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Our full discussion transcribed after the break:
by Rod D. Martin and Tiffany Meier
October 19, 2026
Tiffany Meier and I discuss China’s military buildup, the procurement failures America must fix, and how my new book connects deterrence abroad with accountable government at home.
Tiffany and I discuss:
How Pentagon procurement failures have strangled American military power
Why China’s unprecedented naval buildup demands a serious American response
Why AI is crucial to the next generation of warfare.
How Trump’s strategy connects American prosperity with national security.
My new book, and how it explains the global reordering underway.
It’s eight minutes of the in-depth analysis you need: watch it, and pass it along!
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Our Full Discussion:
Tiffany Meier: Welcome back. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth warning that China could outpace the United States military in artificial intelligence and other advanced defense technologies. At the Army's annual convention in Washington Wednesday, he called for cutting Pentagon bureaucracy to buy, test, and field new technology at a faster clip in order to stay competitive with China.
Pete Hegseth (recorded remarks): “We’re in a different moment. We’ve got a near-peer adversary who’s building a military. The most historic military buildup potentially in world history. That’s not hyperbole. That’s just an objective truth. You add it with the step changes in autonomy, in robotics, in space, and AI. Whoever’s ahead now is going to get much further ahead. Whoever’s behind now is going to fall even further behind. And so investments now are going to matter, and they’re going to ripple, not just for years but for decades, across our joint force.”
Tiffany Meier: He also discussed a planned autonomous warfare command, part of his Project Agincourt initiative. The Washington Times reporting the command has an October 1, 2027 target date and needs congressional authorization for the authority Hegseth wants. Hegseth saying it could be established even sooner. Joining us now is Rod D. Martin, author of the upcoming book, Trump’s New World Re-Order, Dismantling the Deep State and Ending Postwar Globalist Rule. He’s also a geopolitical analyst and the CEO and founder of Martin Capital.
Rod, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you here in person.
Rod D. Martin: It’s great to be here.
Tiffany Meier: Now, you just heard what War Secretary Peter Hegseth had to say. What do you make of the threats posed by China’s military buildup?
Rod D. Martin: Well, first, we have to take it seriously. I don’t understand why the Biden administration wasted four years not taking it seriously. We’re not necessarily behind right now, but we’re rapidly falling behind. China is on track to have more submarines than we do by 2030. That’s extraordinary. They aren’t all fancy nuclear submarines. They’re certainly not of the quality of the Virginia class. But quantity has a quality all its own. And our ability to build is just very limited.
We’ve allowed China to exceed our ability to build ships by about 230 times. It’s absurd. The numbers are so high it’s almost hard to believe.
So Pete Hegseth is doing exactly right. The unsexy work of defense is procurement. And the Pentagon has spent decades now going, you know, having a 10-year-long program time or 15-year-long program time and then canceling the thing before we get a single unit of a ship or a plane or whatever. That’s got to stop. And what we just saw with the announcement of Anduril’s Arsenal 2 shipyard in Maryland is extraordinary.
Those guys get it. Palmer Luckey is fantastic. They can move fast. They can iterate fast. They can produce fast. That’s what we have to have.
AI, the Navy, and Nuclear Deterrence
Tiffany Meier: And with changing warfare, there’s a whole focus on AI. The Secretary also emphasized the importance of winning the AI race. Do you think AI is the number one priority the U.S. military should focus on to maintain its edge over adversaries like China?
Rod D. Martin: Possibly not number one, but it’s right up there in the top three. I mean, we really have to rebuild our Navy. I can’t stress that enough. The first island chain is a very effective containment of the communists’ ambitions. But the truth of the matter is you have to man it. You have to defend it. And they are building the capacity to break out of it. So we have to take that seriously.
We have to take their nuclear buildup seriously. They have tripled their nuclear force in 10 years. They’re on track probably for 1,000 nuclear warheads by the end of this decade. That’s a serious threat. That completely blows a hole in anybody’s arms control calculations. And it’s something we have to take seriously.
But right there with them is AI. AI is going to determine everything from here on out. It is absolutely phenomenal what it can do. It’s probably not the Terminator. It’s probably not the Matrix. I don’t think it’s going to be rebelling anytime soon. But it absolutely is crucial technology that we have to stay at the forefront of.
The Book: The Strategy behind the Apparent Chaos
Tiffany Meier: And I want to talk about your new book now, Trump’s New World Re-Order, Dismantling the Deep State and Ending Postwar Globalist Rule. You describe the book as a provocative blueprint for understanding how Donald Trump is reshaping American government, global power, and the political order of the 21st century. Break it down for us. What do you mean by Trump’s New World Re-Order?
Rod D. Martin: Well, first, people have this perception of Donald Trump as kind of a chaos monster. You know, everything’s disconnected and disjointed. That isn’t the reality. The reality is that this guy has a stunningly intricate plan that takes into account all of the different dimensions of any given problem. And as the book describes, all roads kind of lead to China.
Ultimately, there is a need to defeat the communists in China in the same way that Reagan did in the Soviet Union, without war, in a peaceful fashion, but conclusive and final so that China can be free and so that the world isn’t enslaved by the communists.
So there’s that. But the book is about a lot more than that. It’s about, you know, restoring constitutional order, restoring the power of Article II so that elections matter again. We’ve had this unelected, unaccountable, unfireable Deep State since FDR. And now we’re overturning Chevron, overturning Humphrey’s Executor, taking back control of those things makes elections matter again: if you vote for this guy, you get this kind of government, if you vote for this other guy, you get a very different kind of government. That’s how it’s supposed to work, and hasn’t, for most of a century.
And likewise, our foreign policy generally has to serve American interests. That’s not to the exclusion of other people’s interests. It’s just we are actually paying in blood and treasure for the global order. We are actually paying the freight. We ought to actually make that serve the people paying for it, which is, again, the American voter, the American taxpayer.
So that is a complete sea change from what we’ve been doing since World War II.
It is really positive, and I think it’s positive for the world. I think countries should have the right to rule themselves, not be subjugated by some multilateral organization in Brussels, or Geneva, or Beijing. And strong nations in partnership can keep the peace and prosper together.
Why It Matters to Everyday Americans
Tiffany Meier: And very quickly on that note, because some viewers might say this all feels very far removed from my everyday life. I’m not someone who’s deeply interested in, say, geopolitics or global power struggles. What would you say to them? Why should they read this book, and what should they take away from it?
Rod D. Martin: Well, first of all, it should be very encouraging to conservatives because, again, people have this chaos monster view of Donald Trump. And no, there’s actually a very intricate plan here that virtually no one has laid out, and this book really does.
The second thing is, this does cover all the things that touch on your life. And if we want good middle-class jobs, good blue-collar jobs again, manufacturing jobs, energy jobs, things that actually allow a regular guy to support a family on one income, what Donald Trump is doing makes that possible.
We were told for 35 years that those jobs are never coming back. Well, guess what? Now they are. And it’s because Donald Trump went out and recruited $18 trillion in new investment. It’s because he rebalanced our trade deals. It’s because he emphasized energy. And all of those things make for a peaceful, free order for the whole world, but certainly at home.
Tiffany Meier: And on that note, where can people find your book?
Rod D. Martin: Well, everybody should go to Amazon, but they can also go to the book’s own website, TrumpsNewWorldReorder.com. It’s available for pre-sale right now. It releases on the 20th. So if you order today, you’ll have the book within a week.
Tiffany Meier: Amazing. Well, Rod D. Martin, thank you so much for joining us.
Rod D. Martin: Thank you.
