Laura Ingraham has said she was "outraged" by General Mark Milley's defense of studying critical race theory and has suggested that Congress should withhold funding for the military until the topic is removed.
The Fox News host described the Joint Chiefs chairman's comments about the academic theory—which examines the ways race and racism intersect with politics, culture and the law—as "ridiculous."
In a Wednesday night segment on her show The Ingraham Angle, she said: "We are sending out tax dollars to this military in an attempt to weed out so-called 'extremists,' which just means conservative evangelicals as far as I can tell.
"We're paying for that? Why is Congress not saying: 'We're not going to give you a penny until all of this is eradicated from the military budget. Nothing. This is my offer to you. Nothing.'"
She added: "That's what I would say. I am totally outraged by him and his ridiculous response today."
Earlier in the segment, Ingraham said: "Somehow I don't think General Milley would ever speak in this dismissive tone that he took today to his Chinese counterparts."
She later added: "I have a question for the general: why would anyone risk his or her life for a country that's systemically racist? One that brutalizes minorities.
"Why would any country respect us or follow our lead if that's who we are? Those are some of the questions he should probably think about before he touts the value of teaching far-left, Marxist, racist ideology to our troops."
Ingraham's explosive comments came hours after Gen. Milley, the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. military, addressed a House Armed Services Committee hearing.
Responding to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who had earlier pressed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on critical race theory, Gen. Miller said he believed military personnel should "be widely read."
He added: "I want to understand white rage and I'm white, and I want to understand it. So what is it that caused 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."
Gen. Miller later said: "I've read Mao Tse-tung. I've read Karl Marx. I've read Lenin. That doesn't make me a communist. So what is wrong with understanding,—having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?
"And I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned, non-commissioned officers of being 'woke' or something else because we're studying some theories out there."
As Gen. Milley spoke, C-SPAN cameras captured Rep. Gaetz shaking his head.
Austin had earlier dismissed similar concerns raised by the Florida Republican, saying: "We do not teach critical race theory. We don't embrace critical race theory, and I think that's a spurious conversation.
"We are focused on extremist behaviors and not ideology—not people's thoughts, not people's political orientation. Behaviors is what we're focused on."
Although critical race theory originated in the mid-1970s, it has recently become a hot-button issue in the nation's culture wars, with some critics claiming it promotes divisions between ethnic groups.
Newsweek has contacted Fox News, Rep. Gaetz and the Department of Defense for comment.
