The House Armed Services Committee questioned Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley for almost four hours Wednesday on everything from China and Russia to sexual assault and anti-extremism.

It was their final Capitol Hill appearance before work starts in earnest on defense spending and defense authorization bills. Here are seven moments from Wednesday’s hearing.

• Ranking Member Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said President Joe Biden doesn’t seem to perceive the same threat from China that military leaders have warned about. “If he did, I don’t understand why he’d send us a wholly inadequate defense budget,” Rogers said. “This budget request doesn’t keep pace with China. It doesn’t even keep pace with inflation.”
• Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said there has been too much discussion about the overall budget number. “I think the budget that the president has submitted is more than adequate,” he said in opening remarks. “Think about all the money in the last 20 years that went to things that didn’t produce. If we just had that money back, we wouldn’t be having a conversation about what the topline budget is.” Smith said he is optimistic about how spending efficiency has gotten better “over the past couple years.”
• Smith also said in his opening remarks, “I reject the whole ‘legacy versus the future’ argument, because maybe a legacy system actually fits what we need right now. It’s not a matter of old or new. It’s a matter of what is going to work for the environment that we face.” Austin said the budget request “gives us the flexibility to divest ourselves of systems and platforms that no longer meet our needs.”
• Milley said there would be no impact on current operations if Congress repeals the authorization to use military force issued in 2002. The House has passed the repeal, and it will be before a Senate committee soon. Current operations rely on the 2001 authorization, which would remain in place. “That’s the critical one for us to continue operations,” Milley said.
• Austin backs a military justice reform effort that would remove sexual assault complaints from the chain of command. “The department will likely need new authorities to implement many of the… recommendations,” he said Wednesday. He has stopped short of endorsing a broader reform effort related to other types of crimes.
• Milley bristled when pressed on race-related readings assigned at the United States Military Academy. “I want to understand white rage. I’m white, and I want to understand it. What is it that causes thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out,” Milley said. “I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our noncommissioned officers of being ‘woke’ or something else.”
• “I believe that 99.9% of our troops are focused on the right things, embracing the right values each and every day,” Austin said when questioned about DOD’s anti-extremism efforts. “Small numbers of people in this in this area can have an outsized impact on our organization…. We are focused on extremist behavior, not what people think or political ideas or religious ideas.”

DOD photo by Chad J. McNeeley