Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Rocked by Scandal Spiraling Out of Control

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

We may be watching the greatest meltdown in Pentagon leadership history, with Pete Hegseth needing 3 different baby sitters and constant White House coverups, just to screw up his job and our national security on a daily basis. Michael Popok reports on a new exposé by the Pentagon’s former chief spokesperson and new reporting that Hegseth uses his wife, brother, and personal lawyer as his babysitters and handlers before he makes major decision, showing just how weak and incompetent he really is. Head to https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/collections/sale?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=legalaf right now to get 15% off your entire order with code LegalAF! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That breathy one sounded very creepy, am I right? Are we watching one of the greatest meltdowns of the Pentagon in our history, especially in the first 85 days, just a month of total chaos at the Pentagon? Now, I would love to say those are my words completely, but that's a paraphrase of somebody who was the leading spokesperson at the Pentagon until just a few days ago. And John Uliot wrote a new opinion piece at the Politico, basically just divulging all the secrets. So when we just learned over the weekend, through New York Times reporting, that Pete Hegseth set up a separate signal chat on his personal phone to include his lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who somehow got a gig

to be a naval reservist assigned to the office of the Secretary of Defense. So he's employed his own lawyer in his office, weird. He included in this chain his wife, Jennifer, his brother, Phil, who works at Homeland Security. It's a family affair. And he set up a separate signal chat. At the same time, he set up this group chat.

It was a participant in the group chat, along with Michael Waltz, his national security advisor, that we did all the reporting about last month, in which he put 18 different people into a signal chat to talk about an attack on the Houthis before it happened and he included Jeffrey Goldberg from the Atlantic, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, into the group chat.

He had a separate group chat that he had set up during his confirmation process involving his wife, his brother, and his lawyer slash employee. Now, what have we been watching so far? his wife, his brother, and his lawyer slash employee. Now, what have we been watching so far? We've been watching Pete Hegseth over his skis is too kind. We've been watching the complete and utter breakdown of leadership command control structure

and function at the Pentagon. You know where we have command and control function? Might as touch, and you're here with me, Michael Popak and Legal AF, as I dig into not just the Pete Hegseth screw up once again, and this is just the mark of his executive function, how he operates. This is what the Pentagon has become,

but also the coverup behind it and the firings around it. You've got at the same time, as Pete Eggseth says during the Easter egg roll on, he's great for these when the media captures him, he says he just slams the media. He's at the White House Easter egg hunt. He blames the media for his own appointees and all of his latest scandals. Of course, the White House right on cue does the exact same thing. Here's what Carolyn LeVette has to say.

The president stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth. This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change you're trying to implement. Secretary Hegsef was nominated because he's standing up for whatever he's standing up for. And then you've got another spokesperson right on cue with the Trump administration, Sean Parnell, who took over apparently from the guy who wrote the Politico expose, John Ouliat, Sean Parnell now says, "'Another day, another old story, back from the dead. "'The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed

"'with destroying anyone committed "'to President Trump's agenda. "'There was no classified information in any signal chat, "'no matter how many ways they try to write the story.'" Well, it's not mainstream media or liberal media. It's John Oliot who used to work in the Pentagon until just a few days ago. And to protect Hexeth, who should have been fired immediately. Look, I got friends in the military and former military. And when they saw what happened on the original Signal Chat with the 18 people and the reporter all using primarily an unsecure platform,

just one up from WhatsApp to talk about bombing the Houthis. He was like, everybody should be fired. Everybody should be canned. But Donald Trump can't do that. I mean, he's busy firing every other day somebody that heads up his eternal revenue service. So what they needed was a scapegoat. So they made Hegseth fire three guys.

A guy named Caldwell, a guy named Selnik, and another guy named another eight of his. These was his chief of staff and two of his closest aides since while he was on Fox and Friends. Okay, they're gone. They all got canon. They posted on X all thing. Whoa, was there really an investigation about the leak? And you know, we would support Hegseth and his attempts to restructure the Pentagon.

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But what does it mean? It means that we have a guy who's been accused already of public drinking, of saying things out loud in Europe that undermine diplomacy, that undermine our attempt to help apparently Ukraine win its war with Russia. We have mass firings going on at the Pentagon that he doesn't seem to understand what it means for national security. He sets up two competing signal chats, one we know about because the Atlantic editor-in-chief was added to it and the other we just found out about it. So now they're gonna get to the bottom of who's leaking now, because how did the New York Times find out about this personal cell phone signal chat set up to talk about

an attack on Yemen, including his wife? And why is his wife's on there? Why is Jennifer there in a group chat? It just shows you how insecure he is and how much lack of confidence and command and commanding presence he has. He has to include his wife, his lawyer, and his brother in all major decisions about the Pentagon? I mean, this is mind boggling. Now you know why the leading spokesperson who just left and wrote a piece for Politico

said this is meltdown and total chaos of epic proportion. We're watching the Pentagon go down the drain and Donald Trump, as we know, is now going to dig in to protect him because it'll make Trump look bad. Forget what it does to the national security. Forget what it does to undermine our ability to protect ourselves that we have an incompetent running the Pentagon, right? And its budget, I think it's a trillion dollar budget, three million service people and others. I mean, he is an incompetent and it's not getting any better with the other people around million dollar budget, three million service people and others.

I mean, he is an incompetent and it's not getting any better with the other people around him. Who's going to go first in the administration? We're not sure yet. The problem is that Donald Trump wants these people around him because he doesn't want a majority of his cabinet to get together and gang up on him and try to take him out by the 25th Amendment. So he needs somebody like Hegseth.

Oh, it's the media. It's not the media. It's your poor performance. It's not the media. It's your bad decision-making. It's not the media. It's your immaturity. Stop blaming the media for reporting on your bad acts and your bad conduct. What do you expect? This is the problem I have with the Trump administration among many. What do you expect? This is the problem I have with the Trump administration, among many. What do you expect the media, independent media like Midas Touch and Legal AF to do? Sit on the story, not report on it.

It's okay with you that he's added his wife about war plans against the Yemenis. That's okay with you? And look at how many babysitters they need to have around this idiot. Got his wife babysitter, his brother babysitter, his lawyer they had to give a job in the Pentagon so that he's babysat. I mean look at all seriously look at all the handlers they had to put around this guy, the rubber room they had to put around this guy, you know, and take away all of his sharp scissors. He is a moron. We thought so. But while we watched

him for 12 years, we saw the books, we read the book, sorry, we read the books, we saw Fox and Friends weekend, we saw him doing the ball drop because he's a pretty face and an empty and an empty head. We saw it. Does that make him the head of the Pentagon? Why are we shocked that 85 days in Donald Trump's entire cabinet is melting down? I'm gonna do another hot take here about he has to restructure the Secretary of State's office because he has no confidence in Marco Rubio We Marco Rubio is not the Secretary of State Steve Witkoff Donald Trump's golfing and crypto buddy. Maybe Donald Trump maybe Elon Musk, sure.

Marco Rubio, I don't care what his oil painting says. I don't care what the website says. He is not the Secretary of State. And if he had any balls and he had any honor, he would have already resigned after the Zelensky debacle, after the USAID debacle, after the fight with Elon Musk, you name it, you pick it. After him being told to do flips and turn around,

he used to support the Venezuelan community, and now he's attacking the Venezuelan community, Marco Rubio, little Marco needs to go back to Florida. But this is the incompetence that are in Donald Trump's administration. We'll continue to follow it right here on the MidasTouch Network. While you're here, hit the subscribe button

for MidasTouch and then boom, come on over to Legal AF MTN for MidasTouch Network where I curate that channel. We're adding about 70,000 people a month. Be the 70,000th and one as we continue to grow that channel to one million before our one year anniversary. Can only do it with you. And then you'll get reminders about all the content

we're doing there, because if I'm doing one or two a day on Midas, we're doing a dozen a day at the intersection of law and politics over on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. So until my next report, my next Legal AF podcast, I'm Michael Popock. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at LegalAFMTN. That's at LegalAFMTN.