Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/24/25: Trump Cabinet Revolt Over Elon Email, Trump Pollster Warns Of Dire Midterm, Trump Pentagon Purge

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump cabinet revolt over Elon email, Trump pollster warns of Dem midterm blowout, Trump purges Pentagon.   Spencer Snyder: https://www.youtube.com/c/spencersnyder    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to the Good Moms Bad Choices podcast every Wednesday. On the Black Effect Podcast Network, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you go to find your podcast. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPointpoints.com, become a member today,

and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

Indeed we do. Glad to have you back, my friend. Thank you. Yeah, it was a rough one out there. It's the worst flu season since 2009. So everybody out there, please take precautions. Stay away from anybody who tells you that they're feeling okay. It's not too bad.

Stay away from them. Yes. Yes. Don't be afraid of breaking out the mask. I'm being so for real right now. Yeah, this will be the only time that I will endorse mask wearing culture, especially for people who have children and all of that. It's a rough one.

I know multiple people who've been inflicted. So stay away from them. And if you hear my voice crack, it's not my fault. I apologize. My daughter's second grade class has been absolutely decimated. It's horrible. I won't say unscathed, but we've escaped the worst of it so far this year. So fingers crossed the weather turns nicer and some of these things die down. But it's been a rough

one. It's been bad. So in any case, glad you're back. We've got a lot to talk about. Elon sent out a weekend ultimatum to all federal government employees. Interestingly, though, a lot of the agencies are telling their workers, including FBI, know, FBI now under Kash Patel, Department of Defense, et cetera, don't respond to this email. So very interesting dynamics playing out here. We got some new polls revealing the latest about how the public feels about Doge and Elon and all of these things that are unfolding. We also had a purge of some of the top brass at the Pentagon. We'll tell you what happened and what it potentially means. Elections in Germany, so the far-right party there, AFD, which have been boosted by J.D. Vance and also prominently by Elon

Musk, comes in second. Really interesting political dynamics there. Inflation, the war in Ukraine, immigration, economics, incumbent parties, all of these trends playing out in Germany. So we'll break that down for you as well. Bernie is out doing some barn burner town halls in Nebraska and Iowa in particular, massive overflow crowds kind of leading the way for Democrats. He actually has a strategy that he is pursuing. Lo and behold, at least one person has some idea of what they're doing out there. Warren Buffett is hoarding the most amount of cash in Berkshire Hathaway that he ever has. So what does that indicate? There are also some other troubling economic indicators. We're going to take a look at all of that. And Luigi Mangione made an appearance in court. Our own Spencer

Snyder was there on the ground talking to people who are outside, protesters and his supporters who were outside, explaining what they thought about his case and why they were there to support him. So really interested to get that on the ground report as well. Yes, that's right. And continue to monitor the FAQ on his website with a lot of great interest. Did you watch that segment? No. Yeah, Ryan and I did it. It was an FAQ all about how people can send him photographs. And to keep in mind that those photographs are screened by the police, just in terms of the number of thirst traps Luigi finds himself receiving on a daily basis. I mean, what can you say? He's a good-looking man.

He's a great-looking dude. I have to say, I told you guys on the call, I am absolutely in love with Luigi's sweater. I'm in the market, so if anybody knows where he got it, please let me know. All right, let's go ahead and start with Doge. So actually a very interesting showdown happening here in Washington. And I would say the first like major institutional pushback within the MAGA coalition, the government against Doge. Let's put this up there on the screen. It began with like an office space style meme email that Elon sent to the entire federal workforce on Saturday around 3 p.m. And it says, what did you do last week? Please reply with approximately five bullets of note, note the, uh, like the weird pronunciation there, uh, five bullets of what you accomplished

last week and CC your manager. Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 1159 EST. So let's go to Elon's explanation for that email. It says, consistent with President Trump's instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as resignation. So this appears to have been probably the most explicit example of Elon slash Doge quote unquote overreach with pushback because what immediately happened was their agencies telling them not to comply. Keep in mind, Trump has not spoken out about this at all. If anything's been encouraging him to go further, put that next one, please, so we can show people it says Elon is doing a great job,

but I would like to see him get more aggressive. Remember, we have a country to save, but ultimately to make greater than ever before. MAGA. Immediately though, following that email, Kash Patel, the newly confirmed FBI director, directed his entire workforce not to respond to the email. It just says, all FBI personnel may have, I love may, have received an email from OPM requesting information. The FBI, through the office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures. When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.

Thank you. Kash Patel. On the right is RFK Jr., actually, who reversed his original policy telling his workforce to reply to the email saying, HHS leadership continues to work with OPM officials on how to best meet the intent of yesterday's notice. Employees are therefore directed to pause activities in answering the OPM email. Additional guidance will be provided on or around noon tomorrow. And then finally, the Pentagon also weighed in here. Let's go to A4, please,

just to show people the Department of Defense, the entire Pentagon received the following email. When, if required, the department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM. So I do think this is very significant, Crystal. I think it's the very first time that you've seen Doge and or Elon, you know, send one of these mass emails beyond even the quote unquote fork in the road, the buyout. This one was one where the directors of the agencies really stepped forward and like, yeah, that's just not happening in terms of you trying to run my workforce. So I do find it actually very interesting. And I mean, I'm presuming that there's at least some Trump support or maybe the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, somebody like this, because it's just obviously like overriding chain of command, you know, the Senate confirmed appointees in the workforce and others. So this could be a turning point. I'm actually curious

to see how it goes. Yeah, we'll see. There's a lot that's interesting about this and the dynamics and the way that it played out. So first of all, I didn't realize this, but apparently previously, like before Kash Patel was nominated to be director of the FBI and certainly before he was confirmed, et cetera, he was quite critical of Elon. He went on a bunch of podcasts. Our friends over at Dropsite actually compiled all of this information, but he went on a bunch of podcasts where he was very critical of him. Kind of similar to like the Steve Bannon style criticism. He was critical of him on his Twitter account. And you can just imagine for all these people who got their spot as an agency head and went through Senate confirmation, did the whole thing. And then you get in there and on basically

day one, you've got this goofball over here, richest man on the planet, who thinks he can just come in over your head and be like, yeah, I'm going to fire a bunch of your workforce if they don't respond to my email in a couple days time. And so whereas congressional Republicans seem to have been pretty comfortable just like ceding all of their power and authority to Elon and to Doge, these agency heads were like, wait a second. No, no, no, no, no. This is my workforce. I have some authority at this agency and you're not going to just completely bigfoot me on all of this. So we'll see. You know, the RFK one was interesting as well because initially the guidance he put out was go ahead and respond to this email. And then they sort of backtracked and said like, well, actually, you know, pause your work on that

email was I think the way they phrased it in a sort of like awkward worded email. I'll tell you, I've mentioned this before, you know, the town I live in, which is a town I grew up on, which is not D.C., which is not even Northern Virginia, it really is this, like, you know, rural community totally built around a naval base where they do a bunch of civilian research. So it's mostly, like, civilian. There are active duty military there as well. It's mostly, mostly like civilian scientists that work there. And so I was talking to some of my very nonpolitical like parent friends there about how all this is going down. And I mean, they're completely panicked. They have never seen anything like it.

They're deeply confused about what to do. One of them showed me the communication that they got from the captain who runs their particular group at the base. And it was like, actually, the phrasing of it was kind of funny because they were like, we're not sure this email is real. So while we're investigating, just go ahead and don't respond to this email. But, you know, it really is for the federal government workforce, which, by the way, is I think a majority of them actually work for the Department of Defense. It is not necessarily the like caricature view that people have of some like, you know,

super liberal political activists, bureaucrat. Many of them live and work outside of D.C. in rural areas. Many of them are Republicans, by the way. I mean, most of these people who work on this base, I know for a fact, vote Republican. The town that I'm from is like 60 to 65 percent Trump supporting kind of a county. So anyway, there's a vast swath of people who are really being shaken by this approach from Elon and the chaos that it's injected into this entire workforce. Yeah, the numbers here from Claude. We have four million people who work for the federal government. It is the largest employer in the United States. Approximately 85% of federal employees, civilian employees work outside of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The distribution, exactly as you said, military bases, which are located throughout the country, federal agencies, national parks, VA hospitals, border patrol,

and the Social Security Administration, which has an office in most counties, I believe every county across the United States. So let's put A5 up there on the screen just to show people even more so kind of what this is leading to. The OPM email has been met not only with some of the most high-profile agencies saying not to comply, but you also have some of the largest unions of federal workers telling them as well to be cautious responding or not to respond at all. But I think most important really is the State Department said not to do it. The Commerce Department, specifically NOAA and NSA employees were told the same, not to. I guess, you know, theoretically they should have, right? Well, that was actually another point that one of the parents in King George County,

where I live, made as well. It's like, he's like, you know, we all have like really high levels of classification. And so if you're just like mass firing a bunch of people who have some of the highest security clearances in the government, he's like, you know, how loyal do you think they're going to be feeling to the country after that? I don't know. See, I only don't like that because— That's like a risk as well to all of this because it is done in such a, like, you know, it's just such a blanket across the board, no thought into how many years of service you've put in,

how effective an employee you've been, how significant you've been to the organization, just like zero loyalty whatsoever. Yeah. The only reason I don't like that is because it's presumed that it's like, oh, if we don't pay them, then they're going to go work for somebody else. It's like, well, that might be true in theory. It's just, it kind of, you know, hits against the idea. I mean, I'm not like advocating to it, but I am saying like, these are human beings, you know? And if you've shown, if you put in 20 years of loyal service to the government as a civil servant, and then you're just booted out unceremoniously for literally no reason, I think that's probably going to impact how loyal you feel to your government.

Maybe the Russians and the Chinese are just rubbing their hands. They may be. They may be. Let's go to A6 here. We have, this was flagged by Ken Klippenstein. He's Jerry Connolly, who is, what is he, the head of the Dem Oversight Committee. That's correct. Yeah. He's currently battling cancer, but Ken has really mounted a war against him just for, not because of his illness, just to show like gerontocracy and who the Democratic Party chooses. They chose this guy over AOC. Right. So here was his response on the federal email. Let's take a listen.

What are you recommending federal workers should do when they turn on the news today, they hear this and they're like, I got a deadline by tomorrow night. What, should I do this? Yeah. I hesitate to give personal advice. I guess if you can, cover yourself and do the five things you did last week just to be able to say, well, I did it.

So, yeah, he's like, well, maybe just respond to the email. We were I'm you and I are willing to cut the guy. I'm a little sympathetic. Well, first of all, background on Jerry Connolly. He before he was in Congress, he was the chair of the board of supervisors in Fairfax County. He has, and he, his district represents Fairfax County and the environs. He probably has more federal government workers in his district than any other district in the country or certainly among the top. So this is very like, like he knows these people. So he's thinking about, he's not thinking about like, how do you make a political point?

He's thinking about like, you know, Susie, who works in wherever, wants to keep her job. She's not trying to make some political stance. And so I'm actually sympathetic to this because if somebody in my county just asked me, like, what should I do? I don't know what I'd say. I don't know what I'd tell them. I don't want to put them at risk to, like, get fired out of some stupid over some stupid email. So, you know, a better response would have been talk to your union, talk to your supervisor, like figure out what the coordinated response is versus like, I don't know, I guess just respond

to the email and cover yourself. But I am a little bit sympathetic to him here on this one. Yes, I think we're willing to cut him a little bit of slack. I have also taken a personal census of some of the federal employees who I know, and they're not happy right now. I'm sure there's some MAGA people who are cheering about it, but really what it is is about the chaos and people just not really knowing what to do. How this will manifest politically, I genuinely have

no idea. I have been thinking about that statistic about the number of people employed by the federal government, just because as we know, 4 million people work for the government. Then if we think about family, then everybody probably has a cousin or, you know, a friend or daughter, son, whatever, somebody who works for the feds who is currently experiencing this. And what we know from COVID is that the reason why I think that the 2020 election is the highest turnout election in modern history is because it was the first time that government really touched people's lives in an ultra tangible way, be it checks, be it lockdowns, be it vaccine mandates, like the government policy had never been more directly intervention

in your bank account and in your life. And so in this case, you know, if the government is seen as being axing your job or causing stress or any of that, it could certainly activate and give people a reason to turn out. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

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I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

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It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received

hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter.

She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to hell and gone murder line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Which is something I think is a good transition to our next polling segment, which is just about how people are feeling about Elon and or Doge. I'm going to give my normal caveat. Just everybody remember how wrong the polls were back in 2024, not that long ago. So keep that in mind when you're looking at this and all the other structural problems.

It's all we really have to go off of. So based on that, what are we seeing? Can we make possibly some inferences? CNN's Harry Anton, who we always respect, broke some of the numbers down that we do have. Let's take a listen. The people are mad. They are angry. They are rising up. Take a look here. Top worst things that Trump has done. This is among the folks who oppose Trump actions in office so far.

You might have thought going into the election or afterwards it'd be immigration policy, but that comes in at just 10 percent. Check out on this side of the screen, though. I'm coming over to Mr. Berman's side. Must, doge, or the funding freezes, right? These funding cuts. Look at that. That takes the cake. 24%. That is the top answer amongst those who oppose Donald Trump's actions in office saying it is the worst thing that he has done so far. It's must, it's doge, it's those funding cuts. The people are mad. And if last night is an example, that town hall, they ain't going to take it anymore. The most significant Trump action this term so far. Look at this. Democrats are more angry about this than Republicans are happy about it. Look at this. Democrats, 18 percent say that the Musk-Doge access to data is the most significant action so far for Trump this term.

Bring it over to this side of the screen. Look at this. Just 9% of Republicans say that Musk, Doge, and the access to data is the most significant Trump action so far. So Elon Musk is becoming this rallying point for anger, this rallying point for anger on the left. Back in December of 2024, he was underwater, but just underwater by five points. Look at where he is now in February 2025.

The American people are turning against Elon Musk. His net favorable rating way down there, past now minus 10 points, minus 12 points. The bottom line is this. The voters are angry with Elon Musk. They're angry with the cuts to the federal government. So that's the top line here in terms of the numbers. Crystal and I were just talking while the thing was going in terms of the polls. And I guess it's worth talking about in terms of what it is.

What do you think? So overall, the statistical analysis saw a rough 3% miss across the board. It's not terrible, but of course that was within the margin of error, especially in a lot of these swing states. My only caution, as I was telling you, is about the oversampling of Democrats. That was clearly a big problem from 2020. It was a big problem in 2024. That's part of the reason where the miss was. And especially right now, just because Democrats, if that is to be trusted, especially the enthusiasm number, if they're a lot more likely to be politically engaged and or respond, it could skew things differently from where they are. I just want to caution people just considering

how, I mean, the Iowa stuff and all that is just too, too ingrained. And it's been too soon since all of that for me to be able to fully put my trust in all of this. Although I think that's all valid. The only thing I will say is if we're thinking, if we're projecting these polls out to like, okay, well, what does a midterm performance look like? Which side is more energized matters a lot. That is exactly right. That is the one that matters the most in a midterm election. Yeah. And that's what I saw. I mean, I ran for Congress in 2010 as a Democrat in the Tea Party wave. And so, you know, it was Democrats had control of everything. They were sort of like demoralized or not that energized or, you know, not that excited to come out and vote. And Republicans voted en masse and they were pissed and they wanted to take back power. And, you know, we're going to show you the Bernie town halls. We're

going to show you a little bit of like the pushback at some of the Republican town halls. There is a very similar vibe that is starting to emerge to, you know, the 2010s. It's just the reverse in terms of which political party is more energized this time around. And I think, you know, naturally, when you have one party that's in power, typically, historically, there is a backlash and there is, you know, an adjustment in the next midterm where the party that's in power performs really poorly. And then when you add on top of that, you know, Doge taking these incredibly aggressive, chaotic actions, the consolidation of power in the hands of this one dude that people are increasingly like really not psyched about, and the ways that it really does touch, you know, so many communities across the country.

Because again, federal government workers are not just here in D.C. They are spread out in communities across the country. The impact of federal government spending is spread out in places across the country. There are a bunch of articles about, and this is actually really sad to me because I love our national parks and I know you do too, Sagar, like the impact there and how they've had to stop taking reservations. And they're so short staff, they can barely function at this point. Those national parks are huge economic drivers for the mostly rural and many of them Western communities that, you know, that exist out there. So the impact is a lot more diffuse and a lot more widespread than I think people are taking into account. And in addition, I was seeing one analysis that also suggests that, you know, for every federal government worker that you fire, you're also talking about probably two or three contractors that are impacted by that. And again, you know,

back to my small town that I live in, I know that's like the whole economy there is around this base. If that takes on if that is cut significantly, it would be devastating to the whole entire town and community, et cetera. So I think people are very upset and unhappy with the really callous and chaotic way this is all unfolding. Yeah. Part of the problem is, is that it doesn't feel like there's some grand plan. And that's always the issue is if I think about the tariffs we talked about from 2018, one of the reason why I think that Trump never got any real sustainable pushback is it was directly connected. We're like, look, we're doing this around China. Yes, washing machines will be more expensive. Soybean farmers, we're going to cut you guys checks from these tariffs. This is all about

restoring the trade deficit. And people were like, okay, I understand that. The thing is with Doge right now is it doesn't feel, it feels both slap shot and it also doesn't necessarily feel as if it's working to some broader end. And the more that that stuff permeates, like you said, I mean, for me, if somebody messed with my Zion reservation, I would be very upset. So I feel very much with a lot of those people out there. It's already a shitty program, the way that the National Park Service reservations worked.

And if you had stuff like that planned for the future, it would be infuriating because it is one of the cheapest vacations any American can take is to go to a national park. It's literally, what, like $70 or something for a year long pass, and you can have unlimited entertainment in them. And they're amazing. They're absolutely incredible. Anybody out there, go as quick as you possibly can. The Spartan Tree Spring, Shenandoah is here nearby us.

It's an amazing park. I've never been to Smoky Mountains. That is Spartanbury Spring. Shenandoah is here nearby us. It's an amazing park. I've never been to Smoky Mountains. That's next on my list. But Zion, Yosemite, Glacier, any of these, they're just incredible, incredible places. Let's put this one up there on the screen, A8, please, because this is probably the most noteworthy one. If we want to go off the people who were accurate, Trump's own pollster certainly was accurate. And he says, a poll of swing voters is showing warning signs for Republicans bent on helping billionaires. So it is interesting because if you dig down into the memo from this pollster, it finds, quote, sizable majorities in competitive House districts are unhappy about their economic predicament. It gently warns that Republicans that some of Trump's priorities they would enact would prove unpopular, though it does avoid saying this

directly. The memo suggests that some Republicans at least do think that public opinion matters, and even that maybe, just maybe, they do fear being held accountable in the future. Election says 59% of voters in 18 swing districts are worried about their personal financial situations. Republicans have to play catch up here. Trump's approval in the district is 47-49. So it's still, I mean, it's competitive and definitely within the margin of error. But you should pay attention to the Tony Fabrizio one. Obviously, it was very accurate in the Trump polls, in the Trump election. Trump obviously trusts him. And it may inform some of the future decisions here around Elon. And one thing we know about Trump is that Trump is the ultimate transactional figure.

Now, I don't think that at this point he cannot sideline Elon because Elon has become a cause celeb for the left, right? Like in terms of the number one vector. And Trump, more than anything from what I understand the people around him, his biggest regret of his entire presidency is ever caving to liberals. So Charlottesville apologizing and firing Mike Flynn. Like his main takeaway from the first term

is that he should just not listen at all. So anybody predicting some like grand firing and all that, I don't see it. I do think that this sign of this email and saying, hey, don't reply and all that, that could be the slow phase out. Also, don't forget, Doge technically is only supposed to exist until July 4th of 2026. So it could be like an initial sidelining and then like a nice disbandment where they don't acknowledge it 100%. But don't forget forget July 2026 is right around when you would have the midterm

election. So it's like right, the summer season is exactly when people start to pay attention. So I could see, you know, some stuff like that in the future or just a general ongoing move of being like, all right, Elon, you can tweet, you know, whatever bullshit statistics that you want about however much money supposedly saved the government. But these emails and all this other stuff like that needs to stop. We'll see. We'll see. I don't know. There's no real sign of that at this point. But maybe if the poll numbers get more dire, he'll decide like, all right, I'm kind of kind of done with this guy. You know, part of the problem also outlined in this memo from Trump's own pollster is warning signs about the way that they craft this tax bill

coming up as well. Because they ask people, you know, what the top priority of tax policy should be. And unsurprisingly, a vast majority, 63 percent, said the top priority should be helping working class families. Only 1 percent said it should be helping corporations and the wealthiest Americans. And yet we already know that in terms of the tax package that they're putting together, whether or not no tax on tips or some other of the more populist proposals that Trump put out there, whether or not any of them make it into that package, still really an open question. But even if they do, the vast bulk of that $4.5 trillion tax cut is going to go to the wealthiest

incorporations through the extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. So you've got that. And then you also have the fact that Americans are still saying, hey, my biggest priority is still inflation. It's still cost of living. And there is zero focus on that from the Trump administration. We've already seen inflation tick up. Now he's saying, oh, that's the fault of the last guy. Maybe people will give him some grace for now

because he is still so new into office. But if those trends continue, which they very possibly could, especially with the tariff threats certainly feed into that, et cetera, then he could really be having quite a lot of problems politically. There already are a lot of polls showing that one of his greatest strengths as a politician has always been the way people trust him on the economy because they just think, oh, this guy's a businessman, like he must know what he's doing, et cetera. He's deeply underwater on the economy already. And so, Sagar, I think that's the other problem with Doge is it is the sense of like I didn't ask for like Gulf of America renaming.

I didn't ask for this like just go and randomly fire a bunch of federal government workers. And, you know, I didn't vote for this random guy, richest man on the planet, like consolidating power and doing all of this just blatant self-dealing. And why aren't you focused on the priorities that actually impact me and that I'm focused on in my day-to-day life? I think that's a real risk for him as well. It would not surprise me, but I'm still just,

I've been so burned, I think, by a lot. It just seems a little too cute for that to happen, as in like check the box of every liberal slash mainstream critique. And I've just, because of the way that 2024 meant, I'm like, maybe, we'll see. Just in terms of what it means for how people internalize all of this. Remember my warning, the more tapped in you are, the more likely you are to vote for Kamala. So how many people out there are even aware of Doge, Gulf of America, or even if they

are aware of Gulf of America? I think people are pretty aware of Doge. I mean, this is very- But that's what I'm saying, is that you can be aware and like it. And I think that's the one caution I would always give people, is remember the way that the media or the liberals will frame something is not necessarily how it lands. Remember Puerto Rico gate, the childless cat lady stuff, like Bratz summer, all this stuff.

It was a complete opposite of how it all eventually turned out. I just really think that's important for people to take away. But, you know, if we had paid attention to just the material concerns of Americans, we would have been much more, you know, people would have had a much more accurate view of how this election was ultimately going to go because people were consistently like, my biggest problem is inflation and I'm not happy with the economy and I'm certainly not happy with the way the Democrats have handled the economy. And so when you have all of them, we're going to do an economic segment later on.

A lot of warning signs, consumer sentiment, you know, turning really negative, inflation ticking up, concerns about inflation ticking up, Trump increasingly underwater on the economy. Like, I think those are very important warning signs for him. And when you couple that with this agenda that seems really clearly crap, like all the populist, you know, positioning from the campaign is gone. And now you've just handed the keys over to the richest man on the planet who's out there looking out for himself and his interests. And you're about to couple that with a gigantic tax cut for the rich. I think that is very politically perilous, to say the least. Yeah, the tax cut, I think, is, again, I actually think that might be the most perilous one

for Trump because there's no getting around it. If anything, he was lucky that he passed it so early last time around. What was it? April, I think, of 2017. I don't remember. If I recall, the TCJA, or maybe it was June. It was something like that. Yeah.

That was the first major accomplishment. It was obviously, as I always say, the lowest approval rating for Donald Trump. And by that point, though, three, four years later, people had mostly forgotten about it. So that's one of those where it could be politically perilous. I definitely think it will be for the midterm elections. In the long term, I have no idea. Been thinking about the Clinton administration a lot, which similarly had a very rocky 1993, got blown out in 1994, but by 96 is still able to pull it out and somehow win. So it's not always a predictor of how things will go. Obama's another example of that. Tea party wave happens and then Republicans think, we're a lock to win. And then, you know, he wins in

actually quite a significant landslide. On the other hand, I mean, this also raises the question, like Trump is out there. I'm going to run for another. Shouldn't I run for another term? And there's a whole Steve Bannon and lots of other people that are trying to push for a Trump term number three, which obviously is unconstitutional. I don't at this point see how they could actually make that happen. But, you know, the other thing is that it is unlikely to be Trump who's running again. So in those situations, you have incumbent presidents who were both extremely politically talented. Like, you know, however you feel about them ideologically, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were both generational political talents. Trump is in his own way as well. So

you are unlikely to have him on the ballot again, which I do think sort of complicates the picture because nobody has been able to really consolidate and put together the amount of enthusiasm and this particular coalition that Donald Trump has been able to bring to the table. The case for it is the 88 election. The 88 election was very interesting. H.W. was a very weak candidate, of course, like the blue blood and, you know, with the grocery store stuff that all happened eventually and sunk him in 92. But really, it was like Reagan hangover. People trusted him. The 12 years of government, supply side, economics and all that narratively was there. And then Dukakis was just horrible.

So it's one of those where you could see if the Democrats choose a Dukakis-style figure, all that you really, all H.W. had to do was not just run on the Reagan legacy, but really against like institutional leftism as it kind of existed at that time. So I've been thinking about that as well, but obviously that's a long, long way away. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Helen gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country, begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

I've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother.

She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's put some of the polling up here just to see what we have so far. This from the Washington, oh, sorry, this is from Ipsos, some new polling that just came in. Approval of Musk shutting down federal programs he decides are unnecessary. Disapprove is 52%, approve 26, net minus 26. Let's go to the next one, please.

Just to continue to show people, approval of Elon Musk's job in government, disapproves at 49, approved is at 34, net minus 15. Next one as well, just to continue, would you rather see the next control Congress by Democrats or Republicans? It has Democrats there with 54. Again, remember, it's only been a month, I think a month and four days and all of that.

Things definitely there and keep in mind all the caveats I gave about oversampling and all of that. But I will just say initially, it would not be a surprise. In fact, it would be historically a trend. It would be very in line with historical trends for the Republicans to have a blowout in the midterms. They already don't have control of Congress. Their number one achievement, the only legislative achievement I can track right now with any regularity is this tax bill, which is not going to be popular.

It will be popular for a lot of rich people, but that's it. So you're gonna have that. You could have potentially higher inflation and economic crisis or some sort of international situation. None of that could happen, and you would still

fit within a historical trend of the democratic thermostatic public opinion, the turnout being high. This is an interesting theory I've been looking at is that united control of Congress, of Congress and the presidency often leads to some of the bigger midterm blowouts. So if you think about Obama, a similar thing, I was just looking at the margins. Those margins were insane. 57 seats in the Senate is crazy for the Democrats. But the fact is that their ability to pass the 2009 healthcare reform, obviously that's what ignited the Tea Party wave. And that's what led to the huge blowout in 2010 for that. If you look back to the Democrats, a little bit different with Clinton in terms of the control, but the similar 93 push for that initial health care reform that led to the CHIP Act or whatever it was called under Hillary Clinton experienced a significant amount of blowback with the contract for America.

So you could easily see something like that happen with Donald Trump is that very often united control of government leads to a midterm kind of blowout, which wouldn't surprise me. And I think they are really flirting with like historic, just like disaster and political disaster, because as we discussed before, by putting their hands in all of these agencies, you know, even air traffic controllers got the Elon justify yourself, your existence to me in five bullet points, like across the board. So you have, you know, one, you're one major disaster away from people completely turning on this administration, not to mention, as we're about to discuss later in the show, a lot of very concerning economic indicators. So, you know, there is a possibility out there of real political collapse outside of even what the Tea Party wave was or what the backlash in the Clinton administration was, etc. So I do think that they are playing with fire right now.

And just to wrap up this block, go back to A9, which shows some of the numbers for Trump in particular. Because in the very early days of the administration, Elon seemed to be taking on water. But Trump was kind of hanging in there. You know, his approval rating was staying more or less 50-50, which for him is phenomenal. Greg Sargent here has kind of a compilation of some of the recent polling that has warning signs, not just about Elon, but about Trump himself. Only 34% of approve of Musk's role, 63% worry about his data access. According to CNN, 54% say it is bad that he was given a big role. And now you have majorities disapproving of Trump in CNN, Washington Post, and Gallup, and also Trump's own pollster, as we showed you before, has him underwater in swing districts. So Trump's approval,

pretty consistent trend in all of these polls, seems to be trending downward as he now takes on water because of the unpopularity of Musk and Doge and the actions that they're taking. Very possible, like you said. Also keep in mind, though, is that I came pretty damn close in the 2020 election, even with the, what, what did he have, like a 30 percent approval rating? So you never know. There are a lot of people out there who vote for Trump. We don't like him. I will say one thing. Again, he's not supposed to be on the ballot again. Oh, true. Hey, listen, we'll debate this another time. I'm very for getting rid of the 20. I don't like the Bannon way because they're trying to craft it so that it's only Donald Trump. I think I think the entire two term limit should be completely

gotten rid of. And if Obama wants to run again, let him. I hate Obama, as everybody who watches the show know. I think he should have been able to run again. I think Clinton should have been able to run again. Arguably, it would have been way better off if Clinton had won the 2000 election, you know, in terms of how he would have handled all that. So that 22nd Amendment really did actually cost us some bad—what it did is it created the current dynamic of the swings back and forth and led to the inability for an FDR-style king and or president – I know we've had this debate before – to basically enshrine 20 years of rule, which if that's what America wants, then I think that's what America should be able to have. Washington tradition be damned. At this point, completely unprincipled view of this, which is in general, I agree with that. And I do not want Donald Trump to be able to run again. Listen, let the people decide. Also, like you said, they're trying. Okay. So it is,

they are not going to be able to pass a constitutional amendment. That is not going to happen. So let's just put that out there. So I don't know what other pathways they would pursue, perhaps just making some like cockamamie theory that they push up to the Supreme Court and hope that those people are just so enthralled with Trump at this point that they give him whatever he wants. But yeah, what they want it to be is that you can't serve to more than two consecutive terms. And so that would rule out Obama, but would rule in Trump. That's what they're going for, which is totally unprincipled.

And then I wouldn't hate it. I wouldn't hate it. Just to set the precedent for the future. Maybe what we can have is- This man is getting really old too, by the way. Yeah, run against him then. Tell the American people. They care about age, obviously.

That's what they said about Biden. So there we go. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big

way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit man we got uh ricky williams nfl player hasman trophy winner it's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves music stars marcus king john osborne from brothers osborne we have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got Be Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer

Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country

begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking.

Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Trump making some significant moves over at the Pentagon, in particular, removing the previous chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Let's go ahead and put his announcement up on the screen.

This was on Truth Social. He says, I want to thank General Charles C.Q. Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family. Today, I'm honored to announce that I am nominating Air Force Lieutenant General Dan Raisin-Kane to be the next chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Kane is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a warfighter, in quotes, for some reason, with significant interagency and special operations experience. So we'll tell you a little bit more about the individual who is General Brown's replacement. But this was one of a number of moves that were made at the Pentagon and what some are describing as a purge. So in addition to

the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff being removed. The chief of naval operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, also removed. The Air Force vice chief of staff, General James Slife, also removed. And then in addition to this, in what was, I think, maybe the most eyebrow-raising part of this whole maneuver, the three top lawyers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force, so the top JAG lawyers for those three service branches, were all fired as well. Obviously, this raises questions. Why do you want to get rid of the top lawyers for these various branches of the military? And Pete Hegseth, who, of course, is now the Secretary of Defense, was pressed on exactly that point on one of the Sunday shows. Let's take a listen to that. For people who may not know, I mean, they give advice to the military about what is lawful and

what isn't. Not surprisingly, there's been some backlash to those who are worried about their removal. One Georgetown law professor says this, Trump also firing the Army, Navy and Air Force Jags. In some ways, that's even more chilling than firing the four stars. It's what you do when you're planning to break the law. You get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down. Your response to her. I don't know who Rosa is and what her hyperbole is all about. Ultimately, we want lawyers who give sound constitutional advice and don't exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything that happens in their spots. What we know about these TJAGs, they're called TJAGs inside the military. Traditionally, they've been elected by each other

or chosen by each other, which is exactly how it works often with the chairman as well. Small group of insulated officers who perpetuate the status quo. Well, guess what? Status quo hasn't worked very well at the Pentagon. It's time for fresh blood.

So, you know, one of the things we know about Hegseth because he's written about it and also because of his public advocacy is he has pushed for there to be fewer limits on what he calls war fighters in terms of, you know, following the rules of war. He went to the mat for a number of people who had been either indicted or convicted of war crimes, one of whom was turned in by his own soldiers underneath him for what he had, you know, what he had done while he was in battle. And so for him to push these individuals out, I think it's pretty consistent with his desire to, I guess the polite way would say it would be like loosen the rules of engagement. It's very much what you heard kind of, you know, way back in the Vietnam era, there was this sense of, oh, if we let, you know, our guys do what they do, then we would have been

more successful there. You also heard it from Pete Hegseth, you know, in the context of the Iraq war, which he supported up until shockingly recently, that, you know, you needed to let them be more, you know, have fewer rules of engagement and effectively like green light more war crimes. So it's consistent with that. Also, the moves, I think, overall are consistent with, you know, Trump wants to make sure that the people who are at the top of these chains of command, that they're going to do whatever he wants them to do, whether that pertains to executing on his foreign policy, which I think he feels justifiably that he was stymied at times by the top brass, or whether it comes to executing orders that would be unlawful or unconstitutional as when he wanted to shoot protesters in the legs

during the Black Lives Matter protests and riots. And the current chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is Mark Esper at that point was like, we're not doing that. So I think it's all of those things. But yeah. Well, it was Milley was, yeah, they were both involved. Look, I mean, my main thing is this traces back to, I have sympathy. There are a lot of GWAT veterans who watch the show. And in a sense, they're not wrong in that they were constrained because they were basically put into a situation where they became State Department diplomats in a job that they never signed up for, nation building and others that was not sold to the American public. So you have these guys, National Guardsmen who were previously cops in Kansas who are trying to negotiate between two rival sheiks who are literally at war over which boy they get to sexually molest. And they're like, what the hell am I doing here, right? So in a way, they're right in terms of a lot of the way that

the JAG officer corps and all of that, this was under McChrystal, it's kind of the HR purification of the military, is they put an intense amount of restrictions on people whose job was not to do this in the first place. This is where I sympathize with the Vietnam vets and with the GWAT vets in terms of they're like, look, we didn't know what our job was. Was it to kill the enemy or was it to negotiate, you know, with all this bullshit between these tribal leaders and then train a bunch of guys who are the most corrupt police force literally on planet earth in Afghanistan. So I don't, I don't, I sympathize with Pete on this simply because that is the overwhelming feeling of how betrayed many of the people there are. In terms of the four stars, Siku Brown, everything I did in terms of research, this guy is mediocre at best and

basically just a complete representation of the four-star bureaucracy inside of the Pentagon. Terrible F-35 review over the program, literally like a DEI person in that nobody could say anything about his track record as a general except for, oh, he's black. It's like, okay, well, what did he do? I read a 2023 dissent against his nomination, which went through his background at the Air Force. Not a single major remarkable thing. He was basically promoted because of his race under Lloyd Austin. He's like, okay, well, so I have no problem with him getting fired. I think really what it comes down to is the Mark Milley stuff that you talked about previously, which is that Trump correctly saw how James

Mattis and Mark Milley and the previous Joint Chiefs all basically worked to stymie his direct and lawful orders, for example, like saying pulling out of Syria, negotiating with the Taliban. These are the people who worked inside the bureaucracy to keep it from happening. One of the main reasons he picked Hegsat, Hegsat's entire formation as a member of the United States military was joining because he believed in Iraq. Obviously, that was bad. But while being inside of the bureaucracy, watching both the constraining at the political and at the legal level, trying to turn the Pentagon into something that it's not supposed to be, both in terms of a social experiment through DEI, which C.Q. Brown, by the way, literally on record talking about how he

would put his thumb on the scales to promote more black officers. I just think that's totally counter to what Trump ran on. So I don't care whatsoever that he got fired. The JAG stuff also very much fits with Hegstatt's view of the military and his overall war on Pentagon bureaucracy. So, I mean, currently, I don't have an issue with this. I was looking to, Pete has told the department to prepare for major budget cuts. Great. Let's do it. Let's cut even more four-star generals. The commonly held thing that Pete often talks about is the number of four stars that we have today as opposed to the actual winning fighters of World War II. And I think he's completely correct in terms of the explosion

of all of the bureaucracy inside of the Pentagon, where in the words of Steve Bannon, the real budget's a trillion. We could lop 100 billion off the top and not all that much would happen over there. Here's what I would say. I think it's insane to imagine that the problem in Iraq was that we were too protective of civilians or in Afghanistan for that matter. But do you understand how they get there? Like in terms of they're sent over there. What they think is to kill terrorists. They show up and they're like, well, we're supposed to. The brass tells you kill the terrorists, but you need to have eyes on him.

He needs to be shooting at you. And at the very same time, you need to not disrupt the civilians. That's the job of a soldier. No, but see, that's the thing. That's the job of a soldier. It's really not. Just to give you a specific, which is part of why you want good JAG officers to advise you on the rules of war and to make sure you're not just blanket massacring civilians, which did happen at times.

I mean, one of the guys that he went to bat for, which is the one that I said his own men turned him in, he instructed them to fire on a group of civilians that they knew were civilians. And after the fact, tried to cover it up by saying, oh, well, we weren't able after the fact to check them for weapons. So we really don't know. So again, it was his own, like the soldiers who were serving under him who did not want to execute that order because they knew it was just a slaughter of civilians who turned him in. And then he's found guilty. And Hegseth advocates for him, goes to the mat, gets Trump to pardon him, even though, you know, it was quite clear and getting was found guilty by a jury of his peers turned in by his own men that he had just gone out and slaughtered civilians.

So, you know, I just I don't think that that's acceptable. I don't think that's the way that we should be conducting ourselves. I don't think that that helped that type of, you know, just brutality towards civilians helped us either in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, we never should have been there in the first place. And the fact that Pete Hegseth was in favor of the Iraq war long after even, you know, some of Hillary Clinton and some of the most dyed-in-the-wool neocons had said, you know, this wasn't a great idea, does not really particularly recommend him. So, you know, the other thing I would say about the chair of the Joint Chiefs here who, you know, I don't have a lot of specific knowledge about him. I know Hegseth in his book didn't really offer a lot of analysis about why he suspected that he

wasn't sort of deserving or, you know, meritorious of this particular position. It seemed to be just an assumption like, well, he's black, so he must not deserve it. But putting that as- No, that's not true. But I think it probably is true. I think it's pretty. OK, for example, can anyone name a single thing GQ Brown did before he was? But here's the thing. Here's the thing.

I think it's very difficult to argue that the guy that they're putting in now is there out of, quote unquote, merit. I mean, it's really clear Trump is putting him in place because he thinks he's a Trump MAGA diehard who will do whatever he wants. And I'm not just talking about, you know, executing his lawful orders with regard to Syria or whatever. I'm talking about even if he wants to use the military in ways that would be unconstitutional, unlawful, and yes, fascist, that this would be the guy who would green light those sorts of things. And, you know, to bolster that point, Trump has long been telling stories about this guy claiming he put on a MAGA hat and said, I love you, sir. I think you're great, sir. I'll kill for you, sir. He actually has to get a waiver in order to be elevated to this

position because he doesn't meet the technical qualifications you are supposed to have for this job. So the idea this is just about merit, I think it's kind of preposterous. I think it's preposterous for many of the positions that I've filled in this. Now we worship at the altar a four-star generalship and say, oh, well, he's not a four-star general. I'm just saying, I'm just saying that if you're trying to argue that he's being put in place because of merit, I think that is relatively preposterous on its part. What I am arguing is that I don't care about the, I don't think most people care either, whether somebody is, quote, like,

check all the boxes of having satisfied military bureaucracy up to the four-star level so that they can get their nice little stamp of approval for chairman of the Joint Chiefs. By the way, C.Q. Brown will be just fine if you have Raytheon or Lockheed literally tomorrow. Okay, so we all know how that works. I'm not going to dispute.

I don't actually know a ton about this new guy. I've been trying to read about Kane. But why don't we play the clip of Trump talking about Kane before we weigh in. Let's take a listen. A general, another general, a colonel, a staff sergeant could be in any movie. These guys, it's like perfect. They're like perfect individuals. If I were casting a movie on the military, I would pick these guys.

There's nobody you could hire in Hollywood that looks like this. So I walked down, and this is where I met General Raisin Kane. And what's your name? General, what's your name? And he gave me his name. What's your name, Sergeant? Yes, sir, and I love you, sir. I think you're great, sir.

I'll kill for you, sir. Then he puts on a Make America Great Again hat. You're not allowed to do that but they did. I remember I went into the hangar and there were a lot of there were hundreds of troops and they're not supposed to do this but they all put on the Make America Great Again hat. So that's what Trump has said. There's his qualification for the job. I mean, you can't deny, like, this is what, this is why Trump picked him. Do I think Trump is Mr. Merritt and wants all of this stuff? No.

Do I think that Pete Hegsath and them do? Yes, actually. They have a much longer track record of being against military bureaucracy, of restoring the Pentagon to its singular purpose. And, you know, to counter what you were talking about earlier, because I think this is very important, is you were saying that's the job of a soldier. The problem is that we made that the job of the soldier when it's not actually the job. The job of the soldier is to win and to fight a war. It's the job of the State Department and of the presidents and others to not put people in a situation which is actually counter to their job description.

Should 19-year-olds from Topeka really be negotiating, you know, tribal warfare between two? Absolutely not. That's the problem with the entire mission. Back to, you know, you're right. Obviously, we should never have been there at all, period. But when you look at a track record of judgment, Pete Hegseth has had a very bad one. You know, he was wrong about Iraq. He was wrong about Afghanistan. He was wrong about Ukraine up until very recently. So, you know, if you're looking for someone who, but you know what matters most is that you took the correct position when it was hard to do, when it was unpopular, when it didn't serve

your political and career interests. He does not have a track record of that. He has a track record of being, I want to go and even more, I want to send even more people in. I want to go to even get us involved in even more wars. So I certainly don't trust him on that front. But yes, once you're there, part of the job of the soldier is to try to protect the civilian populations that are in the area. It certainly did. I'm not arguing that they shouldn't have. What I'm saying is the reason why they felt, this is the thing, again, that people need to remember. The rules of engagement would change on an almost yearly basis in Afghanistan as to whatever the political mission was. First, it was light up the Taliban. Then it was McChrystal came in.

Then Obama fires McChrystal and it changes. Again, literally on a year by year basis, the type of shots that you could take were completely up in the air. They'd have to call up to the chain of command. They had no idea what they were doing. There's a book Jake Tapper wrote that there's a movie as well. I think I'm blanking on the name at the outpost. That's what it is. People should watch it in terms of what it actually was like for people when they're getting ambushed within those rules of engagement. Now, obviously, none of them would dispute their want to protect the civilian population. That's not it at all. As far as the Gallagher case, I recommend there's a book called Alpha about Eddie Gallagher. It's very anti-Eddie Gallagher.

If you want the case for why he should have been convicted, there's a lot of stuff online that you can go and read against it. It's a lot more complicated than people think, I will say that, in terms of whether he should have been convicted or not. I'm still up in the air in terms of what I've read about the case. But the point that I come back to is that if you're going to get into a war, and this was what the Vietnam people would often say too, is if we're going to get into a war, then we have to be able to fight. Now, I don't think we should have gotten in those wars in the first place. And we should – before we light it up, if it's not capable – if you're not capable to win purely through military means, then you should not be fighting in the first place. You shouldn't turn these people into these quasi-diplomats but then at the same time tell them that they're war fighters.

And I think that gets to the actual crux of Hegseth's ideology, just in terms of everything I've listened to the guy. And I can't say I disagree with him at all, which is don't get involved if you're not going to do it the way that you're supposed to do it. Yeah, but I just fundamentally dispute the idea that if we had had more gloves off and killed more civilians and had more collateral damage, then it would have gone better for us in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think it's the polar opposite of the case. But that is Pete Hegsad's position, is that we should have been more gloves off. I mean, the case I'm talking about, this guy knew these were civilians and he was like,

kill them and tried to cover it up after the fact. Hide the weapons. Like we weren't able to go and check and see if they had weapons so that they could have plausible deniability that they just mass murdered civilians. And it was not, you know, it was actually the people who were lower on the totem pole, who were probably less experienced, who were like, this was wrong. And by the way, just one last thing on this, and we can get into this last piece of piece with regard to, you know, the dude who's now the chair of the Joint Chiefs. Those rules are not just put in place for protecting other civilians.

It's also put in place so that our warfighters can live with themselves afterwards. Of course. So that they can come home and be able to go back to a normal life and not be completely traumatized by the things that they did. And, you know, inevitably, when you have humans killing other humans, it's going to be a horrific and traumatizing experience. No doubt about that. But if you feel like you conducted yourself honorably

and that the, you know, expectation was you were just killing the bad guys, you weren't just going out and, like, murdering whatever civilians happen into your path because some psycho who was above you was ordering you to do that. Like that's also protection for our own soldiers. And I don't think, you know, I think the firing of these JAG officers, the top lawyers in these three services indicates, you know, he has no respect for that whatsoever. Obviously, that's what he's written in the past. And I also think, you know, again, the overall program here, yes, it may be something about the bureaucracy and making sure that even

the lawful orders are properly executed. Fine. But I think at core, as judging by the way Trump himself describes who he's put in here, it really is about making sure this is someone who will do whatever I say, no matter what it is, whether it is legal or illegal or somewhere in between, they're going to execute on my orders. And the last piece of this is, this was pulled up. So this is kind of weird. I just put this out there, make of it what you will. The new guy who got put in, Dan Cain, he had just retired from the military. And so they're pulling him back out. And I'm talking about like just retired in January. Immediately after he retires, oh, look at that, he gets snatched up by three different crypto firms. One of them in particular, Thrive Capital, was founded by Jared Kushner's brother, Joshua. Had an investment by Peter Thiel and also led a funding round for OpenAI in 2024.

And so, you know, the other thing that Trump gets out of selecting this individual for this position is, number one, I mean, how much money did he make while he was there? Like, is he now responsible for sort of like his financial security. But certainly he would never have ascended to anything like this level in terms of his career. He just retired without Trump. So he owes Trump everything is what I'm trying to say. And so that, again, speaks to this part of I want you to be loyal no matter what I ask you to do. And I think he feels like with Dan Cain, that's what he's getting. So Cain, first of all, I will just say this. This is not a pro-Cain argument. They all go out and join crypto cybersecurity firms and or prime contractors after that. So he's not particularly in that regard. Are they all started by Jared Kushner's brother, however?

Thrive Capital. Yes. Does Joshua Kushner own a stake in Thrive? But this is what I'm saying. In terms of if you look at the board seats for all of these people, what's the first thing that they all go out and do? And by the way, Jim Mattis literally was on the board of Theranos, if we all recall. So to show, just to show folks how this all works. Of course. Atreus is a KKR capital. I could go on forever. It's an accident that he gets snatched up and hired and who knows how much money he makes in this short period of time from a firm that is connected both to Peter Thiel and to Jared Kushner. I actually don't think

it's the Thiel connection. Everything I've been able to read is that Trump met this guy six years ago in Iraq and was like, man, I just love this dude. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that this means that, so he retires, he has this short window of time to go on the private sector and make bank. And guess who shows up at his door to be like, we will pay you. We don't know how much. However much happens to be Jared Kushner's brother's firm. Like, that's not an accident.

I honestly don't think it's nearly as intentional as you think. I think literally all of these guys, especially because he's a former Air Force person and worked, flew F-16s, is going to go join some space-like firm. They all have them on the payroll. This is not a defense of him per se. This is the entire general offers class. This is the problem. It's just an accident that it's Kushner's brother's firm that happens to give him this offer. I don't think it's a quote-unquote accident or whatever. I don't know if they necessarily picked him because they thought he was going to be the next chairman. Again, everything I've read is that Trump is obsessed with this dude because of his, quote, can-do attitude from a visit to Iraq six years ago. Maybe because they knew that Trump liked him,

they hired him. So I can't, you know, rule that out per se. But everything I've been able to see from his background is he joined that main firm apparently that was paying him was the cybersecurity firm in Washington that seems to be like the major source of his funds. I'm not defending any of this. I think it's gross. And this is the problem I have with all of this is the bureaucratization, the corporate basically fusing of the entire general officership. So whoever this guy is, I would really hope that you at least don't keep that ethos whenever you're at the top. But I'm not naive in terms of who and why he got picked. But I don't think that the connection is as solid

as people are trying to make. I just think it's very convenient that this man now owes both his career and his wealth to Trump and the Trump family. Okay, but this is where I'm just, well, first of all, I mean, not really, right? Like Joshua Kushner basically denounced his own brother whenever he was in the White House. And who was he married to?

The super – Carly Kloss or something like that who was putting out anti-Trump stuff. I don't think the connection is as close as you're making it out to be. But again, this is the problem with the systemic corruption around here. Like did people really care when Lloyd – did Democrats really care when Lloyd Austin literally coming from prime contractors back into the defense secretary? Not really. C.Q. Brown, he'll be employed tomorrow by probably the same type of people here because of his past experience.

So I just don't think that people have a huge like to stand on in terms of pointing out corruption. It's not just about the, it's about the direct family. So if we're, if my case is, he's put in there because of loyalty. And if you have been responsible not only for the career elevation, which is very, you know, again, he has to get a waiver to even get put in this position. He had retired. Very unusual. Come back out of retirement like Trump.

He owes Trump his career. And you have this connection, family connection to as well. I'm just saying that if you owe that much to this one person, then that is another attempt to help guarantee that whatever it is that you want to do in the future, this person is going to be loyal no matter what. I see what you're saying. Yeah, I think that's probably fair. Although, I mean, he probably was picked for this exact reason. Right, of course. Was specifically to be the person who is going to be the best man. But this is an additional guarantee to that. I mean, I just would say,

it's not like any person who serves as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is ever hard up for money, literally ever, if you go look at all these places. You don't need Peter Thiel or Joshua Kushner to cut you a check. There's oceans of money here in Northern Virginia to be made for all of them.

So I don't think it's nearly as clear cut. And people are going to say that I'm defending this guy. I'm just pointing out how disgusting this entire system is. Every single basically one star onward becomes a multimillionaire within a year after they resign through these boards, through whatever, Fox News or CFR contracts and all of this. And unfortunately, it is par for the course that we have here. And again, I just don't think that these people have much leg to stand on when their literal heroes are doing the exact same thing. So it's like, OK, you're arguing within a broken system. The next Democratic president is almost certainly going to pick somebody who is also on the board of Lockheed or whatever.

It's a systemic problem that we have. And it just makes it probably more cynical in terms of the war over like who's really corrupt because easily people can point out that it's everyone. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad listen to absolute season one taser incorporated on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts the ogs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever i'm erica and i'm mila and we're the hosts of the good mom's bad choices, brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network every Wednesday. Yeah, we're moms. But not your mommy. Historically, men talk too much.

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