Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Dave McCormick lays out national security agenda in Pittsburgh

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick outlined his vision for a stronger military and attacked the Democrats’ perceived foreign conflict failures as he spoke at the Allegheny Harvard-Yale-Princeton Club in Downtown Pittsburgh Friday.

Mr. McCormick’s speech was the fifth in his “Keystone Agenda to Reclaim America,” a planned series of six to outline his campaign positions.

While Mr. McCormick received his master’s and Ph.D. from Princeton, he leaned on his experiences from West Point and the 82nd Airborne Division to make the case to his small but highly educated audience that “strength is what creates a peaceful world for America.”

He accused President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and his opponent, incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, of failing to act to prevent Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.

“Our enemies are no longer waiting in the shadows for America to decline — they’re on the march,” he said.

Mr. McCormick said the military was suffering from a “recruiting crisis” induced by Mr. Casey and the Biden-Harris administration, as well as budget cuts and a shrinking Navy. He was especially critical of diversity, equity, and inclusion training, or DEI, to which he claimed the military devoted 6 million man-hours in the first year of the administration.

“Diversity, equity and inclusion have now taken center stage at the expense of military might,” he said. “It’s no exaggeration to say that on Bob Casey’s watch, there are parts of our Pentagon that are more focused on advancing DEI than winning wars.”

Mr. McCormick praised former President Donald Trump, who he said did not start any new wars and “recognized that our enemies speak one language, the language of power.” Trump sank Mr. McCormick’s last Senate run by endorsing his primary opponent, Mehmet Oz, in 2022, but Trump endorsed Mr. McCormick this time around.

Mr. McCormick said he supported expanding Philadelphia’s shipyards and boosting Pennsylvania’s steel production to help America re-establish itself as “the arsenal of democracy.”

“At the height of World War II, Pennsylvania pumped out as much steel as all the Axis powers combined,” he said. “We must recapture that productive capacity. If we want to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, for example, we have to have enough missiles before we’re deployed to sink the communist invasion fleet.”

Following the speech, retired Lt. Col. Mike Starz presented Mr. McCormick with a handful of questions that audience members had been allowed to submit before the event. He elaborated on some of his earlier statements while adding that he supported sending Ukraine military aid, a position “half the people in our party would certainly disagree with.”

“We made a promise, and how we respond to that promise will inform what our allies like Australia, Japan, NATO, and others think about our promises,” he said. “If Putin is successful it will be destabilizing to Europe, and I think that is very much counter to U.S. interests.”