Pat Ryan: “There are a lot of buzz words, complicated sub- working groups and weaponization and all of this sort of language that…”

“There are a lot of buzz words, complicated sub- working groups and weaponization and all of this sort of language that may hide what is happening here, but I want to be crystal clear about what this amendment does. As someone who served in uniform proudly in two combat deployments, this weakens our military. It weakens our national security because it essentially tries to sweep back under the rug what is a growing, more dramatic problem of extremism of many kinds within our Department of Defense, something that has had bipartisan agreement. Rather than keeping that bipartisan, sober tenor to the debate, this amendment hypocritically, in my opinion, actually politicizes it by referring it to, unfortunately, a subcommittee that is, I think, broadly known to operate in that way. Let's be clear about what is happening in our Department of Defense. Bias, discrimination, hate, and extremism threaten the safety of all communities and institutions, and our military is no exception. I think we can all agree that one extremist in the ranks is one too many. The U.S. intelligence community's annual threat assessment once again concluded transnational racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists continue to pose the most lethal threat to U.S. persons and interests and a significant threat to a number of U.S. allies and partners. The Countering Extremism Working Group has functioned exactly as intended.…”