Mike Gallagher

I never thought I would have to say this, but committee proceedings are not a time to shave your face or brush your teeth, and they are certainly not a time to change your pants, but I have seen it all on remote proceedings.

A virtual format also deprives Members of full participation in committee hearings.

the institution is broken.

Conversely, we have also had Members deprived of their ability to engage and question witnesses.

Unfortunately, we seem to have fewer and fewer of these opportunities today, and proxy voting only exacerbates the situation.

The disrespect in our committee is not limited to interaction between Members either. We have had Members of our Democratic majority make fun of witnesses for their attire, lie in bed, and order and eat their lunch while witnesses are…

I think that is something that is really worth thinking about, and it probably has enriched the body.

Simply put, I believe the persistence of remote proceedings has made our committee and this institution less civil toward our colleagues and witnesses, less efficient and effective as a deliberative body and, ultimately, less able to serve…

That is disenfranchising and that it is causing distrust in the institution.

We have an obligation to defend the Constitution.

Virtual legislation, I believe, has gone on long enough.

the quote that the Senate wrote never came through committee over here.

I think it is bad, and I think it ultimately destroys--and you just deal with these problems when they occur.

This has almost assuredly been at least a contributing factor to the rise of raw partisanship we see in the Congress today, where toxicity amongst political ideas or ideologies has become the norm.

Representative Bost talked about people voting in their swim trunks on the lake.

deterrence failed in this case.

if it is used to suggest that we can rely on nonmilitary tools, specifically sanctions, or hashtag diplomacy in order to deter, uncoupled from a credible military threat, then we will have further deterrence failures.

the threat of sanctions and the threat of a sternly worded mean tweet from the State Department press secretary is not going to deter Xi Jinping.

Talent management in the services is an extraordinarily important topic for this committee, for the broader committee.

If we are solely talking about racial and gender diversity to the exclusion of intellectual diversity, then we might have a disagreement on this committee.

We need to have warriors in our military with the moral conviction, the physical constitution, and the character to defeat our adversaries.

The strength of the joint force, in my opinion, ultimately relies upon the strength of our broader society.

I thought it was a great discussion, and I really think the Marine Corps deserves credit for trying to grapple honestly with some challenges.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to people.

we are going to start explicitly judging people by the color of their skin, and that might sort of paradoxically stoke racial tension