that metric “indicates the relative importance of a barrier compared to the others.”
Concerns about racial, ethnic and gender discrimination had a “preference share” of 13%, while too much emphasis on “wokeness” had a “preference share” of 5%.
Pressed by Tapper on the research numbers contradicting his stance that “wokeness” was having a stronger effect on recruiting than diversity worries, DeSantis demurred.
“Well, but I think there’s an issue about, like, not everyone really knows what wokeness is,” he said. “I mean, I’ve defined it, but a lot of people who rail against wokeness can’t even define it.”
The Army’s report, however, clearly defined “wokeness” as “diversity/equity training, marginalizing those with conservative views, etc.”
DeSantis’s anti-woke policy proposals mirror similar actions he has taken as governor of Florida, where he banned universities from spending on diversity and inclusion programs, prohibited training related to privilege in society and eliminated certain teaching about race.
“Go to a [Veterans of Foreign Wars] hall, go to an American Legion. There’s a huge amount of concern about the direction– that the military is going with all this. And here’s the thing, things like DEI and all that stuff, it hasn’t worked in other aspects of society,” he said.
Senior enlisted US military leaders in a March congressional hearing pushed back against GOP lawmakers’ assertions that the force is being politicized by “woke” initiatives and said such claims are hurting recruitment and distracting from the military’s mission.
Army National Guard officer, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston in the hearing also referenced research the Army did on barriers to service among potential recruits, saying diversity and inclusion efforts were “not the number one, two, three, four, five reasons” young Americans were not joining.
“I think the narrative that we are focused on that more than warfighting is what’s perhaps hurting us,” Air Force Chief Master Sgt. JoAnne Bass said, adding the Air Force “does not have pronoun training. And … where we could use your help is by sharing that message that your services are not focused on any of those such training more than we are on warfighting.”
CNN’s Steve Contorno, Kit Maher and Haley Britzky contributed to this report.
