Funding for To the Contrary, provided by: This week, on To the Contrary: First gender neutral standards for military combat.

And will Democrats momentum in the special elections hold through the midterms?

Hello, I'm Bonnie Erbe, welcome to To the Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

Up first, women in combat.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the military to adopt gender neutral fitness standards for all combat roles.

This directive formalizes practices that are standard in many, but not all, combat positions.

Experts predict the military will have a harder time finding and retaining women.

Hegseth previously said he didn't want women in combat, period.

Joining me on the panel this week, Sam Bennett of the New York Amsterdam News, Republican strategist Whitley Yates, Democratic strategist Nailah Amaru and Genevieve Wood of the Heritage Foundation.

So first question to you, Nailah.

Will this policy help or hinder our combat readiness?

Well, I think it really depends, most specifically on the considerations that we need to consider.

And speaking from my own experience as a combat veteran of Iraq, it was an ammunition specialist.

I think the most important considerations are when thinking through scientific validity.

Right.

So if the fitness standards that they're trying to change, I think it's really important to make sure that they are based on the actual physical requirements of specific combat roles and not just arbitrary benchmarks, because if we go through specific physical requirements, then that's your best way of ensuring that fairness across all service members instead of through a necessarily specific gender lens.

Well, I want the strongest force possible, and I think that we ought to have standards that make sure we have that.

I'm not interested in how many women we recruit or how many this or that we recruit.

I want the strongest people defending this country, specifically in combat roles.

And there's no doubt that over the recent years, in many of these roles, we have taken down what the standards are, whether it's push ups you can do, how far you can run or complete a two mile, assessment.

Those standards have been lowered so that we can put more women into these particular roles.

And I don't think that's a good idea.

We require more push ups by a college mascot after their team scores a football touchdown, than we do in many cases, people were putting on the field.

My perspective is this having grown up in a military household, my father was a marine officer and pilot.

I was an ROTC Ranger, and I was able to back in the day to do 60 pushups by myself.

Right.

So, bottom line, men and women decision make differently.

That is a truth.

And so you need that women decision making on the battlefield.

I think it's erroneous to think that combat readiness and having the strongest armed forces is limited to how many push ups you can do.

It's also about your ability to make the right decisions in the right moment on the field.

And women approach decision making very differently than men do.

And that difference is important and valuable in a combat setting.

In order to be super fit, then we need to train them in combat together.

And so making sure that our military is trained adequately, no matter the gender, specifically for combat roles, should be first and foremost, because we want to have a sovereign nation.

And in order to do that, we need a strong military.

And that strong military comes with the foundation of fitness.

So if women want to be on the front lines and in the combat roles, they should be able to hang with fitness first.

Couldn't that cut off unnecessarily a lot of women who in every other aspect of being in combat would be as good as, if not better, officers.

You know, my grandmother used to say, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

And what I'm saying is, if a woman wants to be on the front lines and in those combat roles, and she's going to do whatever is necessary to learn the training and excel, I've seen it time and time again, and I know we are all women on this panel, and when we set our minds to do things, we will do it.

No matter the challenges or adversities that are ahead of us.

But we should go on.

These strong is on the front line.

If that is not, one of the female cannot make it.

And unfortunately, that's just not one of the females that will be in a combat role.

But we know that throughout history, and I'm not talking about just World War 2 or 80 years ago, I'm talking about thousands of years of history.

These combat, requirements were set by men, and they were set without regard to whether any women or people of color or whatever you want to, you know, whatever group you want to refer to, how they would be affected by it and how their gifts in other areas besides maybe only be being able to do 59 push ups in a minute, not 60, I don't know, I'm pulling these numbers out of the air, but, without regard to what the gifts are on top of that, does that make good military strategy as far as you are concerned?

It does.

For combat roles.

We're not talking about if you can cook good or be a morale officer, we're talking about those that are going to be enhancing hand combat and going up against the enemy on the front lines.

There are many different positions in the military that they can apply for.

However, when we are talking about our front line security, I do believe that we should have the strongest and if the strongest is not a woman, then a strong, the strongest is not a woman.

And I don't think that we should dilute any of the requirements in order to make it a peaceable so we can have more women.

We want the strongest.

And if you believe that that's you, these are the requirements.

Meet them.

Well, it's an interesting, point.

When we're talking about one, how are you going to identify a combat role?

Because the front line has changed throughout history.

Right.

And so back in 2003, when I was serving in Iraq as ammunition specialist, I was on the front line.

Would that have been considered necessarily a combat role then?

May or may not have been.

I was, you know, enlisted soldier.

I was just trying to execute my orders.

But what I do know is, while I pass my physical fitness test every quarter, I wasn't necessarily the fastest or did the most pushups or did the most set ups, but I did understand the ins and outs of my job that I was trained to do, which were not rooted in how many push ups or sit ups I could do.

And also warfare strategy is not rooted so much in it and had to hand combat more so than it is technology, more so than it is in science.

Right?

And that doesn't matter how many push ups or sit ups, a soldier or an airport airman, or say their can do it's a different definition of combat readiness outside of physical capabilities.

Absolutely.

You know, the definition of combat has radically changed, and no more stronger evidence than the war in Ukraine, right, where so much of this is being done by drones and technologies behind all of it.

So, again, do we all need to be fit when we serve in the Corps or in any of the armed services?

Of course we do.

But there is a difference in decision making that women bring to the table that's invaluable in combat situations.

And to this point, there's a difference in technology requirements, education focus, ability when it comes to these applications of warfare in today's world.

Bonnie, I would just quickly add, though, that I don't think anybody would argue that we have the fittest, most ready military right now that we've ever had.

We just don't.

Recruitment numbers have been down, physical fitness across the board has been down.

We have lowered standards because we had a hard time getting people into the Army, into the Marines, into the air Force, into the Navy and all.

I don't want to leave anybody out.

The the Coast Guard, they've all had trouble recruiting, and so we lowered our standards.

That is not what we want to be doing.

We want to be getting the very best we can in the U.S. military.

And that's not just brainpower.

That's physical power.

We need a fit military to defend this country.

Okay.

And the good news is it's going up under President Trump.

But we need to revisit these standards.

Well, it's changing under President Trump and different experts have different views of whether that's a better thing or a worse thing.

It's debatable is what we have to say about it.

But but but Trump was, you know, heads up, for example, wanted to get women out of combat completely.

He said it many times in his position as a common data, not a general, on Fox News.

And, I wonder if there is gender anti female gender prejudice going on there.

Well, if I could I think Genevieve's points very well taken.

The standards were lowered because recruitment was becoming increasingly difficult.

I think that's an important standards were not lowered to accept more women.

It was it was they were lowered because they were having trouble recruiting.

That being said, it is true that Pete Hegseth, is on the record as a Fox News commentary saying he doesn't believe women should be in combat roles.

That is, that is accurate.

And, and other thoughts.

Genevieve, you're come back to that, please.

Well, to your point earlier mind, that's a debatable question.

I think there are people on both sides of that thing that decide they believe that women should be in military or in combat roles.

That is a debate that we can that we can have.

But let's let's talk about what's being discussed right now, which is he's not saying women shouldn't be in the military, and he's not saying they should be in combat roles, but he's saying we need to have a set standard for certain roles, and they need to be gender neutral.

Everybody has to be able to meet these standards.

So I think that's it.

Talk about fair.

I think that is fair.

That's not lowering standards for people.

It's like saying you get in because you're this color or you're this you're this sex.

You're getting in because you can meet the standards we set for this role.

I don't I've been out of the military.

Men think he's 20.

Genevieve, as we mentioned earlier, combat standards were just what people on the right and the left would consider lowered because not because of trying to get more women, more people of color, more who knows what in the military.

But because not enough people were applying?

That's right.

Many of the men in the military would not meet the the fitness standards of 20 years ago.

I mean, and I it's a sad because that's also a problem with another show, another topic.

But the obesity epidemic I mean, a lot of our young people, we're having a tough time finding enough fit young people to go into the service.

And that's another whole, you know, like we said, topic.

And that's part of the problem.

But these are individual concerns that we ought to be addressing.

And I think that's why we're having this debate.

Whitley, your thoughts please.

You know, I honestly think that the military under President Biden focus more on pronouns and protecting America.

And we saw that with the way in which they responded to Afghanistan.

We saw that when we lost those 13 soldiers with the way in which our military was operating.

And so I think what needs to happen now is just a refocus on protection, a refocus on safety, a refocus on sovereignty.

And with that comes that foundation of fitness for those that are in combat roles.

So whether it's man or woman, it doesn't matter.

Having a set standard, especially in a time where women are screaming about their rights and wanting to be equal to men, I don't see why we wouldn't be lauding and applauding these types of maneuvers.

But you know what's interesting to me?

A quick question to you in that regard is, last time we quote unquote, lowered our standards was because we weren't getting enough applicants.

Is that a reason we should be changing standards?

I think when the military deviated from protecting its citizens to pushing pronouns and gender ideology, no one cares when you're on the front lines.

You have bullets passing by you.

You have bombs going off what your pronoun is, or misgendering someone.

The truth is, it's really about staying safe and protecting this country and fighting for one another.

And so when the focus shifted from protecting America to all of these other issues, I think people lost interest in joining the military and putting their lives on the line and fighting for us.

Would you say that was that was the fault of women for trying to get into the military or some other reason?

It was Biden's fault.

And so it has decreased people being interested in risking their lives and putting their lives on the line for this country.

I have to strongly disagree with blaming President Biden for that.

I would actually refer back to Genevieve.

We had strong societal and cultural changes that have made the military, the young people, rising up to feel very differently about the military than they have in the past.

And to Genevieve's very important point, fitness overall in the country has changed.

So I have to strongly disagree with you respectfully with me on that one.

But I do agree that there was a big sea change and we had to adapt to it.

So please let us know what you think.

Please follow me on Twitter @bonnieerbe.

From the military to politics, Democrats have been performing strongly in recent special elections, often surpassing expectations.

They outperformed Kamala Harris's results by 12 points on average across 11 races.

This includes flipping two Republican state Senate seats in Iowa and Pennsylvania.

Special election show Democrats excel with highly engaged regular voters, especially college graduates.

Pollsters warn this strength may not be reflected in a high turnout presidential election, but it could potentially point to strength in the midterms, where turnout is lower.

To win in 2026, Democrats must bring back disaffected women and people of color to the fold and make inroads among white men.

So, Genevieve Wood, your thoughts on this topic and how it's being affected by today's news?

We're going to have the midterms in 2026, and I don't think either side to be comfortable at this point.

Just this week, we obviously had the races in Florida, the races up in Wisconsin.

And you know, honestly, there weren't huge surprises.

The Republicans won the races.

They should have won in Florida and Wisconsin, even though I would have loved to see the Republicans take to the Supreme Court.

It just it's a they remain the thing the Democrat won, but it was already A43 Democrat majority.

So that's not a big win.

And that sets it's important but it's not a big surprise.

So look I think one of the things to look at here, and I think Republicans and conservatives in particular should look at this.

We know money doesn't always win an election.

Donald Trump was outspent by Hillary, Donald Trump was outspent by Kamala.

But in these specialized elections, where it's really about turning out specific interest groups and getting those people the polls in special elections and in midterms, money can have a much bigger impact.

And I think you saw a lot of that, honestly, in Wisconsin.

But I will note, and in Florida, even though Democrats maybe did better than many hoped or many thought that they might, Donald Trump still came closer to beating Kamala Harris in New York.

Then they came to winning the congressional district in Florida.

So I just we got to have perspective on it.

But I take note neither side should be feeling great about things.

And they've got it all sewed up because I don't think either does.

We have, about a year and a half between now and the midterms, which is frequently longer than gaps between special elections.

So, you first Genevieve, and then everybody jump on in.

How is this time going to be different for Democrats, if at all?

The first really election coming up is in 2025 and new Jersey in Virginia, I think those are going to be the first, quote unquote, midterms, if you if you will.

And I think there's going to be a lot of money spent, a lot of outside groups coming to all of them.

I think Republicans ought to talk about the issues.

Can they do that?

I think they when and focus, you know, but that's the key in getting your bases out.

That's going to be really important.

You have, a very highly catalyzed, sliver of Democrats who are call themselves the resisters.

They're horrified at the, rollbacks of, of civil rights in this country under Trump's administration to date.

And so they're they're the ones that are going to have this inordinate influence on special elections.

So I think for Democrats who are still trying to figure out their narrative.

Right, around how to work, both with and in opposition to Trump when there's, you know, ideological differences.

I think that there is a reason for I don't know if the right word is hope, but they're seeing these highly catalyzed, very energized, Democrats.

I think most notably, I'm a 35 year, Pennsylvania resident, and it was a shock to everyone in Pennsylvania to see that seat go Democrat and remember, you know, Pennsylvania is, you know, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Pennsyltucky in between is James Carville one point.

Right.

So, I think that Democrats, I think, can start pulling the thread on how to figure out how they work with and how they work in constructive opposition with the Trump administration so that the right outcome happen But really, it's these very catalyzed resistors that are making a difference for the Democratic ticket in the special elections.

Does that hold, in Milwaukee and in Wisconsin, as well as it does in Florida and other places?

I wouldn't underestimate, the power of these resistors.

You know, they are if you look at all the protests that are going around the country.

Right.

In front of city halls and town halls, very vociferous in the small community in Santa Cruz, where we have a second home.

We had a 5000 people assembled.

And those protests are happening across the country.

So I wouldn't underestimate the power.

Again, it's a sliver.

It doesn't translate to a large turnout election, but it does have big impact in these special elections.

And I would say across the board, across the country.

Were we surprised by the strength we saw from Democratic voters this time?

I think it depends.

Right.

I think going back to do these recent elections, you know, how indicative are they, for, you know, either side of the aisle?

You know, it's important to acknowledge that special elections turnout, our triple prime voters.

Right.

Those are your folks who, you know, show up every election.

Rain, sleet, snow.

And that's not necessarily indicative of the broader electorate when it comes to general elections.

Right.

And so because we, we, we have, midterms coming up, I think to the point that Genevieve made neither side of the aisle is, you know, really taking anything, for granted or taking any specific key takeaways as this is the direction that we're going.

The other point I wanted to highlight was, I think it does reflect for the Democrats, the effectiveness of really figuring out campaign strategies that really focus on the tried and true role of, like all politics is local, right?

I think sometimes we focus on this national platform.

National parties, national narratives, and what issues are what they should be.

But really finding a way to connect, or to distance, depending on the politics of the district, how you can really speak to, you know, the meat and potatoes, bread and butter, basic everyday issues, that resonate with the local electorate.

Because at the end of the day, it's the local constituencies.

But you need to connect with more so than any national platform or national narrative.

On a broader level.

Was this just a lucky one for the Democrats, or was this a lot of voters across the country from different parties, from different races, from different locations, etc., showing that they're a little sick with what's going on right now?

I would say this is not a wave, but it is a ripple.

Specifically, what happened in Pennsylvania.

Now, mind you, we only won by a little bit over 400, I believe 62 votes.

But it is a ripple in what has to happen specifically on the Republican side is you cannot rely on the center of influence known as Trump, to drive voter turnout or not.

Talking about, voters getting registered.

We're talking about who shows up when it matters.

And so what you see a lot of times in national politics is people show up because they don't like the other person, and so they're driven by an engagement factor that is honestly just really usually disdain for the two people who are running.

But when you don't have that in politics, are local, and you're talking about kitchen table topics, you can see an hour plus ten, an hour plus 15 state Senate seats.

Flip to Democrat.

You seem to me like a very astute analyst of the GOP.

Do you think they'll pay attention or just brush this off as, oh well, we just got unlucky.

You know, as someone who's worked for the GOP for over five years, I think that, I think that they will look at this and utilize it as a wave to get people to turn out from here on out.

They will scare people into saying, this is what's happening.

They're flipping our seats.

They will utilize this to fundraise.

But hopefully what they will do is engage in a way that provides tangible solutions for their constituents, because that's really the only way to remain in those positions of power.

Donald Trump was not known prior to this election to be somebody who was willing to bend his position if it favored his party.

He seemed anyway to care primarily about number one himself and secondarily his party.

But since the election, he's done a lot of things to try to quiet down the noisier, more difficult to temper.

Like Defense Secretary heads us, voices in the Republican Party who are likely to do nothing more than turn votes.

You have to understand that President Trump is in a very unique situation in this second term.

That was split with Biden coming in.

He has to not only provide tangibles quickly, but he has to be able to build a party that is going to maintain the White House in four years.

And he really only has about two years to get that done.

So he has to be able to kind of play peacemaker with those that are upset, maintain the base, and then continue to grow the party in order to maintain dominance, because if not, he becomes a flash, in the pan, as opposed to this dynamic leader who was able to restore and carry the Republican Party on his back.

And as you stated, he loves himself so much that he is going to want to submit his place in history as someone who saved the Republican Party.

And Barney, can I just said, I think a lot of this is up to, frankly, speaker Mike Johnson, who I think is doing a lot better than many people expected and keeping a very small minority or majority together.

But a lot is going to because if Republicans in Congress can deliver on even half of their agenda, they're going to do very well.

I think, in 2026.

But that is a big hill to climb.

And every Republican member, I think, has to think about that with every vote is that that's on them.

That is on them.

The president can do a lot, but at the end of the day, it's Congress that makes the laws.

And if they don't do their part, Republicans are going to have a tough time in the midterms.

The speaker of the House is a very under credited role, and it's absolutely essential.

I mean, if you look at the phenomenon of Nancy Pelosi's very instrumental role in passing so much of the Obama administration, but not getting barely any credit for it, you had like John Boehner was on every major news, you know, magazine cover, and Nancy Pelosi only got the cover of this magazine.

Right.

That was it.

So I think.

I'm going to tell you right now, Nancy Pelosi is one of the most effective House speakers that has ever had that position.

I don't know about John Boehner, and I don't like Nancy Pelosi, but I'm going to give her credit for being one of the most effective people at getting an ending.

I mean, it's she is outpaced every male person that's had that role ever in history by a wide country mile, largely uncredited.

I think Genevieve's point is extremely important that the Trump is a president.

Whether you like him or hate him, he has a certain role to play.

But one could argue Congress has a much more important role to play to carry out that agenda.

So I think that, really looking at the speaker of the House, their effectiveness, and I think also we have to also look at, again, the previous, you know, we talked previously that what is happening on the grassroots level, what's the temperature check down there.

So I think it's a combination of both those things.

All right.

And we will have at least five sets if not more of eyeballs watching every move.

Every member of every party meets in this upcoming election.

That's it for this edition of To the Country.

Thank you all for your wonderful participation.

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