Episode Details

Join us for a dynamic episode featuring three exceptional guests who bring diverse insights to the forefront. Paul McLeary, a seasoned defense journalist at Politico with unparalleled reporting experiences; Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a former Navy Lieutenant Commander, physician, and political candidate running in Arizona's 4th Congressional District; and Rick VanMeter, the Executive Director of The Coalition for App Fairness, leading a bipartisan effort to address anti-competitive policies from tech giants Apple and Google.

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About our guests

Paul McLeary covers major defense programs and acquisitions policy for POLITICO. He previously covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News and Breaking Defense, and has embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.In Afghanistan, he was the first reporter to get inside the secretive ODIN program that targeted insurgents planting roadside bombs, and later accompanied U.S. special operations forces training Syrian Kurds in northern Syria. He has also traveled to the Arctic with the Norwegian military.-

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a former Navy Lieutenant Commander, physician, and political candidate running in Arizona's 4th Congressional District

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Rick VanMeter is the Executive Director of The Coalition for App Fairness. A bipartisan Congressional effort aimed to address anti-competitive policies from Big Tech companies Apple and Google.-

TRANSCRIPTION

Sam Stone: Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone. Chuck Warren and I are apparently taking alternate days off this month, but fortunately for for us, we have Michelle Ugenti Rita in studio today to be here. Michelle is always fantastic and another fantastic lineup of guests for you today, folks. First off, we're leading out with Paul McCleary. He covers major defense programs and acquisitions policy for Politico, previously covered the Pentagon for foreign policy, defense news and breaking defense and has embedded with US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Paul, thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome to the program.

Paul Mcleary: Thank you.

Sam Stone: Obviously, there's a lot going on right now. A lot of news focused around Israel and Gaza and everything going on there. But that's also leading to a lot of ripple effects around the globe in terms of defense, in terms of economics, a whole host of, of of problems that are created when a situation like this kicks off. Can you talk a little bit about what's going on and how that's affecting our defense programs and policy really globally right now?

Paul Mcleary: Sure thing. Yeah. I mean, I think what the wars in Ukraine and now in Israel are really showing is that the the Pentagon gets $800 billion a year, is well funded, but there are some real stresses here that were being felt even before these wars and the defense industry, as far as how long it takes to get new weapons and equipment under contract and things like that, and how expensive they are. And that has not been working out well for Ukraine as we're shipping billions of dollars worth of weaponry. We've given 2 million, I think, artillery shells to Ukraine. And the Pentagon has