Pennsylvania’s Defense and Innovation Summit is all about reinforcing President Donald Trump’s peace through strength agenda, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) told Breitbart News on Tuesday during an exclusive interview at the event.
The senator pointed to the Keystone State’s status serving as the “center of our defense industry through much of its history.”
“As you know, the country was — the Army was formed here. The Marine Corps, the Navy was formed here, but throughout history… Pennsylvania’s been at the forefront of both the innovation in our military, but also in being at the forefront of the next era of change,” he said, explaining that the state now has 190,000 workers in the defense industry.
“We have high-caliber ammunition. We have the next-generation combat vehicle. We have the Philadelphia shipyard. We have robotics. We have AI. We have drones, and the purpose of this is to reinforce President Trump’s agenda,” he said, describing that agenda as “a peace through strength.”
The summit itself, McCormick said, has 1,300 participants featuring 600 C-level executives and 500 companies.
“We have all the major defense contractors, many of the big defense investors, the president, his Cabinet, the leader of building trades, the president of the building trades for the United States. So we’ve got we’ve got all the right people in the room to push on this critical agenda,” McCormick said, speaking of President Trump’s hand in driving this investment.
McCormick described Trump as an “incredible force for bringing advanced manufacturing back, shipbuilding, [and] submarine building.”
“You know, his vision that America needs to be at the forefront of our defense capability, but also that we need to be a place where we build things again, and using those skilled craftsmen. We have the welders, the pipe fitters, the steam fitters to make sure they’re focused on the things that are going to make sure America has that strength,” he said, highlighting the “enormous” investment Pennsylvania has seen over the last year with Trump at the helm.
“Defense spending has gone up by about 30 percent. What I’m trying to do here is make sure that we accelerate the path on rebuilding our defense capability, and frankly, it’s been broken. The procurement process has been broken. It’s too slow,” the senator said. “We’ve had you know — these major defense contractors have sort of owned the space, and we need to have new emergent players also push the competition and the innovation.”
He added, “We think Pennsylvania — and I think this summit — reinforces we think Pennsylvania should be at the front of that.”
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