The Bulwark Podcast - Mark Hertling: Defending American Values

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

While North Korea has jumped in to arm Russia, Republicans in Congress are dallying over supporting Ukraine. Plus, presidential hit squads, Lloyd Austin's hospitalization, and the tinderbox in the Mideast.  Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling joins Charlie Sykes today.

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talk about what's happening in Ukraine, what's happening in Congress. We need to talk about what's going on with the Secretary of Defense, but first we have to talk about a genuinely gobsmacking moment that took place in a D.C. courtroom yesterday. We're joined today by General Mark Hertling, retired Lieutenant General and CNN military analyst, is a former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and the Seventh Army. General Hertling, welcome back to the podcast. Appreciate it very much. It is always good to be with you. Happy New Year to you. I hope it's a happy New Year. So we have to start with the whole SEAL Team Six presidency

moment that took place yesterday in the D.C. Court of Appeals. I'm guessing most people might have heard about this. A panel of federal appellate judges sounded very, very skeptical of Donald Trump's claims of absolute immunity from charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And the basic gist of his arguments is he can't be prosecuted for any official acts of the president without being first impeached and convicted under the Constitution. Now, what the Constitution actually says is, if you're impeached and convicted, you can still be charged criminally. It makes it very, very clear that you are not above the law. You are not immune from prosecution. Donald Trump's lawyers are actually asking the judges to turn that upside down and essentially say that if you are not convicted, you cannot be charged criminally. So the judges in the case began to drill down into what is it you're actually saying? And that's when

we had the SEAL Team 6 moment. This is Judge Florence Pan asking Trump's lawyer whether a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to kill, to assassinate a political rival, could be criminally prosecuted. Let's play a little bit of this audio. Could a president order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? That's an official act, an order to SEAL Team 6? He would have to be and would speedily be, you know, impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution. But if he weren't, there would be no criminal prosecution, no criminal liability for that. Chief Justice's opinion and my word against Madison and our Constitution and the plain

language of the impeachment judgment clause all clearly presuppose that what the founders were concerned about was not. I asked you a yes or no question. Easy question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution? If he were impeached and convicted first. So your answer is no?

My answer is qualified yes. There is a political process that would have to occur under the structure of our Constitution, which would require impeachment and conviction by the Senate in these exceptional cases. Okay, that is a bizarre moment. That's probably the moment where everybody in that courtroom realized you're going to lose this case because it is truly bizarre. But General Hurley, your reaction to all of this, that you actually have the former president arguing in court that he should be absolutely immune from any crime unless he is convicted by the Senate. It is so upside down, Charlie. When I first heard the tape last night on the news, I just couldn't believe we had taken another

step on the Uber ride to craziness with Trump and his lawyers. It's just ludicrous that he would even think that for not only the reasons of immunity, but also the misread of, as you stated, and I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I do know that's Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution about impeachment. And the other thing, I took it a little step further. I'm thinking to myself from the standpoint of the military folks who would be asked to do something like that. You're, first of all, asking SEAL Team 6 to commit a crime. It's an illegal order, which if their commanders are good, and they are, they wouldn't allow SEAL Team 6 to do that, even with a presidential directive, because SEAL Team 6 doesn't have immunity, and they don't

have the impeachment clause. So if they kill a fellow citizen at the orders of someone else, they're a hit squad as opposed to a military organization, number one. So they would go to jail for murder. Unless the president said, I will pardon you for this. Well, still, they're being pardoned for a crime and they're still going to hold that felony conviction as part of the pardon. The second thing was it just showed to me how much Mr. Trump does not understand and his lawyers don't understand what the military does, but they're also willing to put soldiers or in this case, sailors, SEAL Team 6 members in a wedge of being held accountable for a crime, even though they think they can get off scot-free. It was ludicrous on so many counts.

And I agree with you after reading some of the transcripts of the court hearing yesterday, it's apparent to me that this has taken a turn for the horrible for Mr. Trump. The other thing I'd mention, Charlie, these are the kind of things, you know, having been in combat in Iraq and seen some things in Afghanistan, these are some of the things that leaders do in the early days of those countries as they were seeking democracy, non-judicial punishment to their political opponents. It's taking us to a level that just is counter to everything we swear to uphold in the Constitution. Now, I know we'll be accused of taking extreme hypotheticals, but I do think it's important to put this into context that Donald Trump seems to have embraced the Nixon doctrine that when the president does

it, it is not illegal. He seems to believe that under Article 2, that his power is absolute. And he said this over and over and over again. He has said at various points that he would pardon people if they committed things that were considered to be criminal. He said that to certain border agents. He's made it very clear that he thinks the military will do whatever he tells them to do and has shown a willingness to pardon people who have committed war crimes. So Donald Trump's view of the military makes this, I think, a relevant hypothetical because in his mind, the military is his and is loyal to him and will have to do what... Do you remember back, I think it was during

the 2016 campaign, he said that he would order the murder of the family of terrorists. And when people pushed back and said, well, that would be a war crime, he basically says, well, I'm the commander-in-chief, they would do it. If I told them to do it, they would do it. I mean, in his mind, you know, this is a possibility. Now, is he going to order SEAL Team 6 to murder Joe Biden? Probably not. But if you're arguing you have immunity, the judges have taken this to its logical conclusion, haven't they? They have. And he not only said he was going to do that during the campaign, he did it in a couple of key cases with war criminals. You remember the case of the Navy SEAL, the army captain, both of them. One of them had already been declared guilty. The other one hadn't even gone to trial yet.

And he pardoned both of them, as well as saying things like he was not only going to kill terrorist families, but he was also going to steal the oil from Iraq. I mean, all of those things are war crimes. So again, if a lawyer says this in court and does it very nonchalantly and tries to argue with the judge on this account, it tells me there's a criminal mindset behind that argument, that that is a possibility. It certainly was an extreme example that the judge can use, but it certainly was a indicator of what he would do. Well, and speaking of extreme examples, you know, while the lawyer, and this is a lawyer named John Sauer, who's apparently, you know, a pretty well-known

lawyer, while he said that the president would speedily be impeached in such a case, an AP reporter on Twitter noted that the same president could also order the killing of dissenting members of Congress, making impeachment impossible. I mean, once you go down this rabbit hole, there's really no way around all of this. So let's talk about some other things. I'm going to spend more time on this tomorrow when I talk with Ben Wittes from Lawfare. I wanted to get your take on the whole story of the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. I understand that you were a classmate of his at West Point. You know him. Tell me about your reaction to the fact that he has been hospitalized. Yesterday, we learned that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in December, had a minimally invasive

procedure in December. But this latest hospitalization was kept secret from the White House for days. The public was informed late last Friday. I was not only a classmate of Secretary Austin, but I served under him in Iraq. He was my commander when I commanded a division there. We are friends. I know his personality and his personality is one of being an extremely private person. He also has the military mentality of whenever tough things are happening, you just ruck up and drive on, you know, as an expression we use. He is an introvert. I think he wanted to get this procedure done during his leave period.

He took two days of leave. And then unfortunately, there were complications. All of that said, there are many things that are part of the background of this story. I've said from the beginning, there are no excuses. You tell your boss when you're going into the hospital. You let people know, even though you don't have to tell them the details of your procedures of what your injury or your malady is, but you do say, hey, I'm going to see a doctor. I'd rather not talk about it, but I'll be out in the net for a couple of days. He didn't do that. And I think it's all part of his psyche of wanting to get through something without bothering other people.

That's how Secretary Austin Lloyd is. That's the kind of person he is. And by the way, I admire him greatly. I think he's done a masterful job as the Secretary of Defense. And whereas this was a blunder, there's no doubt about it, the people calling for resignation or for him to be fired over this, I think that's a little bit over the top personally. Well, and of course, the Biden White House has to be tremendously frustrated, but they also know that replacing him would be fraught, particularly in this election year. And given what the Republican stance is, we've had Tommy

Tuberville hold up promotions for most of the last year, the kind of games that they might play with confirmation of a secretary of defense, even though, you know, obviously this is at a dangerous time. The downside of this is that, and he didn't mean to, but he clearly, you know, provided ammunition to Biden critics who would accuse him of not being in control of his own administration. You know, how could you not know that, you know, perhaps your most critical member of your cabinet, secretary of defense is off the grid. How could you not know this? And that's a tough spot to put your boss in. And my guess is that in the military thing is the one thing you don't want to do is you don't want to do something that puts your boss, somebody, you know, higher in the

chain of command in an embarrassing position like this. Yeah. You're always trying to support your boss as best you can or tell him where he's going to strike. And Secretary Austin didn't do that. And that's the unfortunate part of it. Yeah, I can't personally figure out why he did this, other than that he thought he'd do it quickly and get in and out and all things would be done and no harm, no foul. But things went south. So he's now being held accountable.

And unfortunately, it's causing a lot of arrows to be shot at the entire administration, as you mentioned. You actually made a very insightful point on CNN that had not occurred to me until I heard you say it, you know, that, okay, he's a private person. He has got that military, you know, just buck up. And, you know, maybe he thought it was no, no arm, no foul. But you also pointed out that prostate cancer is a particularly difficult illness for a

lot of guys to talk about. And so it probably was all those planets aligned for him. OK, so let's move on because the world is I want to the world is burning, but there is so much going on all around the world. I wanted to get your take on I want to get to Ukraine in a moment. Well, let's go to Ukraine right now, because, you know, as I was preparing for this, I was thinking that one of the most dangerous things in 2024 has been the fact that Ukraine is kind of feels like it's on the brink. And there's a real danger that we're going to forget about it, that it is no longer at the top of the agenda. Congress continues to play games, the Republicans in Congress, Republicans in the House continue to play games. And the Mideast and other things have shifted it. We have limited attention spans.

So let's talk about what happened in Ukraine, because, you know, while Republicans are stalling their negotiations over support for Ukraine, I mean, Russia sees an opening. Two things. Number one, they see Ukraine running low or out of equipment and ammunition, and they also see the clock running, knowing what might happen in the November election. So give me your assessment right now is the conditions of the battlefield. It is not a stalemate, as many people think. I think what you're seeing, and I'll use a theoretical term, a doctrinal term of culmination. Both sides have culminated. Ukraine has culminated to a degree on the offense that they were trying to execute during the summer and the spring and into the fall. Russia has culminated on the defense, and that's a different type of culmination

because when you don't think you can gain any strength from the defense, you go on the offense. The problem with that and Russia is they are horrible at offensive operations. They have proven that in multiple occasions. So they are throwing newly mobilized forces, new equipment into the fray. But on the daily reports that I get from friends and colleagues, both in Ukraine and from the military, Ukraine is continuing to hold their own on the front line. They are not losing ground. And in fact, they are decimating Russian forces, newly mobilized troops that are coming after them.

Now, Ukraine is, of course, losing people too. That's the bad thing. And the other thing, as you mentioned, is they are beginning to see and experience a supply disruption from the United States over this couple of weeks moratorium that Congress delayed weapon shipment and monetary shipment to them. Having said that, when you're talking about two forces that are tactically at culminating points and are trying to switch either from the offense to the defense or the defense to the offense, it's going to appear like there's a stalemate. It is not. Russia is reverting back to their strategy and their operations of hitting

infrastructure targets. They have received a whole lot of equipment from their new allies of North Korea and Iran. It was reported yesterday that Iran is now providing Shahid-107 drones, which is a distinction that says these drones can go up to 1,500 kilometers to strike targets. And they're aiming more toward not just infrastructure targets in Ukraine, but the potential for Ukraine to build military capacity. What do I mean by that? Well, there have been many NATO nations, a few in particular, who have said, we are going to move our capabilities into Ukraine and help you develop your own resources. Those are becoming part of the target package that Russia is attacking. So a combination of both heating, water facilities,

and now infrastructure, military infrastructure, is going to cause significant challenges for Ukraine to overcome. Russia, on the other hand, has been struck with a lot of Ukraine rockets too. Some of the drones and rocket systems that various countries have given them, to include us, have hit very good targeting packages. And what I say by that is Ukraine has learned a significant amount in this two years of war of how to do precise targeting of key military targets. So they are doing a pretty good job in hitting behind the lines in places like it's been reported Belgrade and in other areas closer to Moscow, which is scaring the heck out of the Russian people. At the same time, I think it's been recorded in a lot of business journals and economic forums, Russia is in bad shape from feeding their people

to providing heat and water and the kinds of things that are necessary for citizens. But unfortunately, Russian citizens are used to that. So it's just more problems for them. Now, taking it from the battlefield to the more strategic approach, you know, yesterday, the United States was able to produce 47 supporting nations in the UN that would condemn North Korean for the arms shipment to Russia. That's a big deal. A few weeks ago, and it went under the radar, there was a lot of work by the administration on supporting long-term viability of Ukraine's industrial base. There were 100 Ukrainians, about NATO armament directors, and over 1,000 industrial reps that met together and started working across

bases on things like electronic warfare to affect Russian missiles, logistics support, which is something that Ukraine is in dire need of, training of maintainers and of senior level officials in the Ukrainian military, which they have kind of faltered truthfully, contract maintenance team. So all of those things are happening. When you're looking to the future, you know, the 75th NATO summit is going to be in. this summer. And we're already starting to see indicators of key countries. I saw a report on Chancellor Schulz in Germany this morning talking about how he wanted to persuade his fellow Europeans to provide more to Ukraine for as long as it took. Wow, what a change for Germany from their stand on the war. So all of these things are critically

important. But I think the most important thing that's received the most attention is Congress dealing with support for both Ukraine and Israel. In times when democratic institutions are being threatened, the sovereignty of people are being threatened. And yet our opponents, in this case, Russia, is having support generated from nations like Iran, North Korea and China. You have said that Ukraine is going to have to back off the offensive, that they will have to adjust their ways and means on the battlefield. So without saying that the offensive has not succeeded, you are saying that they're going to have to back off, that they're going to have to shift to a different way. Describe what that will look like. Yeah, temporary. I mean, this is something that every commander faces. When do I go on the offense? When do I go on the defense? How do I husband resources to attack on another day later on? You know, tempo, as I was once told

by a great mentor of mine, General Fred Franks, you know, tempo isn't always fast and it always isn't going after someone. You have to know when to go slow and when to go fast and when to, you know, husband your resources to attack another day. And I think that's what Ukraine is going to do. They are adamant that they are not going to allow Russia to take over their land. I wish we were as adamant on that in our Congress today. As you point out, Russia's getting arms from Iran. They're also getting missiles from Korea. And yet we have a Congress of the United States that cannot get out of its own way. The Republican Party becomes increasingly isolationist, particularly as Trump

reasserts his control. We kind of know where, I mean, we know where Donald Trump stands, how he is going to approach this particular issue. Your reaction watching this all play out to see Republicans in Congress essentially willing to abandon Ukraine at this point? It's a hard thing for me to talk about, Charlie, because I've experienced it to a degree in combat myself. When politicians are debating issues, when there are individuals being killed on the battlefield while we're waiting for decisions, it's a hard thing to take. And the only people that realize that are soldiers and their families. I mean, all I can say is we have a system where there's checks and balances and Congress approves the purse strings and they determine when we go to war and when we support other

nations while an administration, a president, his or her administration are attempting to conduct foreign policy. And there's a strategic tension there. That's our system. Sometimes it works very well. Sometimes it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate when you have people who don't see the importance of the policy and the strategy that a nation is trying to exhibit. And I think that's the main thing that we're seeing now in our Congress, that we have a strategy to help a like-minded nation regain its sovereignty and territory. And yet we're playing around with power plays and people who

are saying things either about the nation or the military or the institutions that just aren't true. I don't personally know as a soldier what you can do about that when you just have individuals who don't get it. That's the part that's infuriating. If we were to put Lauren Boebert or Matt Gaetz on the battlefield in Ukraine for about 20 minutes, they might get it. But right now, they're just playing with power. And I hate to use those two names, but it's true. All right, let's switch gears and talk about what's going on in the Middle East. You have been discussing this on CNN. Obviously, the region is a tinderbox. How worried are you about an escalation of that conflict that started back in October? We have Israel in Gaza. We'll talk about how they're handling that, but the

danger of a wider war, particularly with the attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, how worried are you? I'm extremely worried about it. It could happen at any time. And I think Hezbollah is waiting for the right time to go full force. While I think most of the media is focused on Israeli actions in Gaza and the results on innocent Palestinians, citizens who are unfortunately put up as shields in every operation. And I'm seeing some of the reports from the Israeli army and the kinds of things they are facing in Gaza are exponentially more difficult than anything I ever faced in Iraq in multiple tours there or any of our forces ever faced in Afghanistan. Specifically what, like what kinds of things you're talking about here?

Just the kinds of locations that Israeli forces are finding weapons manufacturing in tunnels that are underneath schools and mosques and UN headquarters and hospitals and in children's rooms and in kindergartens. I mean, those kinds of targeting requirements would drive a commander, and I've experienced this, crazy, because you have to then weigh, do you hit that target or not? And what are the repercussions? Israel is being held accountable for all these things, and people are asking them to soften their approach. But there are just a boatload of arms facilities and caches throughout Gaza underneath key civilian facilities. So they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they don't go after these targets, they're going to continue to have a terrorist threat. And we see that every day, don't we?

We see every time there's a lull or a pause, or even when there's not a lull or a pause, there are still dozens of rockets being fired by Hamas from Gaza into Israel. So it helps them speed up their operations. But what you've mentioned, and I'll kind of address now, is what about the other threats? Lebanon alone, I'm seeing reports on a daily basis, it almost appears to me that the actions in southern Lebanon against Israeli forces and Israeli forces back are almost as kinetically intense as anything you're seeing in Gaza, perhaps not the same kind of reporting. But then you had yesterday 21 drones and missiles and cruise missiles fired out of Yemen toward the Red Sea that were intercepted by U.S. ships.

I mean, all of these missiles or rockets or drones, cruises could cause extensive death and casualties, much like we're seeing in Ukraine. So it's a constant warfare. Israel's being blamed for everything, and yet they are continuing to be attacked on three different sides. Yeah, three different sides. So we have Gaza, we have Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then we have this attempt to close the Red Sea by the rebels. And let's talk about this. You know, this is the disruption of global shipping lanes in the Red Sea. And there have been calls for strikes in Yemen to address the Houthi attack. What do you think that we ought to do? How aggressive should the Biden administration be in going after these? Now, by the way, the Houthi rebels are Iranian backed. They are. Right. So is this Iran basically giving the green light to this?

I mean, is Iran playing into this in an overt way? It's them playing in a covert way. And they are certainly playing in it. We have evidence of that, that they are backing Houthis, just like they are backing the PMF forces in Iraq, the kind that had a cruise missile, an Iranian cruise missile in Babel, in southern Iraq, near the gates of Babylon, just like they have in Syria, just like they have in northwestern Iraq. So yeah, it's all Iranian backing. And I think your innuendo there is, do we go after Iran? There is a plausible deniability by Iran saying, hey, we can't control what these guys are doing.

But then the next question is, do you hit targets inside of Yemen? Then there is more complexity because where are those targets? We don't have accurate targeting data other than from satellites and spy planes. I mean, things above ground. They're in the middle of a civil war with Saudi Arabia. Are we then supporting Saudi Arabia? Do we have the right kind of targeting data? Do we draw ourselves in by striking multiple targets and suddenly people want to strike more? And does it then become warfare? Anytime you attack inside of another country, you've basically declared war.

There is the preponderance of how do we conduct a preemptive strike versus an offensive strike. There are two very different things that have different repercussions. Well, I mean, and this is escalating. I mean, just on Tuesday, they launched their biggest assault on merchant vessels so far. And there are rocket fire, there's drones, warships are deployed, but no vessels reported damage out there. So talk to me a little bit about what we did in December when we announced Operation Prosperity Guardian, this U.S.-led coalition to end the Houthi blockade in the Red Sea. We have about 20 members in this coalition. I mean, once again, this is kind of below the radar screen that once again, we have pulled

together a coalition of the willing to do this because this has global implications if we do not shut this down. Yeah, it does. It certainly does. And I think, again, we'll go back to Secretary Austin. He was the one that started putting that coalition together as only he could as the secretary of defense and as a former soldier. He understands the implications of that. And this isn't the first time that kind of coalition has been in the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Aden. I remember during my time as a commander in Europe in 2012, that there was an anti-piracy coalition going on that was way below the entire noise level of anybody in the United States. Nobody knew what was happening, even though there was a film about Captain Phillip and his ships being captured. Piracy was a big deal back in the 2011-12 standpoint. What you basically have is a kinetic piracy by the Houthi rebels trying to interfere with shipping, not taking over the ships, but trying to destroy them and threatening shipping companies from sending vessels through this waterway, which is going to affect the global economy. And complicating all of this, there are the military problems and the military threats. There's also the political problem of having our closest ally in the region headed by somebody,

you know, who is as, shall we say, politically and ethically challenged as Benjamin Netanyahu. Joe Biden made the decision to embrace Netanyahu in the early days after the Hamas attack, after October 7th. He actually flew there, basically pledged complete solidarity. It's one thing to have complete solidarity with Israel and the Israeli people, but the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is deeply unpopular. His right-wing politics have alienated much of the nation, including much of the military. And it's certainly not clear whether or not he even has the support of the Israeli population. And he's proven himself to be a rather erratic ally. So that seems to be a real difficult problem for Joe Biden. You want to support Israel, but Israel's government is in many ways inherently

untrustworthy. How do you navigate something like that? Well, the first thing I'd say is Israel's government has been having these problems for many years. And we have noticed it. And you know that. That's why you're laughing. And do you take the time when Israel is threatened by enemies on three different fronts to really go hard after Netanyahu? Or is there, as you said, the very complexities of how do you maneuver through a government that you know is tainted and is just not doing right for all of the Israeli people, but is supported

by the right to the extreme? Sound familiar, doesn't it? And how do you support an ally that's under threat while at the same time telling their lead official, hey, you've got to do things a little bit differently? I think any nation in the world would rebel or any national leader would rebel if someone from the outside came in and said, you need to clean up your act, buddy. The only difference is that we are providing quite a bit of arms to Israel right now in their time of need. So there is a manner of influence. But, you know, the only thing I can say is, you know, I'm just a simple soldier. This is way beyond my capability to understand the

complexities of these kind of issues that go before the president of the United States that only, who only deals with the toughest of issues. He doesn't deal with the simple problems. And that's what he's dealing with in Netanyahu right now. Well, speaking of complexity, I am embarrassed to tell you that, you know, as we, right before we began recording this podcast, we were running through the things we want to talk about. And you mentioned, and we should talk about what's going on in Ecuador. And frankly, General, this is where I sort of paused and went, okay, I'm not sure I know what's going on in Ecuador and what we should be paying attention

to it. So bring me up to speed, please. Well, there is significant civil unrest. There is certainly a little bit of authoritarian rule right now in terms of putting down that civilian unrest and demonstrations. So it is another issue of what might be contributing to what is happening on our southern border. All of these things are interconnected. There are no simple problems. And when you're talking about the kinds of things that are going on in Ecuador, Venezuela, you can name three or four other countries in South and Latin America and the effects

that they have on the migrant flow. It's certainly not something we can not look at and say, what are our capabilities to contribute to a better life for people? Because if they don't get a better life in their own country, they're going to want to try and get a better life in ours. And that's why I think we're seeing such significant increases in immigrants coming to our southern border. Do we have any capability of making things better in Ecuador? I mean, hasn't this been a long trail of futility, trying to deal with many of these problems? I mean, there are some things that are outside

America's control. Is this one of them? Yeah. And what I'd say is one of the examples I use whenever anyone says it's outside our control and we can't do anything about it, is I go back to the Columbia of the 1980s and 1990s when they had such massive drug problems and killing of judges and political officials. And there was significant effort by the United States to help them work through that. And now Columbia, even though they're not completely clean,

they have turned into a much more democratic and safe nation than they were during those periods of the Pablo Escobars. It just takes work. This is a great point because that seemed hopeless back then. I mean, it seemed like it was completely hopeless that there was nothing. I mean, I remember back then, you know, when you, anytime you had, you know, an honest judge or an honest prosecutor, the attorney general, they were, they were being murdered. How do you push back against them? You had a sense that this was in a complete death spiral.

And as you point out, you know, for the people who counsel despair, you can make some progress. You don't fix everything, but you can make progress. You can. As a smart guy once told me, you can't wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time. So you've got to do one or the other. And I think around the world, we've got a lot of rolling up our sleeves to do.

And that's why going back to the very first question you asked me about what happened in court yesterday, you got to have people who sort of understand the world and how it works and not be so intent on making their their own power greater at the expense of others. Well, let's loop back to that because there's one other question that's been hanging out that you've talked about and has been written about extensively. How serious is the problem of political extremism in the military? And I'm not talking about at the highest ranks, but the number of people in the military, we've seen the radicalization of so many segments of our society. And I have to be honest with you. I think that Donald Trump is counting upon the radicalization of elements in the military at some point. And I don't think that's paranoid. I think he's made it very clear.

You know, he said the people with the guns are on our side. He's actually said this explicitly. So give me your take on all of this. How concerned are you about extremism in the military? And how serious a problem is this? How worried should we be? How worried are you? the military. And what that report says, surprisingly, is yes, there is extremism in the veteran population, which is significantly worse than it is in the active population. The details of that report were fascinating. There is admittedly some extremists in the military. It's understandable because the military recruits, the professional U.S. military recruits from the population. So you're going to have different segments of the population represented.

And in many cases, you're going to have the more, quote, patriotic young people coming in. And sometimes they bring a little bit of baggage. But what I'll tell you, Charlie, I mean, this is almost never mentioned when people introduce me, but right before I took command of the U.S. Army in Europe, I was a commander of all of the U.S. Army basic training units, 27 different bases throughout the country. One of the things my boss asked me to do when I took command of that organization was recheck how we were training military values, our seven army values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. None of those things sound like wokeness. Yeah, don't get me started on that. in a society that may be tainted, depending on where they come from, into bringing about

camaraderie, teamwork, and a dedication to something bigger than themselves. And when we do that, we have to train them in certain values that guide their way, that help them make decisions. It was always a part of basic training, but during our war years of 2002 to 2012 or so, it started to dissipate. So my boss wanted me to reinstitute that as well as a couple other things. What we found was that was the most effective training we had, that it really set a guiding light for our young people in the military. Now, I don't know what the status of that is right now. We have a son who's an

active duty military member, and he says it's strong. But what I'll tell you is we do focus on inserting values, the military values, the national values. And I don't see that truthfully, and I'll say this openly, I don't see the insertion of values in any other segments of society. We have a whole lot of companies that say, here are our company's values. But if you ask employees of those companies, they probably can't tell you what they are. So I think it's a return to behaviors and norms that contribute to the greater good. And I think we as a nation, and this is a personal soapbox now, we've kind of gone away from understanding key professional and personal values that contribute to our nation. Not to mention civics education. Yeah. Well, and we have congressmen and senators who say, hey, I stand for America's values. Really? What are they?

Yeah. And they are found in things like the speeches of Lincoln and Martin Luther King and Kennedy's inaugural and Roosevelt's Four Freedoms and the Declaration and the Constitution. But ask a congressman sometimes, what are American values? And if they don't say respect and integrity and some of the things that really emanate from some of those speeches and documents. Because you know what? You would not normally think that a question like that would be a gotcha question. But now you've got me really fascinated, you know, on Meet the Press or on CNN or, you know, to have a Republican congressman, you know, tell me about what you think are American values. I would really be fascinated to hear the word salad that comes out of some of those folks. And then, of course, the follow-up questions, and how do you reconcile those values with X, Y, and Z?

And those are sort of fundamental questions, but I think you're right. I think they would be extremely difficult for many of the politicians. Well, what some of them would probably do was immediately apply it to wokeness, as you said before. Yeah, right, yeah. We don't need all that.

We just need guns, you know? Or go back to some sort of boilerplate type thing, but you are absolutely right. General Mark Hertling, retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, is a CNN military analyst, former commanding general of U.S. Army, Europe, and the Seventh Army. Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast today, General. It's a pleasure, Charlie, and I apologize for pontificating a little bit about values, but I think it's an important subject. No, I think that was the best part of the whole discussion, honestly. Leaves me with a hopeful note, which we don't always do. Thank you all for listening

to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow and we'll do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.