This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. 

When I worked for Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and President Reagan a lifetime ago, it would have been unimaginable for “Cap” to be AWOL in an ICU – or for any other reason – for even an hour, let alone as Lloyd Austin recently did for three days. His deputy was on vacation and unaware she was effectively acting Secretary.

Not least, such misconduct constitutes a potentially perilous severing of the nuclear chain of command.

That’s arguably never been more true than now, when we must deter China’s Xi Jinping from igniting his next act of “strategic arson” here. 

Even before this dereliction of duty, Lloyd Austin has been a disastrous Secretary of Defense, with his contribution to the abject surrender of Afghanistan, his purges of patriotic warriors, forced jabs and Marxist transformation of the U.S. military. 

It’s time for him to go.

This is Frank Gaffney.