Oct 12, 2016 — As the North Country's congresswoman and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Republican Elise Stefanik represents thousands of military personnel at Fort Drum, as well as hundreds more reservists and retired military across the district. She’s gotten a lot done on their behalf in her first term, and she is outspoken on defense issues.

But Stefanik faces fierce criticism for her argument that Republican Donald Trump would be the best commander in chief for our soldiers.

“Let’s give all of our soldiers a round of applause,” Congresswoman Stefanik said in a packed gymnasium in Watertown in March of last year. She was addressing thousands of people nervous about Fort Drum’s future. As part of nationwide military downsizing, the Defense Department had asked the base to prepare to cut 16,000 Army jobs.

Stefanik had recently been appointed to the House Armed Services Committee, putting her in a strong position to fight for the base. She promised the crowd she’d do everything in her power to stop the cutbacks. “Protecting this installation from any funding cuts is crucial to protecting our community our state and our nation,” she said.

Stefanik kept that promise, and in part with her help – she worked closely with New York’s Democratic senators – Fort Drum was spared. In the end, the base only had to lay off 28 people. Stefanik celebrated the news in a video on her Facebook page. “This is incredible news for Fort Drum and our entire North Country community,” she said. 

During her first term, Stefanik visited some of the North Country’s 10th Mountain Division troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. She pushed for a new, ballistic missile defense site at Fort Drum. Stefanik also called for new strategies to stop violent extremists from recruiting people online. And she proposed to improve cooperation between U.S. and Israeli military forces.

Even before coming to the North Country, foreign policy was a big part of Stefanik’s focus. She worked for a conservative think-tank in Washington, the Foreign Policy Initiative, which pushes for an active U.S. military role overseas. She hosted one of that group’s podcasts.

It’s a deep resume for a young congresswoman – she’s just 32 years old and still in her first term. And that's helped her to go toe-to-toe with Democrat Mike Derrick, a former Army colonel who has made military issues a major part of his campaign.

But Stefanik’s focus on the military and national security has been complicated by her support of Donald Trump to serve as commander in chief. Trump’s ideas about how to use America’s military power are viewed as dangerous even by many – even by many conservative military and foreign policy experts.

“And that’s right – I’d blow up the pipes, I’d blow up the – I’d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left,” Trump says in a speech posted to YouTube about fighting ISIS.

“When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families,” he says in another video, on CNN.

“I would bring back waterboarding and I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” Trump said on ABC. 

These kinds of comments aren’t just one liners. They appear to be actual policy proposals. Trump has repeatedly said he’d order service members, possibly including troops from Fort Drum, to carry out these policies, which are are widely considered to be illegal under international and U.S. military law.

Bob Gates, the former Defense Secretary who served in the Bush and Obama administrations called Trump “beyond repair” in a Wall Street Journal editorial, also describing him as “thin-skinned" and "temperamental.”

“I think about all those young people in the military and who’s in charge of them who’s going to be in a position to give them orders. And so I want to see some evidence that a person can be trusted with the lives of those young people,” Gates said on CBS.

In Watertown last April, Trump suggested that U.S. military participation in NATO should depend on how much European countries pay the U.S.

Stefanik agrees that many of Trump’s proposals for the military are “absolutely not a good idea.” Asked why she thinks Trump would make a safe commander in chief, Stefanik argued that he’s preferable to Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“His statements regarding NATO, his statements regarding Putin,” Stefanik said,
“regarding some of the positions in regards to Iraq that he made, regarding the oil fields – I absolutely oppose those. But we also need to look at Hillary Clinton’s failed ethics record.”

We pressed harder on this. Stefanik suggested that that Congress, and the Armed Services Committee, would basically be able to keep a lid on Trump. If he proposed anything that’s illegal or against the military code of conduct, Stefanik said she and other lawmakers would block those actions.

“I believe that regardless of who’s elected the next president, we need to have a strong Congress with congressional oversight on our defense policy,” she said.

There’s one other way that Donald Trump complicates Stefanik’s work on military issue: how he talks about women. The latest revelations that Trump bragged about groping women come at a time when the military is grappling with the issue of sexual assault. 

Stefanik’s opponents – Democrat Mike Derrick and Green Matt Funiciello – have argued for significant changes in the way sexual violence is handled within the military.  They want independent prosecutors to investigate those cases.

Stefanik has argued that military commanders should continue handling sexual assault allegations internally, within the chain of command. 

If Donald Trump wins, he'll be the commander in chief, setting the tone for the entire U.S. military, with ultimate authority over all service members – women as well as men.

Brian Mann contributed to this story. Brian's son Nicholas worked briefly for Democrat Mike Derrick's campaign as an unpaid volunteer.