this as a big national security issue. i think we should be clear the biggest national security issue from my perspective, chuck, is the biden administration is continuing to put forward defense budget cuts during what everybody and the president agrees with this and so does the secretary of defense thinks it s the most dangerous time since world war ii, right? the budget for next year will take us below 3% of gdp spending. that s the lowest level in almost 70 years. to me that s the biggest national security threat and readiness threat we have facing us, and that s something the president needs to address directly. now to senator tuberville, you know, as you know, every senator has the right to place holds on nominees on an issue of policy importance. i certainly have done this myself. i m here in alaska right now. i had a hold on the secretary of the army, the chief of the staff
with the president than con front him. there s this political part that s boiling. i want to go into this having touched on the reason for this visit. obviously, economic ties with greece taking on a new importance now. tell us a bit about the policy importance of this meeting. first of all, it s important because greece is a nato ally. i would underline that. we have a long history of working side by side with greece over the last several decades in afghanistan, iraq, elsewhere. greece is actually one of the few countries, one of the few spending more than their defense budget on defending their own alliance. this is one partner he doesn t have to remind of that political commitment to spend more than the normal budgetary requirement. we have a big base there.