On Wednesday, testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on President Biden’s 2022 budget request, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark Milley defended the reading of Critical Race Theory (CRT) texts by the United States military, snapping, “I’ve read Mao Tse-Tung; I’ve read Karl Marx; I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist.” Milley claimed there were “thousands of people” who had assaulted the Capitol on January 6 and that he “personally” found it “offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned, non-commissioned officers, of being ‘woke’ because we’re studying some theories that are out there.”
Prior to Milley’s remarks, Florida GOP Congressman Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret, had referenced a letter the Superintendent of West Point had written to Waltz in response to Waltz’s letter about the teaching of Critical Race Theory at West Point. The superintendent’s letter acknowledged that CRT was taught at West Point. Waltz gestured to members of Congress around him, then said:
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