POLARIS National Security Presents: America the Great Tour
A National Security Conversation with Special Guest Ambassador Nikki Haley
A note from Morgan:
I founded Polaris National Security to help equip our politicians and the American public with modern policy solutions to the threats our nation faces. At Polaris, we are dedicated to supporting America-first leadership, and from that was born the “America the Great Tour”. Last year, we hosted national security discussions in Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, and Florida with over a dozen special guests to give Americans a chance to hear directly from their Senate hopefuls on issues like the border crisis, the threat of China, and how we can help lead peace in the Middle East. This year, we are proud to host Presidential hopefuls for an in-depth discussion focused on national security and foreign policy. Our first special guest was Ambassador Nikki Haley, who joined us in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Below is a highlight reel of our discussion, I hope you’ll take the time to read our Q&A and stay tuned for future Polaris events!
ORTAGUS: You just had a big speech yesterday about China. We're going to go through the whole world and the national security issues that matter most, but just a broad general question to start. If you become the next president of the United States, what do you think is the top national security issue that you will have to take on in your Administration?
HALEY: The first thing that I would like to see America do—and I appreciate that you're doing this because I think that it's important for Americans to always keep in mind that America is free but don't take that for granted. I just dropped my husband off this past week at 4:00 in the morning for a yearlong deployment. And I watched him, and 230 soldiers pick up their two duffel bags to get on the bus to go to a country they've never been to. All in the name of defending America, all in the name of protecting our freedoms. So, when someone says “Why do we care why do we have to care about what's going on in that part of the world,” it's because our soldiers are there so that the enemies don't come here. And we have to know what's going on there so that we can protect them. We've got to know what's going on there so they can protect us, and so that's why it matters…
When I'm president, we're going to come up with a plan that's 20, 30-40 years out. It shouldn't matter whether it's a Republican or Democrat. Having a strong America and being safe in the world matters. Right now, we look so distracted, and when America's distracted, the world is less safe. We need to put America on stable footing. Having a foreign policy plan that's decades out, much like our enemies do, will really let all of these dictators know we've got a plan. We're going to go forward, and we're going to make sure we handle all that properly.
ORTAGUS: There are many things to ask on China, but I want to start with the fentanyl discussion. We know that it has affected so many lives in this country, and we know that the precursor chemicals to fentanyl come from China. Now, Blinken, the Secretary of State, was in China a couple of weeks ago, and he got them to agree to, I think, to talk about fentanyl.
HALEY: Don't get me started. There’s so much to unpack there. I don't mind that he's meeting with the Chinese. When I was at the United Nations, I was talking to the Chinese and the Russians every day. I wanted to keep them close. I wanted to know what they were doing. I wanted to get in front of what they were doing before they did. The problem is the way he went there. He went there after Janet Yellen said, "Oh, we should be doing more business with China." He went there with a weaker standpoint, "We need to have better relations with China." Those are the wrong ways to go about it. What he should have been saying is, "Why are you preparing for war against America? Why are you infiltrating our economy? Why are you putting a spy base up in Cuba? Why do you continue to cover up what happened with COVID? Why are you sending fentanyl across the border? Why was this balloon alone above our skies?” There were so many things he needed to say. And what I've seen with the Biden administration is they're running scared from China. You never run scared from a dictator. You always let dictators know what you expect of them.
What has Biden done? First of all, he's done nothing about all of the land that the Chinese have bought up which, you know, most recently near Grand Forks Air Force Base, where the most sensitive drone technology is. He said nothing about fentanyl. I appreciate that they're a little bit harsher, but Americans are dying every day from fentanyl. And the Chinese know exactly what they're doing. I mean, he didn't say anything about the fact that he is weakening our military. When we need a strong military, when we need to make sure they're at the top of their game and everything, why are we distracting them with things that don't make our military strong? And then, you just have to look at why has he not said anything about the fact that they have covered up COVID, which has left 20 million people dead. How do you let something like that go? So, what I was saying in my speech yesterday is when we look at China, don't look at China in fear. It is our absolute number one security threat. But don't look at it in fear. Look at it as, okay, now we need to start moving. So, let's look at it domestically, let's look at it economically, and let's look at it militarily.
Domestically, let's get all Chinese infiltration out of America. How do we do that? First of all, no more buying land. American land, the Chinese military don't get to buy land. Chinese businesses don't get to buy American soil. And let's take back the land they've already bought. That's incredibly dangerous. They don't get to keep it. We need to take that back. The second thing, when it comes to fentanyl, this is serious. You had enough fentanyl across the border last year that would kill every single American. The number one cause of death for adults 18 to 49 is fentanyl. We need to go to China and say that we will end all normal trade relationships with you until you do something to stop the flow of fentanyl. Because that will scare them completely. But until they stop killing Americans, we should not be trading with China. It's a very important issue that we have to make. That will set the tone of where we're going. Then I think we need to build up, we need to make sure that we're pulling all of this infiltration out of our universities. We go to our universities, we say, you either take Chinese money or you take American money. But the days of taking both are over. And we get that infiltration out of our universities…
And then finally, militarily, look at what China has done. They built up the largest naval fleet in the world. They have more air defense systems than we do. They have come out with a hypersonic missile. We've barely started. You look at what they're doing from nuclear production. You look at what they're doing with space and cyber. We are so behind the curve. It used to be that we were on equal footing with our naval fleet. Now they have 350 ships and are on track to have 400 in two years. We're not even scheduled to have 350 in two decades. This is serious. We've got to start really focusing on that. And that doesn't mean you send a flow of money into the Department of Defense. There's a lot of waste there. We need to pull down all these programs that don't matter, and we need to start focusing on the things that do matter and planning for the war of tomorrow, the type of artificial intelligence, those things that we know China is going to come at us with. Those are the things that we focus on…
So, we've got a lot of work to do, but it's okay if the Chinese can do it fast. We can do it fast too. And guess what? We can do it better, but we just have to commit to getting started.
ORTAGUS: I don't think people realize just how terrible the genocide [of the Uyghur population] is. It's not just killing people, which is terrible, but it's really, really subversive. It is forcing women to get abortions, forcing women to be sterilized, forcing women to marry a Han Chinese man simply because they don't like the ethnicity of their baby, which I think is as bad as it gets. So, in this day and age, and we have so much to worry about with China, why should our audience, why should we care about the plight of the Uyghurs?
HALEY: We should always care about human rights. It's who we are at the core of being Americans. We believe in freedom. We believe in everyone having economic freedom, religious freedom, freedom to speak, freedom to live. All of those things. When I was at the United Nations, we called it out every time, whether it's our friends or our foes, you always call it out. It's our responsibility. It's our duty as Americans. But the interesting thing about the Uyghurs is this is that, if you think of China, here are a million Muslim Uyghurs. They go in there, they change their names, change their religion, force sterilization, sexual abuse, do true genocide. We promised never again would we turn our backs away from genocide. But because it's happening in China, everyone's too scared to say anything. We can never stop talking about the Uyghurs. It really does matter in terms of what's happening.
ORTAGUS: I want to keep asking you so many questions. I'm going to ask one more… So, you have been outspoken in this Republican primary about supporting the Ukrainians. Can you explain your position to us, and should we keep defending them?
HALEY: It's a great conversation, and I love that you're all here to have it because there has been a debate of why we should care about Ukraine when we've got all these issues at home. Why should we care? Here was a freedom-loving country, and first of all, let me say we had no better ally at the United Nations than Ukraine…
Let me say, as we talk about why we should care about Ukraine, remember, dictators always tell us what they're going to do. They're very transparent. China said they were going to take Hong Kong, they did it. Russia said they were going to invade Ukraine, we watched them. China said Taiwan is next, we better believe them. Russia said after Ukraine, it's Poland and the Baltics. If that happens, that is World War Three. That is what we're trying to prevent.
Now, before the Olympics, what did we watch? We saw President Xi and Putin holding hands, pronouncing to the world that they were unlimited partners. And not too long ago, a Russian plane knocked down a U.S. drone, and President Xi shows up in Russia again. Make no mistake, a win for Russia is a win for China.
China is watching everything in this world. They watched every company that left Russia. They're watching every country that's helping Ukraine. They're watching the equipment we're using, the ammunition we're using, where our weaknesses are. They're watching everything. And so, if Ukraine wins, it sends the biggest message to China not to invade Taiwan. It sends a message to North Korea not to test ballistic missiles. It sends a message to Iran not to build a bomb. So, that's why this matters so much. That's why we should care because China and Russia are unlimited partners, and Iran is their junior partner. And they are all our enemies, and they want to destroy us.
And people forget, in the Trump Administration in which we served, we provided that military and that legal aid to the Ukrainians, and we've deterred Putin from invading. And not only that, to win this, we don't have to put cash in Ukraine's hands. I don't believe in giving cash to countries like that. We don't have to put troops on the ground. We just need to work with our allies to give them the equipment and the ammunition to win. And this is the lesson when you look at Taiwan. Don't wait for something to happen in Taiwan. Do it now. Make sure our allies are working with them and have the equipment now, have the ammunition now. I hosted the Taiwanese ambassador over a year ago at our South Carolina National Guard and showed her what we do to build up a volunteer fighter unit, and how we go about building a National Guard so that they can start doing that in Taiwan as well. Let's go ahead and get them ready so that China never makes a move in the first place.
Live Audience Questions:
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Yes, thank you. I have a question. My name is Frank. I'm a veteran of the United States Air Force during the Vietnam era. My children's grandfathers both served in World War II, one in the famed 442 outfit in Europe, and my own father is a Marine Corps in the South Pacific. I serve veterans now as an adjutant and assistant service officer at our local American Legion. So, I'm a proud military family member. My ideas for what American policy should be and your hope for what American policy should be aligned 100%. But I have to tell you, and I wonder what you think of my idea that the greatest national security threat we face is the 8 to 10 million voters who are ready to put the current administration back into office, which I fear will send America entering towards a turning point from which we can't recover. We always hear that elections matter, and they do. And I think people know that what I think matters more is that we look at the day and time in which we are.
HALEY: You know, you hear a lot about what's happening domestically, and it is crazy. Whether it's woke ideology, whether it's the debt that we have, whether it's the crime on our streets, whether it's the lack of transparency in the classroom, or the open borders that we have. But we have to have a president that understands national security matters now more than ever. The threat that we have facing us from China is no small threat. And everybody keeps thinking, "We'll deal with it tomorrow." If we don't deal with it today, it's going to deal with us. I have been a two-term governor that took a double-digit unemployment state and turned it into an economic powerhouse. But I also know foreign policy. And I didn't deal with one country. I dealt with 193. We have to have someone that can go in day one and set the tone for what our foreign policy is going to be.
Let me tell you, if we go and elect President Biden, that is a vote for President Kamala Harris all day long. And we cannot have President Kamala Harris at the tip of the spear when it comes to dealing with our national policy in our country. She will not be able to handle it. And I fear for what will happen to our country. And that's why I will tell you, don't complain about what you get in a general election if you don't play in this primary. It matters. It's not about what happens in the general election. It's about who you put forward in the primary. And we need someone that knows strong national security, someone who wants to prevent war, not start war, someone who understands the vulnerabilities of our military, but the patriotism that we need to pull from, and someone who sees the fact that we're going into a new area. It's not just about land, air, and sea anymore. It's land, air, sea, artificial intelligence, cyberspace. We need to be ready for all of that. And that's why we have to have a new generational leader that's ready to deal with the new issues of the day. I'm going to do that for you, and I promise you America will come out stronger and prouder than we've ever been.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Do you believe that investing in space weaponization can help contribute to a long-term plan for national security?
HALEY: We do need to pay attention to space. At first, it's interesting because when Trump started the Space Force, people made fun of it, right? They were like, "Oh, what's he doing with a Space Force?" It actually was a very smart thing to do because we can't be so naive to think everybody else isn't doing a Space Force. When you think about the satellites that we have, when you think about the fact that China, Iran, and Russia could knock those satellites down, we do have to look at what's happening in space. We do have to protect our infrastructure. We do have to protect our satellites. So yes, we need to make sure, we can defend what we have, but we can also make sure that if any of those countries try and do us harm, we have the ability to weaponize against that as well. So yes, great question.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Thank you very much for taking my question. I represent law enforcement, and obviously, that's a national security issue because they're the first line of defense. My question is, in the Obama administration, that started what you call the war on cops, and we see it on the streets every day. Today, back when he was a senator, Joe Biden was very pro-police with the crime bill and stuff, and we approached them back then. He said he would be the voice of law enforcement, and that voice is not only silent but now in this administration has gone the other way. When President Trump was in office, we had someone who had our back. But now, with this administration, you have, and you pointed out, who could be the next president, Kamala Harris, bailing out rioters that are throwing Molotov cocktails and endangering police officers. As president, what would you do to help stop the war on cops and let us know that you have the men and women in blue's back?
HALEY: Well, God bless you, and that's why I mentioned law enforcement earlier when I said that parents don't want their kids to go into law enforcement. I mean, that is as patriotic as it gets. When you think of the fact that they take care of our children, they take care of our families, they keep our streets safe. And what's happened has been abusive. I mean, that's the only way I know how to say it. It's been abusive. We will absolutely have the backs of our law enforcement. We will make sure we take the numbers of our criminals. We will make examples of them. But we will require our district attorneys to prosecute according to the law. No more weak penalties. Think about, as much as people are talking about the gun issues that are happening around this country, the number of illegal guns on the streets, and the amount of gang crime. Think about what it does to a law enforcement officer to get a bad person off the street, go and take that gun, and then have someone go and release them the next day. What are they doing? We're not making examples of them. We're not having the backs of our law enforcement by doing that. And we're demoralizing them in the process. We need to let them know that we will keep them safe. We will keep them funded. We will have their backs. And we just need to always do what our parents taught us: you take care of those who take care of you. Law enforcement takes care of us every day. I will take care of you every day. That's a promise.
Excellent work, Morgan. Keep it up!