Too many ‘Golden’ initiatives?

contracts are going out. That's something that's happening. I saw something like

2,000 companies have already joined the contract vehicle as of December. Yeah. Yeah. And they're doing some inventive contracting, right? To let, I think one of the

ways that this is going to be successful, and we're finding this, I think, not just in Golden

Dome, but in all of the Department of War now, is finding new ways to do procurement

and acquisition. Obviously, we're going to need for something this big, we're going to need some

of the bigger contractors that we all know about in the defense space to be able to do some of

these things. You couldn't send someone to the moon with just a mom and pop rocket shop, right

You need the big companies to do that. But we also need innovative, smaller companies to be

able to come in that have more flexibility sometimes than these bigger companies to come in

And so I think the way that it seems like they're setting it up for the acquisition process within

Golden Dome is kind of a hybrid. There will be milestones that get met and things like that to

be able to get more money and different companies competing for different proposals. So I think it's

a good way to get moving on it We just need to have the whole plan laid out so that everybody can see what the overall architecture looks like Well getting back to that theme of sort of where are we and a little bit of frustration with a lack of movement

it seems like a new initiative every week. It's very exhausting to be a reporter right now

So with announcements last month, for example, the Golden Fleet and these battleships

We were just talking about it previously before this interview. Do you worry that this is sort of getting overcome by events or losing some of the momentum that it had when it was first announced

Well, you know, it's really the reason we formed the caucus. And we do need to get going on it

I mean, we want the president to be successful in this. This was a bold initiative

You know, Golden Dome is a very bold initiative. And it's one that I supported the minute it was laid out because I think it's been a vulnerability that most Americans don't understand that we have

But in order to do that, we've got to have, you can't just have support within the administration

It can't just be an executive order. An executive order has to have money behind it

And the only one that can do that is Congress. So it's certainly not where we want to be right now

I'd like to be through four more months ahead of where we are right now

But again this is a complicated system most complicated defense system we ever done as a country So and I will say I think General Guttlein is the exact right person for this role and I told him that in briefings before I told him in fact I said someday you look back

with your grandkids and be able to talk about this wonderful thing that you did for America

by being able to help do the architecture on this. So very complicated, but it's certainly

not where we want it to be right now and we just have to get moving

Can you talk more about your relationship with General Gutlein, how often you're communicating

with him and how confident the Space Force and General Gutlein himself are that they have the

technological wherewithal to execute on this? Well, sure. And I wouldn't say I'm

real close with General Guttlein. Obviously, just knowing his background and what he's done

I think he's the right person. And then seeing, and again, this was in a classified setting that

we can't talk about, but just seeing the architecture as he laid it out, I'm confident

that it's a good architecture and that they're doing all that they can to get there

But again, this is a very difficult technical challenge that we're going to have to meet

but can only be met if we have the resources to do it And the only way we can do that is by having support in Congress to do it Something you were very clear about with the launch of the caucus was that this has to be executed on the president timeline

That's really critical to the success of the whole. Right. Could you unpack that

And why is it so important to you that the timeline does not slip

Well, I think it's important. We have leadership right now. We have a president that is committed to Golden Dome

And, you know, that may not always be the case. And we saw that after Ronald Reagan left office

There were other administrations that came on that didn't support the Strategic Defense

Initiative or STI at the time. So from a political standpoint, I think it's important

But when you're trying to prove that something is technically feasible, you have to have

a timeline that you meet. John F. Kennedy came in with a timeline for us to put a man on the moon

And had he not done that, I think it would be easy for all of us to say, well, it's just kind of too hard as a country or we have this diversion over here or over here

And so to me, from that standpoint, we need to make sure that we're really focused on trying to meet that deadline, but also so that we can prove that it'll work

And we have some proving to do. As I said, I still have colleagues here that are still saying the same thing

Oh, it's never going to work. Well, the only way you prove that is to do it and do it on the timeline that you set out to do