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Our full discussion transcribed after the break:
by Rod D. Martin and Frank Gaffney
November 12, 2026
My latest interview on Securing America with Frank Gaffney. Sign up NOW for Frank’s Rumble channel and don’t miss a single episode!
Frank Gaffney and I discuss how Pete Hegseth is reforming the Pentagon’s purchases, NVIDIA and China, and how Congress can thwart Democrats’ defense plans...if they act fast.
Frank and I discuss:
How Pentagon contracts reward cost overruns and failure
Pete Hegseth’s reforms of Pentagon procurement, and how that’s rebuilding America’s defenses faster than any time since World War II
Does restricting Nvidia chip sales to China actually help America stay ahead?
How Congress can secure two years of defense funding…and block Democrats’ efforts to gut the Pentagon
It’s a full half-hour of in-depth analysis you won’t want to miss. If you prefer to read, the full transcript is below. Watch, read, like, and share!
Our full discussion:
Frank Gaffney: We’re back. As now I get to say, so is Rod Martin, the chairman of the board of our Institute for the American Future. Did I mention that it makes this program possible and you can support it at USFuture.org? I think I did. But anyway, once again, George Rasley and I were talking about a number of things, Rod, that are in your wheelhouse, as evidenced by your wonderful Rod Martin Report.
And people can find that at RodMartin.org, as well as from your myriad interviews and now your new book about Donald Trump’s wonderful New World Re-Order. So please check that out as well, folks. But I did want to just pick up with you where we were with George Rasley about Pete Hegseth a moment ago, Rod, if I can, because you have published a very important speech that he gave, as it happens, yesterday at the Naval War College.
Give us sort of, if you would, a sense of what he has publicly said in that regard, but also more generally, the man in the moment.
Rod D. Martin: Well, look, I have to say, Pete Hegseth is just doing an amazing job as Secretary of War. He’s actually going after Pentagon procurement in a meaningful, transformative way. I mean, we’ve known that was a disaster since Eisenhower was warning us about the military-industrial complex. Very much the same problem that you’ve had at NASA for decades. All these cost-plus contracts that incentivize every possible bad behavior versus a fee-for-service contract.
This is what we’re going to pay you. You got to make the cost numbers work. And long-term contracts where you’re actually committing to a supplier enough money and enough predictability that they can put on new staff. They can increase their production lines. They can do the things necessary to actually rebuild America’s shipbuilding and other crucial industrial capacity that the United States has let atrophy since at least the end of the Cold War.
Hegseth is all about this. Hegseth is doing a tremendous job at this. Honestly, he should be on everybody’s short list as a presidential candidate. I’m not picking a candidate today, but if I were, he would absolutely be in the top five of people I would want to see run for and win the White House.
Pete Hegseth is awesome. So, of course, the Democrats hate him, and it’s remarkable to me. Don Rumsfeld didn’t get impeached, and there’s potentially nobody they’ve ever hated as much as Don Rumsfeld, and yet they’re going to impeach Pete Hegseth, more likely than not.
And of course, some of that comes from someone who pretends to be on our side, the execrable Thomas Massie, total grifter. And lest your audience be completely horrified by that, let me remind them that he voted for the biggest tax increase in American history. He voted to defund ICE and he voted to certify the 2020 election because he said, “The Constitution requires me to.” Oh my gosh, he’s a grifter. He’s a jerk.
And he did all this, opposing the president’s policies day in and day out for a year and a half while representing a Trump +40 House district. What did he think would happen? So he’s leading the charge on impeachment against Hegseth. If Marjorie Taylor Greene were around, I’m sure she’d be right there with him. And, you know, who knows who else? Barney Frank, maybe? I mean, pick some awful human being. And they hate Pete Hegseth.
And I think that commends Pete Hegseth more than any other thing.
Military Readiness, Recruiting, and Weapons Production
Frank Gaffney: Well, there’s that old line about if you’re drawing anti-aircraft fire, you’re over the target. And certainly Pete is. And you’ve emphasized this procurement reform. And that’s kind of inside baseball for most of us, except that when we’re, you know, endlessly told about the $500 toilet seat or the gold-plated piece of equipment here or there, not only has that been a perennial problem, certainly one when I was back in the Pentagon, not responsible for procurement, mind you, but nonetheless, it was an affliction for all of us, not least the war fighters.
But he’s also been figuring out ways with some pretty innovative folks to greatly accelerate the production capacity of these various lines and what they’d be churning out in terms of not least, you know, autonomous vehicles that don’t require the kind of personnel that traditional Navy ships, for example, do. So all of that is important. But Rod, in addition — and I do want to give him tremendous credit, and I think it’s one of the reasons why he is so detested by the left — he’s gone full frontal on this whole cultural Marxism agenda that they were imposing on the military relentlessly.
Rod D. Martin: He made another speech this morning that was just fantastic. But this morning, I published his speech from yesterday at the Naval War College on RodMartin.org. So everybody should go to RodMartin.org and read or watch it. Up to you. We’ve got both.
It’s remarkable. Hegseth lays out what America’s military is for, what it has been used for, which is not at all what it’s for. You know, it’s somewhere between a social engineering experiment and a playground for people who want to grift.
And that’s got to end. We actually have to focus on things like victory and lethality and the reason you actually pay for a military. These are the things he is bringing back, the basics we’re going back to. And the results are phenomenal. And you see it in recruitment numbers. You know, under Biden, we were having trouble filling out the ranks. Hegseth and Trump are in, and within five months of last year, they’ve already met their recruiting goals for the year for every branch of service.
People respond to a military that actually is a military and isn’t a drag queen story hour, which Biden had turned it into. That’s kind of a big deal. But circling back to something you said just a second ago, yeah, what he’s accomplished in terms of getting industry to respond to the need is extraordinary. And I realize people who don’t watch Securing America with Frank Gaffney may not understand this. But the truth is Lockheed doesn’t inherently want to make more missiles.
You may think they do, but in reality, they may make more money by making less just because of the structure of these deals. Hegseth has straightened out a lot of that. It’s not perfect, and it may not survive him. We’ll see.
But what he’s done has translated directly into moving from 68 Tomahawk missiles produced in a year — 68! — to 1,000 next year and years following. What Anduril has done to bring down the cost of a cruise missile, you know, just phenomenally brought it down. Looks like what Elon’s doing at SpaceX. What SpaceX is doing that will translate into military transport capacity is transformative. It will completely change our position in the world for the better.
All these things are happening because we finally have somebody at the top at the Pentagon that actually wants results rather than slush funds.
And of course they hate that. That’s what they’re going after. If they could have gone after Elon Musk when he was running DOGE, they’d have impeached him too. They’re going to try to do something similar to that now. But I don’t think this president’s going to buckle. You’ll recall George Bush fired Don Rumsfeld when the Democrats won the midterms. Donald Trump’s going to double down. And you see that in the appointment of Stephen Miller as chief of staff.
Frank Gaffney: Well, I pray so. This is a moment of truth, really, to see if he will stand by his man. But I couldn’t agree with you more that Pete’s contribution to national security, and much as it’s been derided because of some of his past, you know, shortcomings, he’s measuring up in an incredibly impressive way. And I will tell you, Rod, I was listening.
I haven’t had a chance to look at the speech other than reading part of what you sent along at, again, RodMartin.org. Please check it out, folks. But the way he presented himself in this press conference today, early in the day as we speak, it just made me proud to be an American, I have to say, and proud that we’ve got that guy representing us to the military and representing the military to the country and, for that matter, the world.
I mean, I was a friend of Don Rumsfeld. I loved the guy. I served with great pleasure under another, I think, quite formidable man, Cap Weinberger. But this guy is in a class by himself, I think. And I do hope, speaking to what you just touched on a moment ago, that whenever he departs the scene, that what he has put in place and put in motion will survive his service because it’s been so long overdue, Rod, and so desperately needed. And unfortunately, we may well find ourselves needing every bit of it and a lot more, especially if things go sideways with China.
We’re going to talk with Rod Martin about that possibility, member of our Committee on the Present Danger: China, among other things, as well as, of course, the proprietor of a wonderful online resource, I can’t commend it highly enough, the Rod Martin Report. Check it out. Rod Martin. I’ll be right back.
Nvidia, Chip Exports, and America’s Lead in AI
We’re back, and so is Rod Martin. We have been talking about the American National Security Establishment under Pete Hegseth, our Secretary of War, and what, you know, the red-green axis is determined to try to do to continue their sabotaging of it. And well, that’s in the service, whether they explicitly cop to it or not, of our mortal enemy. That would be the Chinese Communist Party. And Rod, you’ve given a lot of thought to what the Chinese are up to and what we should be doing about it.
In addition to, of course, Pete’s preparing us for a very serious conflict with them. I wanted to talk to you about the problem of elite capture, as the Chinese call it, and how that is contributing to the danger that we face from that quarter. Specifically, I’m thinking about this character Jensen Huang of Nvidia and his paramour, who apparently is a Chinese spy. Our friend Steve Bannon has been speculating openly that some of the ways in which this whole thing has been handled and some of the ways that people are describing what was known and when it wasn’t known suggest that they think Jensen himself is a Chinese spy. What are your thoughts about all this, sir?
Rod D. Martin: Well, the president seems to not think so. So since I don’t know Jensen, I’m going to go with the president on that for now. I think the investigation is going to turn up whether your worst fears are correct, and they may very well be. Certainly, Jensen and his company would like to sell a lot more chips to China. I think that’s a bad idea on the one hand, although our friend George Gilder points out that all we’re doing is incentivizing China to create their own Nvidia, and that’s going to bite us on the butt down the line. So I understand there are two sides to this story. I also understand, though…
Frank Gaffney: But could I just ask on that, Rod? I mean, you’ve spent some time in the tech space. Do you think that the Chinese decision as to whether to create their own Nvidia depends on whether they have access to our chips or not? I would argue that having access to our chips just allows them to, you know, do what they do, which is to, you know, reverse engineer and replicate them, no?
Rod D. Martin: Well, that is the other argument. And I agree with the president’s policy on this to keep the best chips out of their hands. I think that’s right because all they do is steal intellectual property all day long and try to reverse-engineer it, which they’re usually pretty successful at doing. So the longer we retard that process while advancing rapidly, the harder this gets for them. And we are advancing rapidly.
First of all, all the designs come from America. You know, they’re not coming from Taiwan Semiconductor. They’re coming from here. And moreover, now Taiwan Semi is, you know, opening a plant in the United States. Terafab is going forward in Texas. That’s Elon. Honestly, Apple’s chips are some of the best available for AI, not necessarily at the scale that we’re talking about with Nvidia, but certainly if you have a consumer machine and you want to do any serious AI work, there is nothing better than a Mac.
That is the gold standard. But where are those produced? Decisions they made five, six, seven years ago. America has a huge lead and it can expand it with more competition that is actually producing domestically.
But yeah, the Chinese mean to get ahead, obviously. That’s what the AI data center push is. They want to slow us down so they can speed ahead. And they’ve talked a lot of people here into that. So yeah, I agree with the policy. I think, George — this may be the only place I can remember where I strongly disagreed with George Gilder, but I also see his point.
In any case, back to Jensen Huang. Look, this was a really simple problem to head off. Don’t cheat on your wife. My gosh, what an idiot. Look, she’s hot: I get it. You know, they’re not going to send a spy who isn’t tempting. But dude, don’t cheat on your wife. If a really attractive woman is trying to have sex with you, she’s probably up to something. Don’t do it. It’s just basic.
Frank Gaffney: Yeah, I’m told that his wife does not have a prenuptial agreement.
Rod D. Martin: Oh, I know. He’s toast. They get a considerable number of billions of dollars if she parts ways.
Frank Gaffney: But let me just come back to the main point here, the main thing, as our colleague Captain James Fennell calls it. What we’re dealing with in China is a determined enemy. And whether it is building up their military with our proprietary information or whether it is suborning, subverting, and otherwise, you know, sowing chaos in our country, this is a threat.
President Trump is heading back to meet with Xi Jinping in the latter part of this month. What do you expect out of that meeting? And do you think that his attitude is properly calibrated on the threat?
Rod D. Martin: If you’re looking at this primarily from a trade perspective, I think we’re on a really good path. It’s never going to be perfect because we’re dealing with the communist Chinese. All they do is cheat. All they do is try to get around anything. That’s a given. That doesn’t mean you can’t deal with them. It just means that you have to actually have a lot of patience and a long attention span.
And I think the president’s done a pretty good job on that. No, not a pretty good job. As good a job as could have possibly been done. Nobody else was going to do better and nobody else was going to try. In 2016, calling China an enemy was crazy talk. It slotted you on the crazy fringe. Now that’s a mainstream position. That’s because of Donald Trump. Thank God we had Donald Trump. So on that side, I think the summit will be pretty plain vanilla.
We’ve got some things that have to happen by January, but, you know, the Chinese are going to use every minute of that. So we’ll see. On the defense side—
Frank Gaffney: I have to ask you to hold the thought on the defense side. We have to take another short break and we’ll be right back with more with Rod Martin about China, but also, well, the red-green axis that it is, I think, not just talking with, but probably enabling, now going to be represented massively in our Congress and other places. Stay tuned. We’ll get into all that right after this.
China’s Nuclear Buildup and Golden Dome
We’re back, and so is the great Rod Martin, the proprietor of the Rod Martin Report at RodMartin.org, the author of a new and hot book entitled Trump’s New World Re-Order. And this happens to be, as he is hopefully holding up, this happens to be where we left off with the break. Talk to me about the defense piece of the China threat and what we must be doing about it, including in these summit meetings, perhaps.
Rod D. Martin: Well, that’s actually a very big focus of Trump’s New World Re-Order. I have an entire section of the book called “All Trump’s Roads Lead to China.” And everybody should go out and get six of these. It’s Christmas time. Come on, guys. What are you waiting for? Trump’s New World Re-Order.
In any case, the defense piece that we left off at the end of the last segment is complex. And as you know, China has never agreed to any kind of arms control treaty worthy of the name. The nonproliferation treaty doesn’t count, although Grok says it does, and Grok is sometimes really dumb.
So we have an enemy that has tripled its strategic nuclear forces in four years. They mean to reach at least parity with the United States and the Russians. That turns into a ruinous arms race at some point. Fortunately, the first people ruined in that arms race will be the Russians. So that’s kind of funny. But the point remains that you end up with this three-legged stool thing and not in the good Reagan-esque sense, in the sense of any two of the three powers could gang up on the other one and completely overwhelm their forces.
That’s a very dangerous, hostile, destabilized world. And so you end up with just this runaway arms race. There are two things you can do about it, and Trump is focused on both. The first one is you can get the Chinese to agree to enter some kind of three-way talks with the U.S. and Russia to try to contain this a little bit. You and I both know that arms control doesn’t work, and that will be a debacle, but it could slow down the process long enough for us to deploy Golden Dome, which is the second thing.
And that brings us, of course, to what’s about to happen. That’s going to be a key focus of the summit. He wants to bring about that arms control discussion. That’s the right answer. It’s a stopgap, but it’s the right answer. You know, sit down, try to stall this huge buildup.
The Lame Duck and the Case for Two Years of Defense Funding
Second, we have to pass the NDAA. We have to pass. That’s the National Defense Authorization Act, which I’m sure everybody who watches Securing America knows, but maybe not everybody who will watch this elsewhere. So the National Defense Authorization Act, Thune punted it into the lame-duck session deliberately.
I know they’re getting business done just this morning. The Senate passed the housing bill on a bipartisan basis. That’s great. That is a phenomenal, phenomenal thing. And the president’s very proud of it. But the truth is the most important thing by far is the NDAA and with it, the reconciliation bill where the key funding for Golden Dome is.
Golden Dome being our national missile defense. Folks, got to get it done. We got about 60 days here in which to get stuff done before the Democrats take over and try to turn the Pentagon back into a drag queen story hour. That’s the deal. And I would suggest, and I know I suggested to you, Frank, that what we really ought to do, and I would encourage Speaker Johnson to give this some serious thought.
We should either repass the NDAA as a two-year appropriation instead of just one so that we get out to the end of Trump’s term like we did on ICE funding, like we did on Border Patrol. We got to do that. Or in the alternative, pass a standalone bill that extends the existing NDAA and reconciliation out two years. And I don’t know if Thune can put that together, but he ought to, considering that Chuck Schumer says they’re going to nuke the filibuster. What’s he waiting for? Let’s get it done.
Frank Gaffney: Rod, this is, again, a little more inside baseball than probably our audience is accustomed to. But what you’re essentially saying is, and it goes back in a way to what we were talking about at the beginning, that you want to give predictability to the defense industrial sector that is producing the weapons that we need. And part of that is a function of whether this legislation — I used to work on these NDAAs when I was on the Senate Armed Services Committee staff — whether those guidelines, if you will, for procurement and for policy and for personnel and all manner of other things are properly set.
And that is must-pass legislation every year. I’m pretty sure they’re going to get it done, but I think this is an intriguing thought, to make it a two-year bill instead of a one-year bill. There was a lot of talk about doing that back when I was in the Senate, actually, but I don’t think it’s ever happened. And at least, you know, at the macro level, sometimes you get submarine programs two years and so on.
But this is a major conceptual breakthrough, I think. We need to pursue it.
Rod D. Martin: Yeah, it’s essential. We’ve really got to try to do this. I don’t know if we can get the votes together to do this. And I don’t know if the Speaker will pay attention to it, although I’ve got to hand it to Mike Johnson. He’s done a phenomenal job as Speaker. They’ve passed the legislation they were supposed to pass very consistently for the last two years. It is the Senate where it has gone to die. That’s on John Thune. And honestly, it is a terrible shame that Mike Johnson is standing down and not running for minority leader, but John Thune is gonna stay.
That guy needs to go. I hope Trump does to him what he did to John Cornyn and to Cassidy in Louisiana. We’ll see. He’s up in 28. So it’s very possible when the president says he’s raising more money for his super PAC, he’s going to be a very serious player in 28. We shall see.
Frank Gaffney: Well, at a minimum, you’d think that that would give him some leverage on Thune to play better.
Rod D. Martin: But it’s got to happen in the next 60 days because next year and the year after that, about all we can hope for is stopping veto overrides. And I think we can. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble doing that in either house. But you’ve got to get to two-thirds. They don’t have two-thirds. The president has a tremendous reservoir of separate power in Article II, which he can successfully use to finish his presidency even better than he started it.
And we saw that with Reagan. We saw it with Clinton. We saw it with Obama.
Frank Gaffney: From your lips to God’s ears, Rod Martin, that’s all we’ve got time for. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, keep up the great work at RodMartin.org, and come back to us next week if you would. I hope the rest of you do the same. Until next time, go forth and multiply.
