Lt Gen Rod Bishop on Secretary of War’s GOFO Speech

STARRS Chairman Lt. General Rod Bishop, USAF ret, was a guest on Frank Gaffney’s Securing America show discussing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s speech to generals and flag officers on 30 Sept 2025. Gaffney is a member of the STARRS Board of Advisors.

From Frank Gaffney: I was privileged to have the opportunity to interview Lieutenant General Rod Bishop, a man who, with his team at STARRS, has been championing precisely the kinds of reforms of the Pentagon that the Secretary of War announced yesterday to a large room full of our senior commanders. We talked about the announced changes and the urgent need for them, as well as the impact that this will all have on contending with very dangerous adversaries in a potentially fraught moment.

Watch:

---

—Unedited AI Transcript—

Frank Gaffney

We’re on the road near Orlando, Florida, as we speak in our mobile studio. We are very pleased to be able to be addressing with one of America’s, I think, preeminent, retired military officers, the incredible speech that was given yesterday by the man now in charge of what is known as the Department of War. Before we get to our guest, I’m going to make a few introductory comments on my own. The War Department is back. Yesterday, its Secretary, Pete Hegseth, told our top commanders, what a difference that will make. Every American, certainly those in uniform, but most especially our civilians, need to listen to what was one of the most impressive public addresses in our nation’s history. In its course, the Secretary underscore the object of the exercise, the restoration of the time-tested principle that if you want peace, prepare for war. Secretary Hegseth describe what that will mean in practical terms, notably a return to the warrior spirit, to physical fitness, to merit in promotions, And to a state of heightened readiness appropriate to the dangerous world in which we live. The pride in and gratitude for our military, expressed yesterday on behalf of our nation by both Pete Hegseth and President Trump, was clearly heartfelt and deeply inspiring.

Let’s roll. Well, those are my thoughts. Let’s find out what are the insights into all of this of a man who, I have to say, seemingly had a very outsized role in this speech. If he didn’t write it himself, it certainly looked as though it was cribbed extensively from the work that he and the marvelous organization that he founded and that I’m proud to be a member of the Board of Advisors for. It’s called Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, better known by its acronym, STARRS. His name is Lieutenant General Rod Bishop. He is a retired Air Force three-star, a man of considerable distinction, both in uniform and in his post-service life, notably through the work that he and his colleagues at stars have been rendering to try to excise from the United States military the cultural Marxism to which it has been subjected to devastating effect in recent years. General Bishop and his team, I think, were extraordinarily influential with Secretary Hegseth, with whom they have partnered over the years when he was a Fox News host, primarily, but have clearly continued to have an impact on his thinking. And most especially, what he announced were 10 10 different directives that the assembled military officers, both flag officers and general officers, were apprised of yesterday in what, as I said, I think was an extraordinarily impressive speech.

General Bishop, I couldn’t be more pleased to have you with us to do a after-action report on what Pete said. And let me just start by saying to you, sir, thank you for what you and the stars community have done to help shape and otherwise articulate the kinds of changes that have been so desperately needed in our armed forces, as I say, particularly the Biden administration. Welcome back, sir. It’s good to have you aboard.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop

Well, thanks so much, Frank, and thanks for having me back on. And let me return those thanks to you and Securing America and your Center for Security Policy, our friends at CMR, the MacArthur Society, Calvert Task Group. You know me well enough. It’s the collective we, the over-the-top comments that you gave to me belong to all of us as Secretary of War Hegseth said yesterday, we’re more than an army of one. And let me begin. I think we’re going to delve into the speech, but let me begin by just dispelling what we heard from predominantly left-leaning moderators on TV that this was an extraordinary event. This was so out of the ordinary, uncalled for. I mean, commander’s calls have been going on since the beginning of time, I would think. And what many people may not understand, at least when I wore Air Force Blue, our service chief had all the general officers in a number of times. So for the Secretary of War to take the time and effort to bring people across the world to one point, because what he was addressing was just so critical. This is a cultural change, and he wants to make sure that every single person out there that’s in a command billet wearing stars, here’s directly Really from him.

And, oh, by the way, the Commander-in-Chief. So let’s put that aside and hopefully just delve into the wonderful message we had. Yes, I’d like to say that STARRS could have written a speech. So could you. And so could all of us patriots, because we saw what was going on and going wrong with our military.

Frank Gaffney

Yeah. Well, thank you for that. I’m not sure I could have written it as well, honestly. I thought it was absolutely superb. And I really do believe that much of this was what he had espoused when he was a young officer during his time in combat positions in the United States Army, what he espoused as a Fox News host, as an author, as well as an on-camera talent. And certainly what he has espoused since coming to this position. But so much of it really was aligned with the kinds of insights that, yes, you and your team have advanced. And I just wanted to say in particular, talk a little bit about the warrior ethos, which is one of the express directives that the secretary laid out and the importance of sharing that face to face with those who have to exhibit it in their own conduct, but also exhort their leaders, the teams they are leading, I should say, to do the same.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop

Yeah, the warrior ethos is so critical. And if there’s any message that’s come across from this Secretary of War, that is, he is restoring the warrior ethos. It’s that mindset that we should be focused on, really only one thing in the military, and that’s deterring our enemies, and if deterrence fails, winning the war. All those distractions. In fact, I think I highlighted an area there in the speech, which really goes to that point. If I could read it for a second. Let’s see here. The administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that has infected our department to rip out the politics. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division, distraction, or gender delusions, no more debris. Now, how about you hearing that from your Commander? Bingo. That is spot on. In fact, I heard from a number of general officers officers in the audience saying, This is long overdue. Great.

Frank Gaffney

As it happens, General, and I wanted to get your response to this, we recorded prior to this conversation and the back-end of the show with another very distinguished military officer, now retired, Colonel Grant Newsom, United States Marine Corps, retired. And he opined that he thought He thought a lot of people in that audience were probably, I can’t remember his exact wording, but it was something to the effect of furious with the speech because I guess some of them have been implicated in the policies that the secretary has correctly said, are now no longer going to be followed. Your thoughts, sir?

Lt Gen Rod Bishop

Yeah, I think for sure there are some people squirming. And quite honestly, one of the most powerful parts of the speech for me when Pete Hegseth said, and he said it so well, if what I am seeing here is giving you a sinking feeling, then do the right thing and resign. I mean, that is so direct.

Frank Gaffney

We’ll wish you well. I think he had it. Yeah, we’ll say goodbye. General, again, to the extent that what we’re talking about here is a restoration, really, of the standard practice and purpose of the military. I think the right way to talk about it is as a corrective, is it not?

Lt Gen Rod Bishop

Oh, absolutely. It’s definitely a cultural reset. And he is telling his leaders out there that, listen to me, we’re refocusing on what the Department of War should be all about. It’s definitely a cultural reset. I read a number of the memos. I don’t know if you’ve seen those.

Frank Gaffney

General, we have to take a short break. Could I ask you just to hold for a second? We’ll pick up on what you read and other takeaways from the speech. And I do want to go through several of these directives because, as Grant said, a lot of them are just common sense, obviously, and returning to good order and discipline. We’ll talk about how necessary that is with Lieutenant General Rod Bishop on the other side of this spring. Stay tuned. We’re back, and so is Lieutenant General Rod Bishop, United States Air Force retired, former Commander of the Fifth Air Force, among many other senior positions in the United States Air Force and in the joint arena, as they call it in the Pentagon, a man whose insights into what has been going wrong with our military has given The impetus behind a terrific organization he chairs, Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, better known as STARRS. And general, I had to interrupt you because we were out of time leading up to that last break, you were going to make a point about something that you’ve recently read, I believe, in The Hill.

Carry on, sir, if you would.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop

Well, you had The Hill yesterday had a great article, breaking out five major points of the speech, which we can touch on. We left off talking about some of the direct memos that came from the Secretary of War. And one of the ones that I really like the words that he used, this is a cultural refresh. And so by what do we mean by cultural refresh? And I think that fits in nicely with what the Hill article pulled out as the five major points. First of all, was fitness and grooming, the standards. If people in your audience don’t live near a base, let me explain to you. I live like five miles outside the North gate of the Air Force Academy, and it’s a shock every time you go through the gate. I mean, those security forces guards, I think, are they Taliban or not? Everybody has a beard. Well, guess what? No more beards. There’s one whole memorandum on grooming standards, and no more facial hair except mustaches. They’re gone. People and culture, that’s what Pete emphasized a number of times. And why is that so important? It goes to pride, I think. And when you have pride, I mean, Clausewitz taught us that the morale, the esprit de corps is worth three times the beans and bullets.

And really glad I had to see that taken hold at the base I live right off the gate from, and that’s the Air Force Academy. I had a session with the superintendent the week before last, and he said he went to Mitchell Hall before he took over, and there were cadets and bathrobes. I mean, to me, and every upperclassman had unlimited privileges. So when classes were over, they were, guess what? You know, downtown, not training the fourth class, not inculcating the people into our military way of life, our warrior ethos. So that’s one major point. Another major point was women in combat roles. Now, could he be more clear with how he stated that? Again, perfect common sense, just common sense. If a combat task requires physical strength of a certain degree, then you should be able to meet that. That physical strength, that standard. No more double standards, gender-neutral standards. And that’s not to say, I think you also made it clear, and I think I may have said on your show in the past, I mean, I commanded a squad in one of my first commands of 76 pilots, four women out of those 76.

And I would have put all four in the top 10. And nobody can say that we weren’t in combat. We were flying in and out of combat zones with nothing to shoot back at tens of times a day. So he hit that one spot on. The job requires a quote, the job requires physical power, then the physical standard should be gender neutral. Another major point he made was the I. G.

Frank Gaffney

And he also said, by the way, sir, I think this is really important. The standard has to be what a fully capable male is expected to do. Everybody else who can meet that standard is eligible. But if you can’t, you’re not. Period. The job requires… Male or female.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop

The job requires to be a physical standard should be gender neutral. Amen. Amen to that. But there’s lots of roles in combat that women can play. Just maybe not be an infantryman, where you might have to carry out a 220 pound person. The third area that he touched on was the I. G. Now, this one, I think, cuts both ways. He was talking about I.G’s from the standpoint of that we’re letting the complainers- Because they’re inspectors general, of course. Yeah, inspectors general. We’re letting the complainers have too much say. On the other hand, our experience in stars and highways, was that the I. G. Had fallen prey to the foolish and reckless politicians who were giving guidance. So in our case, at ours. We took issue against our football coaches, chanting Black Lives Matter seven times in a three-minute video. And we filed an I. G. Complaint that showed from top to bottom how many Air Force regulations and Department of At the time, defense regulations, it was breaking. Three days after President Biden was elected, we got a one-liner, your IG complaint is dismissed. No rationale. And the same thing happened to our Undersecretary.

He doesn’t talk about it when he wrote his book, Irresistible Revolution. I’m talking Matt Lohmeier. But at his base, when the President of the United States, in September of 2020, issued a executive order to stop teaching critical race theory, That base commander doubled down on it. So he filed an I. G. Complaint. And guess what? January sixth, 2020, an interesting day in our history, the people at Buckley Air Force or Space Force base got the same one-liner that we got. Your I. G. Complaint is dismissed. And the next day, that colonel base commander was promoted to general. Why he is still wearing the uniform of our country? I don’t know. How you can disobey the direct order of the commander and Chief is beyond me and still wear the uniform. So that I. G. Thing, I think, cuts both ways. And Secretary of War Hegseth, promised to take a look and reform that organization, and it needs reform. Next, he talked about firings. So big of an issue when you’re trying to change a culture, personnel or policy. You can’t live with some people who are wedded to an old way of thinking. And as Secretary War Hegseth had pointed out yesterday, so many, and this goes to the squirming that we had in the first segment, some of you out there were go-along, get-along people.

You didn’t have the courage to stand up. Shame on them. Scheme on them. And last, the healthy fear in training. Boy, I got to need-We have to take a break.

Frank Gaffney

Hold on just one more second, Rod Bishop. We’re going to come right back to you on that final point and also on the way forward for the United States military, at a time when, unfortunately, we’re more likely to need them than ever. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back, folks. We’re back, and I’m delighted to say, so is Lieutenant General Rod Bishop, now with STARRS A tremendously important organization. I’m proud to be a contributor to its work through my role as a member of the Board of Advisors. General, you, of course, have served at senior most ranks of the United States military. You were just finishing a final point in this list that the Hill had given us, and I wanted to get to you back on, particularly, the force structure aspects of all of this as well.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop

Sure. Well, the last point, and I see this, probably the number one complaint of Air Force Academy graduates at our alma mater, and that last point that the Hill mentioned was a healthy fear in training. I know I learned a lot from my fourth class system. What is presently the policy at the Air Force Academy is that there’s a four class training system. Now that I fully agree with because Because, juniors, seniors, all should be in some type of training. So I certainly agree with that. But we seem to have dispensed with the stress that was put on the freshmen at all the service academies, from what I understand. And I hear from cadets as well as parents who were cadets. That’s probably the number one complaint, so that healthy fear. I went to lunch at Mitchell Hall not too long ago, and I was just amazed. I mean, it was like being in a regular college. There wasn’t that training going on during lunch. So healthy fear in training, I think Pete made that pretty clear. It’s a way of, I think, stiffening someone’s backbone. Now, you asked me about force structure. I don’t know if you have a specific question there, but I think we’re looking at some-Well, as I understand, one of the directives is a 20 % reduction in the number of flag and general officers.

Frank Gaffney

A corrective to, among other things, the bloat in those ranks. Notably, the Navy, I believe, has more admirals than it does ships. And one of the places that I think they’re going to try to, if I can use the expression, write the ship, is by sizing the top ranks differently and Presumably, bringing it closer into alignment with the field grade officers and enlisted folks as well. Your thoughts on that, sir?

Lt Gen Rod Bishop

I believe that the tail may be wagging the dog there. The tooth to tail ratio has grown way out of proportion from… I mean, shoot, we won World War II with a fraction of the general officers, flag officers that we have today. So I’ll leave it to I’m looking forward to, hopefully, later this month, having a meeting with the Undersecretary of War for Personal and Readiness. And I know a lot of the memorandums that I’ve read through fall squarely on his plate. And I don’t know him, but I know his deputy, and there’s good people that are going to be taking a hard look at this. Yeah, let’s put the teeth back in.

Frank Gaffney

We’re delighted that you’re interfacing with him because you will be able, I know, to encourage the best of the policy changes that are being announced here. Give us just quickly, sir, we’ve got just a couple of minutes left, your sense of the way forward and how vital these changes are to it being to a place where the United States armed forces are up to the job at a time when, well, frankly, the prospect of war looms. Very real.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop

Yeah, Frank, thanks for asking that question, because this is our bread and butter right now. We think, thanks to people and organizations like you and yours and everyone, we helped educate the American populace on what was going on. They voted for change. And then we helped with the transition teams and the email exchanges. We got really good executive orders written, memorandums from the Secretary of War. The orders are on the table. Now it is time to execute those orders. So that comes in, and I’ll bring everybody back to maybe some of your audience saw the veterans panel that then candidate Trump had when our Secretary of the Air Force, at that time, was the Executive Vice President of STARRS, now the Undersecretary of the Air Force, asked then candidate Trump, What are we going to do to make sure this monster never raises its head again? And that’s the eradication piece. We’ve seen Secretary of War, for example, say DEI is 99. 9% dead. Yes, now. But we know that Marxism, this cultural Marxism, we’ll try to raise it to that again. So what are we doing to make sure that it doesn’t… What are we replacing DEI with in the war colleges, in the schools?

What can we do there in terms of courses officers, officership, constitution teaching, what our founding father’s vision for our country. That’s some of what stars is hoping to push in the future.

Frank Gaffney

Super. Well, it’s striking. And indeed, Colonel Newsom will make the point in a moment that it’s shocking that any of these things have to be said, let alone done. And yet, as stars has made so clear for so long. Things have gone for it as Foubar fouled up, let’s say, beyond all recognition. And it’s extraordinarily heartening to me as a civilian, albeit one with a lot of time in the Pentagon, that this course correction is being laid out, laid out in as powerful an address as I can recall in my lifetime by a man who I think is truly in the right place at the right time, and that would be Secretary Pete Hegseth. I know you’ve known him well. I know you’ve worked with him closely. And I want to thank you for the mentoring that I think you and your folks have done. The Secretary that he is obviously now.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop

Final thoughts. I think Secretary Hegseth had gotten it before we engaged. We just gave him some other ideas. For example, I love, I think maybe he got what I’ve heard him say at the moment.

Frank Gaffney

We’re out of time. I’m afraid we’re going to have to have you back to tell us about the four example. But I think the observation that you’ve just made is true. He brought a lot to the party before you interacted with him, but I think you’ve enormously helped him prepare him for this moment, and we need him to perform perfectly in it. God bless you all. Thank you for joining us, sir. We’ll get back to you and come back for a lot more information on all of these points. Take good care at stars and beyond. We’ll be right back. Yes. Stay tuned.