By Brandon Gillespie | Fox News
EXCLUSIVE: Senate Republicans are prepping for a confrontation with officials from the Department of Defense over the "woke" policies being implemented into the U.S. military as personnel readiness and morale continue to plummet.
Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., will deliver a speech Thursday on the floor of the Senate that, according to one Republican aide, will focus on how a "woke" Department of Defense is affecting recruitment, morale and readiness in the military, and preventing it from being a strong enough force to deter growing threats from China.
"The U.S military is the largest, most diverse engine of social mobility in the country. It is the most successful civil rights program in the world," Wicker is expected to say, according to excerpts provided to Fox News Digital.
"If you look at the policies the Department of Defense is promoting, you would be forgiven for thinking our forces are today under a cloud of segregation and extremism. The mission of the U.S. military is to deter real wars, not to wage culture wars within the ranks," he is will continue.
Wicker will also be announcing his support for legislation introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., addressing the teaching of critical race theory in the military, as well as planned legislation being assembled by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, that would bar taxpayer money being used to pay for costs associated with abortions received by service members and their families.
The Pentagon recently announced its decision to refund the cost of travel incurred by those traveling to have an abortion.
This all comes just months after a report by the Heritage Foundation ranked the U.S. military as "weak" for the first time in the annual assessment's nine-year history, citing years of sustained use, underfunding, "poorly defined priorities," "wildly shifting security policies," "exceedingly poor discipline in program execution" and "a profound lack of seriousness across the national security establishment."