Name: Most Powerful Women Summit 2019: Sen. Martha McSally
Uploaded: 2019-10-22
Duration: 13 min 51 s
Description: McSally is a Republican Senator from Arizona.

I have the honor of interviewing you for like an hour and a half on stage two years ago. And 15 minutes this isn't gonna do it. I know. But we are gonna try. We are gonna try. So Senator, you are just, welcome. You're just back from Saudi Arabia, where you had a little bit of a cathartic experience. Can you explain that? I did. Well, it's great to be here with you all and I know we got to talk fast. Yeah A little bit of time. And you're good at talking fast. About one of my experiences in the military that you may have been aware of Is I fought a eight- year battle with the Pentagon because our service women, when they served in Saudi Arabia, were being told to basically comply as if they were Saudi women. They couldn't drive. They had to sit in the backseat of the car. They had to wear a full abaya and headscarf. They always had to have a male escort. They were told, when stopped by the religious police, to lie and claim their fellow service woman as their wife. This is about doorstep it was but I fought for this thing on behalf of our troops for six and a half years before they ordered me there. In the end, you can google it or use another search engine actually. Sorry, Google here that doesn't collect your data, but any and I filed I've [ LAUGH ] Sorry, I filed a lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld. So as an active duty military officer, I sued Rumsfeld not a good career move, but it was the right thing to do. And then I got legislation passed to overturn everything but the driving ban because Saudi women couldn't drive. I never got to sort of see the fruits of that I swore I'd never go back there but I was over there a couple weeks ago with Joe Manchin to see the damage at the Saudi Aramco oil facility that the Iranians bombed. And when we came off the causeway from Bahrain, I got my car and I drove and Western clothes. It was very [ CROSSTALK ]. It really was because this was a pretty I mean, I'm joking about it now, but those were not easy decisions to stand up. Yeah. And you're not somebody that runs away from a firefight. Let me tell you so, just your childhood briefly, your defining tragedy in your life as a girl was your father died? Yes. When you were 12? Was 12. And that was the It was defining. absolutely. I was youngest of five kids, three older brothers, one older sister, so I mean, I'm feisty, I had to fight fornmy food, so I'm feisty by nature, but I really was blessed to grow up in a very stable middle class family and my dad came from top circumstances but he grew up with the value of hard work, he served in the navy, used the GI bell, Get a good education, make a difference with your life, and at the age of 49, when I was 12 years old, he very suddenly passed away and in- between two heart attacks, while he was in the hospital, he knew in the middle of the night, he just knew in the spirit he was gonna leave and he said get my kids, I need to talk to my kids and so I was so blessed that I get to visit with him. I didn't understand really what was going on. He just wanted to talk to us and think about what you talked about with those of you love this morning, right? Just the mundane mundane things of life. We shared about the dog in school and swimming and siblings. But among other things in that conversation, he told me to make them proud and then he. Passed away a few hours later. That's hard. And it really deeply has impacted the entire path of my life. To make him proud. So what's interesting too about you is that as a young woman, women weren't allowed in combat, let alone be a combat fighter. So what did you decide to do? Be a fighter pilot but I was motion sick when I was a kid. Like legally, yeah and your motion sickness. Against the law, yeah. It was against the law. Yeah, so I ended up, you know you're 17 when you make these decisions. Anybody have a 17 year old a man some young kids they're flaky, right? I mean so for me I was just trying to find an opportunity to get a good education. I did not sat on my mama debt. I was trying to channel my energy my feistiness my grief. I was still it was very difficult time junior high in high school for me. And I thought channeling it into something that was challenging me and being a part of something greater than myself. I wouldn't have said those words then but so off I go to the Air Force Academy but I really had no idea what I was getting into. And I thought I was going to be a doctor. And you and again You said you had motion sickness. Yeah. I wanted to be a pilot. Well, I found out when I got there for the first time in my life that just because I had ovaries, I couldn't be a fighter pilot and it just pissed me off. So I channel My feistiness into like, well, that's exactly what I'm going to do. And I mean, people laughed at me they were like, it's against the law. And I was never too short. I was too short, too, yeah. But I would say we live in America, laws change, and I'm gonna just have this dream in my heart and I wanna prove them wrong, and you go into the same training as the guys and the fact that, they just would have this random thing that says, you can't fly these planes. It doesn't make any sense. A plane doesn't care if you're a boy or a girl, just fly the plane, shoot the gun. So- [ LAUGH ] So, anyway, I channeled that energy. I wasn't going to let the dream die. I had nothing to do with the change. It took nearly ten years, but finally when the door opened, the law changed, the policy changed. They had identified seven of us women who had earned a fighter out of pilot training. But we just couldn't pick it because we were girls. And you ended up in Afghanistan in what you called a bad- ass plane 810 warthog. Yes I chose the 810 warthog. It's a beautiful ugly plane and its entire job is close air support. We show up when the troops are on the ground under fire often in really complex circumstances where the friendlies in the enemy are really close, fratricide is really high risk. It was actually built to go after Soviet tanks and anti- tank on the front lines, but it's been incredibly adaptive throughout the decades to deliver firepower in a very precise way often and just really High stakes situations with troops on the ground call on us and to help them. And so I picked it over all the other fighters ., it's an amazing. It's a gun. It's basically a gun on a plane. That's the fogler. It's all about being a gun. Yeah the Fogler as they built the 30 millimeter gun and then they went to the engineers and said, figure out how to fly this gun. I don't know if that's accurate. [ LAUGH ] In fact check that. But that's the folklore that we. As a ten pilot. So you became a you had honors you had this incredible career as a fighter pilot, but it was not easy along the way. You had in what was interesting last time I talked to you was you, really opened up about the sexual harassment you face which became most pitched As you got promotions, as you move up the ranks. Yeah, I found when I first opened up Fires to Women, there was a hostile environment. I mean, at that time, our chief of staff at the air force had testified before congress a few years earlier saying he'd rather pick a less qualified man than a more qualified woman. I mean, this is the guy leading our air force. Right, you set the culture at the top. When they changed the rule he had to decide to get behind it, but we knew it was in his heart. If you ever wanna look at something funny, just look at the I had, three of us women Standing next to him and I was a captain. And we went through all this media training about watch your body language and whatever and I like on purpose was sitting there with my arms folded and beside him because, I just was like we know exactly what he felt in his heart. So it didn't set a great environment And a bit hostile for us. I mean, had to change people's minds one at a time. As soon as I deployed with my first Squadron it things really, I think got better just because people realize when they're going into harm's way together they have to put things aside. The real enemy is out there and we're all in each our lives are in each other's hands. But then, you know, as you moved up it's one thing to be a wingman which is what you have lately tell you what to do, where to go, where to shoot. What. But then when you become the flight leader, then when you become the instructor, pilot or the evaluator, or the commander. It was interesting, I felt like we had hit a point where, okay, we've arrived women have been integrated into all the fighters like get over it. We picked the best man for the job even if she's a woman, and we're kinda through this. But I found that it actually sometimes surprisingly get a little more hostile as you move up. A little more hostile. So just to speed this up just a little bit, when I interviewed the senator when you were a member of congress You talked about the harassment you faced including this incredibly vicious voice mail that was left for you by the spouse of one of your colleagues. But what you didn't open up to me about, and you opened up last spring was that you were raped by a superior, why did you decide to come forward and talk about that. > I mean, this is something that people who know me in my life knew about, it wasn't a secret to those who know me and love and those I'm in relationship with It was something i just felt like at that moment in time, because of the position that I am, in and because of the importance of this issue, that i had a unique perspective not just as someone who had been a commander, who was responsible for making sure that we did not have sexual assault in my unit. But as a survivor, I had a unique perspective that I felt was important to fill the discussion. So just sometimes a good Lord puts you in positions that you didn't ask for. And I just felt like it was literally we're having a hearing on Wednesday on the topic I flew in on Monday. And as I looked at it, I just felt like how do I Explain where I'm coming from without explaining where I'm coming from. And so I just decided after thought and prayer and talk to a few people like I just needed to share this. Again, it wasn't a surprise to people who know me but- And become an activist, a legislative activist in terms of legislation to criminalize. I really am in a unique position in that regard and I think so many women and men Have been through sexual assault in their lives, so many. So many have been through sexual abuse, sexual assault, I mean it's in a crowd this size it's a significant percentage of us. Some people take it to their grave. When it comes to our military, this is a cancer on our good order and discipline and our mission. And we've gotta do everything we can in order to route it out and prevent it from happening and prosecute those who commit those crimes. And so I just felt like, not the topic I was planning to lead on, but here I am in this moment in time and it's really important. So when- [ APPLAUSE ] Thank you. [ APPLAUSE ] Thank you for your work on that. Yeah, and you know one more point on that is I think, especially in the positions that we're in, I just felt like there's somebody that has happened to yesterday or30 years ago who maybe in seeing someone like me sharing my story, maybe it Helps them to get out of bed today, you know and helps them to heal for their own grief and their own suffering in order to be able to find some hope, you know, for their own future, that this, these crimes do not have to crush you and hold you down and hold you back. And so that was another reason I that I shared it as someone who's in public role. Thank you, Senator. I wanna ask you about one issue we just say we have time for. You've sponsored something called the deter Act, which is to protect our electoral system going into 2020. What do you most worried about? Well, let me say that I've been studying the Russians since I was a cadet at the Air Force Academy and It's, but it's not just the Russians, there are foreign agents out there who have been, you know, trying to use propaganda and information operations in so many ways. I mean, the Russians tend to be the ones who've been known for it, you know, for my whole lifetime and even before that. They've adapted their propaganda and information operations now to 21st century tools that are out there. You know, to include obviously social media and other things. So there is two elements of it. One is the influence operations that others could try to use in order to turn us on each other and have us lose faith in our institutions, in our systems. And with like a little bit of resources, they can tackle something that'; s kind of naturally maybe a tinder box and a certain topic and then just turn Americans on each other. And I would just encourage us all, don't buy it Right, you know, we're divided. We have a lot of sincerely held views on how to solve our problems. But we're all in this together and we're Americans. And let's not be fooled and gullible by the propaganda that's out there that's actually trying to pit us against each other or [ UNKNOWN ] the divisions that are that are there. The second piece is making sure that Our actual databases are voter files and all that are protected. And a lot has happened. These are all very decentralized at the county levels around the state. That's a strength for sure. It's also a little bit of a weakness because sometimes county budgets are low. And investing in capabilities for protection Has not been a priority but with DHS support through the states, there's been a lot of resources available now. To bring us up to a stronger place and there were really no indications 2018. Yes or no? Now we are stronger and now that we are more aware in 2020. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Senator, thank you so much. [ INAUDIBLE ] debate. Thank you. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Most Powerful Women Summit 2019: Sen. Martha McSally

Politics

McSally is a Republican Senator from Arizona. 