Gen. Mark Milley, the nation’s highest ranking military officer, defended the Pentagon’s decision to cancel a drag show on a U.S. Air Force base, calling it the “absolute right thing to do” in an interview Monday with CNN.
Milley said he backed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s cancellation of a drag show that was scheduled for last week at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, saying they both shared concerns about the event taking place on a military installation.
“I think it is the absolute right thing to do,” he told CNN’s Oren Liebermann in Normandy, France, ahead of the 79th anniversary of D-Day.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also said drag shows “were never part of DOD policy to begin with and they’re certainly not funded by federal funds.”
Drag shows on military bases date back to at least World War I, and several installations have featured them in recent years.
But the Pentagon last week cited a decades-old policy on standards of conduct and ethics regulation in enforcing the cancellation of the event at Nellis Air Force Base.
A spokesperson also said “certain criteria” must be met for nongovernment individuals or organizations hosting events on military bases.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday referred questions on the drag show ban to the Defense Department.
Jean-Pierre also said President Biden “is proud of the LGBTQI people serving in our nation’s military.”
“As Secretary Austin has expressed in his Pride Month statement that he put out just last week, the Biden-Harris administration will celebrate LGBTQI+ service members contributions with pride across federal agencies, including at the Department of Defense,” Jean-Pierre told reporters at a briefing.
The move came after intense criticism from Republicans, who have long decried what they call “woke” Pentagon policies and any efforts based on diversity, equity and inclusion within the military.
Both Austin and Milley were pressed on the issue during a House Armed Services meeting in March, when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) raged against drag shows on military bases across the country and in Germany.
At the hearing, Milley expressed concern, responding to Gaetz that he would “take a look at those, because I don’t agree with those.”
Austin also said at the same hearing that such events are “not something that the department funds.”
It’s unclear if a larger ban is now in place under the policy, but Republicans are pressing for clarity and a military-wide ban.
An Air Force official told The Hill last week the military branch would no longer “host drag events at its installations or facilities.”