Bulwark Takes - MAGA Media Is Having A BREAKDOWN Over Pete Hegseth

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Andrew Egger and Will Sommer break down the chaos surrounding Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon drama. From firings to leak accusations, conservative media is scrambling to control the narrative and turning on each other in the process.

Hi, this is Andrew Egger with The Bulwark. The mainstream media knows how it's covering the Pete Hegseth story. He's having a crazy time. He's in over his head. The things are falling apart around him. His advisors are getting fired left the correct direction, which is at the enemies, whichever enemy, whichever particular conservative podcaster or host or whatever has an axe to grind toward. We're going to talk about all of that. We're going to figure out how conservative media is rallying around Pete Hegseth and agitating against his various enemies. Here to talk about it, Will Sommer, our great conservative media reporter. Will, what's going on? Pete Hegseth, we all know he's he's having a bit of a hard time. We've talked about that a lot on his channel. How is this all kind of getting digested down at the level of right wing media? Yeah, I mean, so this is sort of a fascinating subplot for me that you mentioned the fired aides. And so basically three kind of high ranking

officials last week in the Defense Department, at least two of them were going to frog marched out by security. These are longtime Pete Hegseth associates, pals, and they were supposedly ousted for leaking as part of this leak investigation. And so this has become this kind of like big discussion point in conservative media. What did these guys do? Are they innocent? Are they martyrs? Are they like sinister agents of the deep state?

Whatever. And so I looked into this and there's sort of this interesting narrative that's broken out where Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, who more or less politically, I think, are on the samedwell was fired because, reporters are told off the record, he had leaked classified documents to the media. But what were these classified documents exactly? Well, no one at the Pentagon could know the answer to that because Dan Caldwell's phone was never examined, nor was he given a polygraph. So actually, beneath the headlines was nothing other than a false accusation. Was Dan Caldwell fired because he opposed the push to war with Iran? You decide.

Will Caldwell and these other two turn over their phones voluntarily to the Pentagon? Will they volunteer them? Will the other two come forward and offer their own defenses? Will these three voluntarily return any laptops or other electronics given to them by the Pentagon? Will they allow the Pentagon to search their personal laptops? I mean, all of this can be obtained rather easily by a warrant, which may well yet be heading Mr. Caldwell's way, as well as the way of his two now fired colleagues. Because while Caldwell told Tucker he would likely already be under arrest if he'd been

caught leaking, the truth is that oftentimes, in fact, I think a lot of the times, they fire the suspected leakers. They continue their investigations because they don't want them having ongoing access to confidential information. So they fire them. They continue the investigations. And then when and if they have enough to charge the person, then comes the indictment, the handcuffs, and the arrest, all of which could, I don't know, but could potentially be in these guys' future. I mean, now is the time for these three to be cautious.

I was kind of shocked to see the one on Tucker's podcast. He's going on offense, saying, I was fired from my Iran views, not because I leaked. We don't know whether that's true. Yeah, this is like catnip to me, right? I mean, because it's so fun to see how these people are always like batting around these different stories to get them kind of into their own lanes for their own usual hobby horses.

I would say that it seemed from reading you, basically, where Megyn Kelly's coming down is where Pete Hegseth's coming down on this. He's trying to turn it all into, he and she, I suppose, are trying to turn it all into a story about leaking, all about like the real problem here is that anybody would dare, you know, talk to the fake news media and that the fake news media would use that to blow this big story out of proportion about how there's chaos and turnover and nobody knows what's going on and the rudderless defense department and all of that. That's basically the Pete Hegseth and the Megyn Kelly line, right? Yeah. I mean, so really to focus on, you know, here, one of the guys who got the boot is Dan

Caldwell guy who's kind of been the most publicly facing member of this trio. And so this is a guy who had been with Pete Hegseth for like a decade in various ways. And then he gets taken out of the Defense Department. He goes on Tucker Carlson's show. Tucker says, well, you know, Dan was just standing against the rush to war with Iran. And so that's why kind of these nefarious elements that we aren't exactly going to name, they framed him for leaking, perhaps. And then, you know, whatever, right? But then it gets interesting because a day later, Megyn Kelly goes on her show and basically says, you know, time to fit this guy for a prison jumpsuit. You know, she says, you know, this trio there, they probably did do it. You know, and I think it's time for one of them to go cut a deal because the rest are going to be facing

prison time. And it's like, whoa, I thought just last night on Tucker, this guy was just like martyr to the America first movement. Yeah. Yeah, I do wonder. I mean, like, it's always interesting. It's not like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly are on the same network anymore. They don't necessarily need to reconcile their two positions. I always I always have a bit of a soft spot. I mean, Tucker's brand of lunacy is sort of like, of a of a more rarefied quality, I think, than than Megyn Kelly's Megyn Kelly's just doing the basically the administration line and pressing the pedal all the way down on the outrage about it, right? But the story, the underlying story is a little bit boring. It's like,

this guy's leaking to reporters and he needs to, you know, get sent to Guantanamo Bay for that or whatever. But Tucker, like, gives it that extra secret twist, right? The special sauce of, like, no, this is actually all part of a much more nefarious plot among people still at the Pentagon who are trying to, you know, it's the neocons. among people still at the Pentagon who are trying to,

you know, it's the neocons, it's the neocons who are trying to, you know, twiddle the various knobs and dials such that we will imminently begin to bomb Iran. Is this, I mean, when you follow just like the way these things filter down, I don't know how much you've paid attention to like, you know, different conservative reactions to this stuff online. I mean, is it's been my impression that Tucker Carlson is kind of like he speaks to a splinter of the kind of online conservative movement who like lives and dies by the stuff he talks about. They're also into all this, you know, the the idiot, the more idiosyncratic stuff, the more like America first anti neocon type stuff. Is that is that the way this is kind of like playing out here with with with regard to the way, you know, other conservatives are reaction

to this stuff? Or are they more just mad about the leakers like Megyn Kelly and Pete Hickseth? Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I do think there's kind of like that, like kind of paleocon, like kind of like dovish faction that that is, you know, marked by, you know, kind of a Tucker kind of isolationism. Whereas in Megyn Kelly's case, I think what she's serving out here is like the vengeance. And it's really like, we caught the leakers. At one point she says, yeah, these guys could be going to prison.

It's going to be heavy terms. And it's not just what Pete Hegseth's saying, but also it's very kind of Trumpian thing that have these, because you say like, wait a minute, weren't these guys like your best buddies up until last week? What what happened? And then suddenly it's just like, oh, that turns out that guy has been been undermining me the whole time. You know, how he's how he goes. And, you know, certainly looking at the first Trump administration classic, like, oh, I love General Mattis and Derek Kelly until they got to go. And so it's just interesting to see this kind of narrative split um and you

know you also have someone like steve bannon who is you know kind of a very crafty operator himself he then went on megan kelly and she was just like you know don't you think this dan caldwell guy is a big-time crook essentially um and he said well you know maybe this guy's ideologically aligned with me with me but you know i also kind of see the way the wind's blowing so maybe he's not a leaker but you know let you know maybe it's not of see the way the wind's blowing. So maybe he's not a leaker. But, you know, you know, maybe it's not prison time quite yet. But let's set him aside while we kind of pursue our own agenda. Right, right, right. Obviously, we're talking about a lot of like the different ways that different figures are spending this. But but for our purposes, I mean, a lot of it does sort of come to the same thing, right? Because I mean, you you wrote about

you wrote about this in your newsletter, that kind of the subtext of both of these stories is Pete Hegseth does not have a good handle personally on what's going on at his defense department right now. Yeah, I mean, these kind of huge conflagrations, and this is all like sort of an outgrowth of Signalgate. These are always interesting because there isn't really a like pat response line, you know, from the administration or right wing media for a while. And the initial one to Signalgate was like, it doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. You know, which sort of wasn't meat right wing media for a while. And the initial one to signal gate was like, it doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. You know, which, which, which sort of wasn't media enough, even for their audience. So then they had to spin a couple more options.

And so in this case, the obvious story is one that's very hard for them to swallow, which is that Pete Hegseth is completely incompetent and out of his depth, everything's falling apart around him. And, and, you know, one of the symptoms of that is this like kind of weird purge of his buddies. But they can't really accept that. And they can't really acknowledge that to their audience. So it

has to become either Tucker's side, which is like the defense contractors want war with Iran. And so they're picking these guys off. Or it's it's Megyn Kelly's, which is that Pete Exa's best buddies were secretly betraying him. Neither of which is really still that good for Pete Exa. You know, I mean, either way, he's either a pawn of the defense contractors or a pawn of these, these isolationists. Uh, but neither narrative is really that flattering in the first place for him. Everybody's got to have a story. Um, well, I guess we'll, we'll, we'll keep watching that one as it spools out. I wanted to ask you a little bit as well about the other thing you wrote about in your false

flag newsletter today, just to completely change topics. Um, Joe Rogan, he has been obviously having a major moment, if you can even say that about like the most popular podcaster in the world. He's not only the most popular podcaster in the world these days, he's also been much more culturally relevant in the last six months as all of us in the media have noticed that he's the most popular podcaster in the world and have started to pay a lot more attention to like his political influence and the you know, the the world he's building around him as he as he, you know, his way through the news of the day, every day. What's going on in Joe Rogan world these days? Yeah, I mean, look, I've certainly been watching a lot more Rogan. You

know, I'm doing my ice plunges, my isolations all that kind of stuff um yeah i mean in this case there's sort of this interesting kind of roganiverse civil war going on where rogan has been having like you know even for him it's like getting a little irresponsible with the guests there joe uh you know i wrote about this a few weeks ago he got really really into some anti-semites like guys who were just like jews did 9-11 um he got into this this daryl cooper guy who was also on tucker once this martyr made fellow on twitter who has a new podcast coming out about how winston churchill not say hitler was the main villain of world war ii and so this has created this rift because a lot of um people who kind of like call it like what we call the intellectual dark web uh you know a lot of um people who kind of like call it like what we call the intellectual dark

web uh you know a lot of academics people like barry weiss uh this kind of universe of people who were like ostensibly kind of liberal but were just so turned off by political correctness and the pronouns in the bio and this kind of stuff they've had they obviously many of them went on rogan and had kind of a big careers as a result uh jordan peterson another example and now they're saying oh well particularly on israel and jews they're saying maybe rogan's getting a little crazy there so a few weeks ago rogan had a debate between this libertarian kind of anti-israel comedian dave smith and this british guy who's kind of like they got really kind of like you know lord poindexter over here to like kind of come

down on the more neocon side douglas murray um and this kind of this set off a big debate kind of within rogan land about whether joe should maybe chill on having these anti-semites on um and then this kind of climax this week when jordan peterson sort of emerges from from wherever he's been um and he has this new this new theory that psychopaths have taken over the right something i think our audience actually might agree with but the way he's saying it is basically like 96 of us are good and and our kind of personalities what have you they're good it's just this sinister four percent what he calls the dark tetrad uh has has infiltrated.

And I mean, it really is like he's kind of coming, he's a psychologist. And so he has like, kind of like a cloaking. He's kind of come up with his own theory to be like, I have a scientific theory that everyone who disagrees with me is a psychopath. But he goes on Rogan and kind of gently makes the point that Rogan has been platforming absolute lunatics.

And so this obviously has said, has sort of enraged the alleged lunatics as well. That is that's amazing. I guess Jordan Peterson, welcome to the resistance. You know, we want a big we want a big the right has gone crazy tent. We're not really well equipped to turn people away from it at the moment. If Jordan Peterson wants to come hang out out i guess that's a good thing although uh it will require a lot of deprogramming uh on a lot of people's parts i think just to get get over the gag reflex of of that particular guy you gotta start wearing his suits you know the ones that are like truly the like like the at the at the nexus of like going hardest in his fashion choices and doing the worst is he's like in a class

all by himself i can't even i can't even think about it um yes welcome yeah i mean he is always a weird kind of a weird guy because like he he plainly is is like kind of the opposite of i don't know there's one kind of like mega media figure who of whom i guess sean hannity is maybe like the the example where you're just happy to kind of go along. You're just doing your thing, whatever the party line is, that's what you're doing. You're comfortable. It's easy. You get your you know, you get your stack of papers and you do it on the air. And Jordan Peterson is and a lot of these intellectual dark web guys, I feel like are kind of they they really talked themselves into all this stuff, right? I mean, like they're true

believers in a lot of it. They're not just putting on an act. And so like when they get a little crosswise of, of some of these guys and they love to fight, they love to mix it up. Right. So, so you, you can definitely see like,

uh, why he would be one of the guys to go on and, and, you know, pick a new fight with, with Rogan over some of this stuff. I don't know. Is,

is Jordan Peterson still like popular on, on, on the right? I feel like I saw Jack Posobiec or somebody like really going after him he's still addicted to benzos but no famously he kicked that you can talk about that too i don't know no yeah so well it's interesting he has definitely become kind of like a figure who is going against what we might call the new right or but like basically people who are like getting into anti-semitism who are getting really anti-Israel by the standards of the Republican Party.

Jordan Peterson really randomly like authored a paper with like one of these like legit like anti-disinformation groups about how the, the Jacobus Obix really embraced this concept of just saying Christ is King. And so they say to like Jewish people, they're like, won't you say Christ is King? And it's like, I'm sorry, they won't. And so this is this kind of like weird wedge thing online. But yeah, Jordan Peterson is kind of getting woke now that we're talking about it. I think there may be something going on. That'll be one to watch. I guess, yeah, maybe tune in tomorrow when we have Jordan Peterson on the Bulwark YouTube channel to give us all the latest developments in anti-dark triad psychology is that what you said called it

the dark dark tetrad well dark dark triad was kind of the one before like a previous thing and i guess maybe he's added a new one and now it's the dark tetrad does that correspond to the four percent is that just like it's four percent so it's a tetrad or is that i think it's like narcissism psychopathy and like you know a couple other things but i mean so we're talking like hard pop psychology here. It's not, well, I was gonna say to be clear, it's extremely made up. But it's just really like he goes on Kennedy and it'll be like, you got to watch out for these dark tetrad types. Right, right, right. Sounds good to me. Steer clear of narcissists and all the other ones that you mentioned. Yeah, I think narcissists, psychopaths, and then I think there's a couple other like, you know, real negative types you want to stay clear. Yeah, yeah. Well, I call those the

big two among the dark triad. The nice the narcissist and the psychopaths are, you know, you can stop there as far as I'm concerned. Okay, thanks, Will. We and we can stop there. We'll stop there. Thanks, Will, for coming on to talk through Pete Hegseth and Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson and all of the amazing stuff that's always going on on the right these days. Thanks to everybody out there for, uh, for listening, uh, share the video, subscribe to the channel, go to the bullwork.com, subscribe to Will's false flag newsletter, subscribe to my morning shots newsletter if you want to, while you're at it. Uh, and we'll see y'all next time.