The Daily Beast Podcast - Generals Tell Truth About How Trump Endangers U.S.

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

Joanna Coles dives into Trump’s troubled relationship with the U.S. military, unpacking disastrous parades, loyalty tests, and pep rallies that left generals cringing. With insights from Michael Wolff, David Rothkopf, and top retired brass, we reveal how strategy was sidelined for spectacle—and what it means for the country. Retired generals and lawmakers weigh in on the risks Trump’s style posed to U.S. readiness. We also get an inside look at Pete Hegseth and the chaos behind the scenes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Joanna Coles. This is The Daily Beast podcast, and in today's episode, we're going to look back on our coverage of Donald Trump and the military. Over the past year, the Daily Beast podcast has been unpacking every jaw-dropping moment of Trump's attempts to wield power, charm generals and change the nature of the most powerful fighting force in history. We've brought in former generals who've lived it, they've studied it, and they know the military's values that Donald Trump is. attempting to subvert. Author Michael Wolf, the man who decodes Trump's every misstep, walks us through the $45 million military birthday parade that ended in a low-budget cosplay nightmare. And why Trump was furious at his own defense secretary, Pete Heggseth. The Daily Beast's must-read columnist David Rothkoff exposes the full truth behind Trump

and Pete Hegzeth pep rally for generals and admirals. and why the authoritarian impulses we're seeing aren't just alarming. They're already reshaping our world order. Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling pulls no punches about what top brass were really thinking during Trump's rambling speech in front of the military brass in Quantico and the risks they pose to US readiness. Senator Alyssa Slotkin and retired Major General Paul Eaton weigh in on the chaos. the loyalty tests and the battlefield myths that have replaced strategy. And we even get a front row take on Pete Hegzeth himself

and why the mooch thinks he squandered his shot at running for president. So stay with us. You're about to get the inside story from the people who know it best and it's as shocking as it is essential. Michael, so much to discuss, as always. And you're in Can. I'm in Can. Wish I were there.

No, you don't wish you were here. I do, I do. I have been many times, and it's the south of France. It's the south of France. Even with people you detest, which are most of the people who go to Can Lions, it is nevertheless still the south of France. Of course, all anybody is talking about here is Donald Trump and the significance of Donald Trump. And I need to make a quick apology following all the comments we got from our last podcast because I misidentified Senator Padilla. I called him, or Padilla, as you call him, I called him Anthony instead of Alex.

And actually, I didn't realize that he was the senior senator from California. For some reason, I thought Adam Schiff was because Adam Schiff has been on the landscape for such a long time. I mean, but they're both new. Well, exactly. They're both new and relatively new in their senator roles. And is it Padilla or Padilla? You know, technically it's Padilla, but we're in America. People seem to refer to him as Padilla. Anyway, Senator Padilla, if you're listening, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were the senior senator from California. And I also fell guilty, actually, to hyperbole about the state of chaos as I was referring to it in California, which many people point. So it's just not true.

It's a small area of LA that's in lockdown, which makes it even more egregious that Donald Trump has called in the National Guard over the head of Gavin Newsom, who we spoke to last week. Anyway, I wanted to address those comments because many of you wrote in, and you're perfectly, you're perfectly right. So let's get that out of the way. And then we have another very nice comment about your bookshelf, which I'm going to come to right at the end of this podcast.

But obviously, this. weekend, it was the birthday parade. And I am unbelievably curious to find out what you thought of it. And then, as importantly, what the man whose birthday parade it was thought of it too, none other than our own president, Donald Trump. What are you hearing? What are people saying? You know, it's really important to understand when we think about Donald Trump how much time he spends complaining. I mean, nothing makes the man happy. And spending $45 million on a birthday celebration appears not to have made him happy either. He's kind of pissed off. I mean, he's pissed off at the soldiers. I mean, he's accusing them of hamming it up. And by that he seems to mean that they were having a good time, that they were waving, that they were, that they were enjoying themselves and showing a convivial face rather than a military face. Interesting. And he kind of reamed out Hegsseth for this. Apparently, there was a

phone call and he was, and he said to Hegsus, you know, the tone was all wrong. Why was the tone wrong? Why? What, what, who staged this? There was the tone problem. You know, Trump, he keeps repeating himself. So that was the word on that, on that phone call was tone. I would interpret that he, you know, he wanted something menacing, I suppose, you know, something military like, something like, you know, we're, we're, this is, this is the most staggering force in the world and maybe it will come. for you instead of, you know, I think it appeared to a lot of people that this was, that there was a kind of festive air. Everybody was actually celebrating, celebrating something, you know, the 250 years of the U.S. military, probably celebrating that more than Donald Trump's birthday. But it didn't send the message that he apparently wanted, which is that he was the commander-in-chief of this menacing enterprise. Well, certainly having soldiers dressed up in costumes from 200 years ago would not send a menacing vibe to an enemy if they were looking at this. I thought it had the vibes of a sort of trade show,

a trade show for the army, that the plinths that they were sitting on, the sort of theater that the VIPs were sitting on, that Donald Trump was sitting on with next to haggsess and Melania, it looked like it had been put up overnight, and it literally looked like something from a trade show. Yeah, no, no, I mean, it was not, none of this was sending the message that he seems to have wanted to send, which is that this was, which was a threat. I think that's what he wanted. And he got the opportunity. And he got the opportunity. of that. He got a kind of, you know, a kind of a Hamish gathering. Right. Which, by the way, no one went to. The other thing. So, so he's insisted, you know, put it out. He said 250,000 people.

Yeah. Stephen Chang put that out. Yeah, but, but that was from Trump. Put it out. 250,000. That is it, 250,000. He kept, he kept saying this, you know, to everybody else saying, but, but, 250,000. when in fact it was, I mean, the people I know there who were there said tops, tops, maybe 40,000 and probably more like 20,000. You could see the empty bleachers. You could see as the drones pulled back lots of empty lawn. Yeah, I mean, nobody was, I mean, who would go? You know, I mean, it's hard to get anybody a draw to any parade. It's a parade.

I can imagine that, I mean, as a parent of two boys, when they were little, I could imagine having taken them to that because they would be intrigued by watching the men march by. I mean, the thing I found most striking, and I admit, I come from a land where I'm not sure Britain could do very much militarily now, but we sure can put on a good parade. And so the one thing that you can see is all the soldiers marching in time. And the thing I found really striking was that lots of them, of the brigades in Camo, literally weren't in step with each other. I think we're very bad at parades. I think parades are like one of those old-fashioned entertainment things like circuses. I mean, you know, we've, the television has basically put those things out of business a long time ago.

But this was a producer, my understanding is that Pete Hegseth knew who put the thing together. I mean, I don't know why Mark Bennett wasn't involved in putting something together that felt more professional. Yeah, well, it's not even the professional thing that I think is most interesting, that somehow they didn't get the memo from Trump that he wanted threat and menace. And they got the opposite of that. Nice. They got nice. The military is a nice military friendly. We're going to throw sweeps into the crowd, which is, of course, what they do.

And do you think that was a deliberate misinterpretation of his message? Was this actually quite a smart, subversive take on his message? Or do you think it was just accidental? But they really didn't understand. No, I think it probably was subversive or better heads prevailed on. on this as a branding exercise. You know, I mean, Trump's thing, I think, is to think of the military like we thought of it

in the 1950s and 60s when Russia was the enemy and it was a Cold War enterprise, and it was sort of Dr. Strange, Lovian, and we were always, you know, the guys in the military were always ready to be. bomb someone back into the Stone Age. And it was a threatening force then, which I think was very difficult, and many politicians found it very difficult to contain.

But the military has changed radically since then. I mean, it's now a sort of, you know, very, very PR-aware, HR-aware, kind of, you know, they bring in McKinsey consultants all the, all the time. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a much more corporate, I mean, for better or worse, corporate image conscious, and DEI, basically, complex organization. And I think that's what we saw out out there yesterday. and that's not what Trump wanted to see. I don't think he understands that's what the military has become.

Although, you know, in every situation in which he's faced with the military, the top brass, he's always complaining about it. They're always pulling out PowerPoints to show him, and he's always leaving the room because he can't watch a PowerPoint. Right. Well, and you think, you know, obviously the future of, military is much more technical, it's much more cyber, it's relying on drones. I mean, it was hard not to listen to that tank creaking in the silence down the street because nobody was cheering,

that it was like watching fax machines roll by in the age of the iPhone. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that it is, I mean, he is, again, you know, Trump is located somewhere in the past. You know, I've often put it as 1965, all of his references. And I think this, again, he expected to see that kind of military. Instead, he got, you know, the modern military, a complex organization with all kinds of constituencies, very aware of how it is perceived, of how it wants to be perceived. Yeah, well, I loved the robot dog. But what I was struck by was he watching him watching the parade and he looked bored.

I mean, this is a long time for Donald Trump to sit still other than when he was jumping up and saluting. Melania looked bored. Marco Rubio was yawning and Pete Hagezeth just looked extremely anxious to keep sitting there next to the president in charge of this parade. Well, again, it's parades. Americans don't watch parades. Parades are actually boring. They're repetitive. They go on forever and ever. There really is no narrative. It's all old-fashioned. There's no narrative. It reminds me, actually, of I think, the second time Obama's second inauguration, he had to sit there watching all these little bands from small town America. And he was wildly chewing. gum to keep himself, I think, sort of focused. But one was also struck that they're sitting there watching this parade, as you say, with no narrative whatsoever, while the narrative playing out in the Middle East is Israel and Iran going at it, an actual warfare going on while Trump is

cosplaying being commander-in-chief. It goes further than that. This war is taking place. and we are irrelevant to it. We were not even if Trump is rushing forward to kind of try to claim some kind of influence in this thing. He had no influence. And in fact, it was basically against him.

Basically, he got played. They used him, the Israelis appear to have used him as cover. He's carrying on a negotiation which was seeming to go nowhere. And the theory

was that that would go, that Israel would not attack until after that gambit was played out. And of course they did attack, shocking no one so much as Donald Trump. I wanted to start with something that's happening very close to you, actually, in

Quantico at the Marine Corps University. That's where Pete Higgseth has summoned more than 800 generals. So every one, two, three, four star general in the Marine Corps, in the Army, in the Air Force, every Navy Admiral,

and all the top enlisted members of each of those branches have all been summoned for what apparently is just a pep talk. And as we learned over the weekend, of course, guess who wants to get in on the pep talk? One Donald J. Trump, because no event

is incomplete without him. I'll just say that David, you are, you know, one of the greatest, most informed, most knowledgeable people in national security. I'll just start with a really basic question. Is this a good idea? That's a leading question. Of course, this is not a good idea. It's not a good idea on several levels, you know.

On one level, you're putting all of your leading generals and admirals in the same place as a bad idea from the security perspective. on a more practical day-to-day level, since I don't think somebody's going to seize that security threat, the reality is we are distracting the leadership of our military for an exercise, which seems likely to be an empty exercise. This is part of a pattern, right? Because what the administration is doing is saying, we want to have the, the strongest military in the world. But we'd like to deploy a bunch to our borders. But we'd

like to deploy a bunch to our cities. But we're gonna alienate a bunch of people within the military because we're gonna erase the history of people of color in the military. We're gonna erase the history of women in the military. We're gonna erase the history of the LGBT community in the military. And we're gonna fire a bunch of people from those communities because we're going to say that they were hired for diversity reasons. So they're already doing things on day after day after day that are reducing readiness in the United States military, even as they say they want to have this big, tough military force. But then, you know, add to that, why are we bringing them together?

We're bringing them together to hear the views of America's most famous draft Dodger. Donald Trump and this frat boy who spent a few years in the military, but whose life subsequent to that in veterans organizations and everything else was marred by scandal and mismanagement, who is completely unqualified, the guy who is the least qualified Secretary of Defense in our history, and they're going to lecture the career leaders of our military at this particular moment. It is not going down well. I can tell you, I've spoken to a bunch of generals and admirals and people close to them, and I can tell you, it is not going down well.

This is seen as a waste of time, and it offends them at a pretty fundamental level. There might be people who are thinking, oh, well, you know, getting together your generals, well, companies have all hands meeting all the time. You know, we were talking about Apple. Apple has all hands meetings and everybody turns up. What's the difference here? Why is it so important that we have independent thinking or, you know, what are the things that we should be looking for? Well, look, I mean, the Secretary of Defense runs one of the largest, most complex organizations on earth and organization. that is supposed to be devoting itself in real time all the time to the protection of the United States, to raising our readiness to be able to fight any foe that might seek to attack us

and to enable us to be able to use the military as a tool, diplomatic tool, to help us achieve our goals as a nation. This meeting helps achieve none of those things, you know, getting them all together in a room to listen to this frat boy and this draft dodger lecture them about a warrior ethos is, you know, it's ridiculous. It's low comedy to talk about lethality, which Heggs talks about all the time, to the leaders of the most powerful fighting force that has ever been assembled in the history of the world. Nobody doubts the lethality of the United States Department of Defense or the people within the Department of Defense. The only thing they know is we are weaker today than we were nine months ago. Why are we weaker?

Because we've weakened our alliances. Why are we weaker? Because we've strengthened our enemies. Why are we weaker? Because as I said earlier, we've reduced the readiness of our forces and we've gotten rid of a lot of qualified leaders who are super helpful in leading those forces. And so what Hegsteth is doing here, consistent, by the way, with what he's done since he arrived in the office, is actually damaging the Department of Defense and actually weakening us. And, you know, you can see this and everything else. He couldn't keep the staff together.

There were scandals within his office. Nobody wants to work with him. It's ridiculous. And it's what you would get if you got. a Fox TV news host to cosplay as the Secretary of Defense, which is what we've got going on now. You know, we've got this guy, and he's like flexing like he probably did at 100 bars over the course of his life saying, look at me, I'm a tough soldier, and not stop and say, as a Secretary of Defense is supposed to do, how do I make America stronger? How do I make America safer?

What do those generals and admirals that you speak to and those around them, what is their fear? What do they think is coming next? Or what is going to happen as a result of this sort of meetings that could have been emails and cosplay and performative versions of governing? Well, it's, you know, essentially, as one guy said to me, we're essentially letting the air out of the tires, right? We are slowly making ourselves less capable, and we're doing it at a time when it's very clear that the civilian leadership upon which the military defense, the president of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, people who are holding senior positions within the defense community, people holding senior positions within the intelligence community are among the least common. that we've ever had. I would add to that, by the way, that, you know, one of the critical factors in maintaining our national security is, not surprisingly, the National Security Council. And, you know, I've written two books on the National Security Council. I'm kind of a historian

of the National Security Council. And I only say that to make this have a little more impact. We effectively don't have a National Security Council right now. It has been weakened to the weakest point since its creation in 1947 by the National Security Act of 1947. There is no national security advisor, the interim advisor of Marco Rubio, who obviously has three other jobs. And the president doesn't take advice. He doesn't read intelligence. He doesn't get briefed by experts prior to his meetings. He doesn't take experts with him on his way to his meetings. So we've already lobotomized the U.S. government. We've decapitated our own armed forces, and we are weakening them simultaneously. And this is a

problem because the world is a dangerous place. Russia's being more aggressive along the borders of NATO. Israel is destabilizing significant parts of the Middle East. The Iranians are responding to an attack that we made that hurt them but has not stopped them in the development of their nuclear program. There are conflicts elsewhere in the world. China is eyeballing Taiwan as we speak, and people in the military consider that to be the most likely next major conflict. So, you know, it's not like there's nothing to be focused on here, and that doesn't even begin to address, You know, the fact that we're at a technological transformation point where AI and cyber and other kinds of new forms of war fighting unmanned vehicles and so forth, autonomous unmanned vehicles, are on the horizon and need to be developed and need to be developed with real seriousness of purpose. So having a pep rally in Virginia led by a couple of nitwits.

Of course, there was actually some sort of military deployment over. over the weekend and it wasn't one that was abroad or about protecting NATO against Russia. It was 16 National Guard in Oregon were federalized to go and stand outside federal buildings in Portland. I mean, how does that go down at the top of the military and people who are concerned about national security? We have a very special guest in this new edition of the Daily Beast podcast. I am honored to be joined. by Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling General. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for your service. There could be no better person to talk with about the bizarre spectacle. We saw unfold on Tuesday at Quantico in Virginia. Just to catch people up, that's where Pete Heggseth and then Donald Trump addressed about 800 generals and admirals. It was, frankly, it was really something. Hegseth raged at what he called the Department of Woke. He went off about troops having beards. and perhaps more sinisterly he talked about the military being an instrument of overwhelming violence

designed to kill people and break things. He even called rules of engagement stupid. And Trump, let's be frank, he rambled, he croaked for more than an hour. But one part really stood out. That was when he said that what he called dangerous American cities should be used as a training ground for troops. General, I know you were watching, I know you were taking notes. I know importantly that you were speaking to people there with whom you had served. what did they tell you and what was the big takeaway that you had from this?

Well, there were actually two segments of the day. I guess the first one was when Secretary Hegseth began the presentations and then President Trump came in later and followed up. And there were two very different engagements, I thought. The first one was more of a lecture by the secretary against these these hundreds of generals and admirals who had come from all over the world. And before I neglect to say this, the other people in the room were the command sergeant majors, the master chief petty officers, the ones who are probably the closest to the soldiers

because they've grown up in the ranks. And I hate to use this phrase, but they have a better bullshit detector than most. that's part of their training. And so you could tell by just the facial expressions that this was a session to discipline people, that the people in the room were being berated by the secretary. The list of things he talked about, and I was busily taking notes while he was talking,

started off about the so-called Liberation Day for the military where we get back to doing our primary job, of killing people and breaking things. That, truthfully, to me, is offensive because that is what we sometimes have to do, but is not our only mission in light. Then he started talking about the potential for not following up on the laws of land warfare, the Geneva Convention, rules of engagements didn't make any sense to him, suggesting women across the board don't meet the standard. He gave the, I forgot how he mentioned it, but it was, with something about beardos, which has to do with a malady that many soldiers,

primarily black soldiers have that create a shaving profile for them. And he also talked about one of the things that suggested to me, based on a past duty station I had, returning to the days of drill sergeant smoking recruits in basic training. I could go on and on, Hugh, but those were just some of the big ticket items, along with the elimination of the inspector general. I thought that was fascinating because he, in fact, is under investigation for his use of the signal apps. So him saying that is more personal aggrandizement as well as his hawking his own book, The War on Warriors, which was really a compilation of thoughts from a disgruntled soldier.

So if you put that all in a category of what he was talking about, it was berating, it was embarrassing. It's something that leaders across any organization don't do. They don't, they don't insult in public or discipline in public. They do that privately where they praise in public. That's a key factor of leadership. And yet, Secretary Hegset was doing this in front of the world on TV cameras. So it tarnished the reputation of not only those in the room, but I think, think the reputation of all of our military. And that was just the beginning. Well, I was just going to say there's a few things that you raised. And one of them, I was really vecking to speak to you about this because you mentioned drill sergeants and going, I think he talked about going back

to standards. But you, in fact, where I think I just want to get this title right, you were the the first deputy commanding general for initial military training. So if there's one person that knows about what makes military training work and what it shouldn't be, it's you. And did that description of laying hands on recruits and shark attacks and not bullying, he kept saying not bullying, but it sounded pretty much like bullying to an outside observer, is that what the military should be doing to people? people to 18-year-olds that are joining up?

Let me emphatically answer that, Hugh. No, absolutely not. That's what used to be done in the old days. And what I add to that is the old bad days. What we instill in young soldiers in today's army is their ability to be leaders, to be eventual leaders, to someday be a sergeant, even if it's a young private in basic training, they want to aspire to lead others. and we went away from that type of basic training decades ago.

And you're right. I was a deputy commander for training and doctrine command, but I was the commander of initial military training. And in that role, we watched 160,000 civilians come into our basic training sites every year. And in 10 weeks or so, we would train them to be soldiers before they went off to their advanced training in their different specialties. But what I'll tell you is, those two years I spent in initial military training, what we called IMT, were some of the most insightful. I saw some of the most insightful things I ever saw as a soldier, how sergeants will prepare soldiers for the future. And what I'd add to that, Hugh, is during my next tour of duty in Europe, commanding forces in Europe, I had an opportunity to go to Russia several times.

And every time I went there, I saw their approach toward basic training, which was exactly the one that Secretary Hegseth described the other day. The beating of soldiers, the harassment, the laying hands, the dumping of rooms, the hazing. That's what makes a bad army even worse. So when you talk about the quality of our troops compared to the Russians, I'll take ours any day and twice on Sunday. And this was exactly what I found wrong with what Secretary Hegseth was doing. Just let's, there's so much we could talk about this, but I know we want to get to talking about the, what, in some ways, should have been the main event, the commander in chief. And we, I don't think that we actually have a historical precedent for the commander in chief addressing 800, of the most senior members of the military in public.

It's not something that's ever, to anybody's knowledge, I think, happened before. But what was your take away from what you heard from him? And also, what was your takeaway about his manner and his delivery? Because this was unusual, not just historically, but usually when Trump addresses hundreds of people, he expects a reaction. And it was very noticeable. You know, I watched, I think it was two and a half hours in total between him Hexeth. There was no applause. There was no laughter. There was no shouts and screams. And this was not

like I've watched, I don't know, how many hundreds of hours of Trump rallies. This was totally different. What was your takeaway from that? It's interesting, Hugh, because I'll compare it to a couple of things. First of all, I agree with you completely. President Trump fries on applause and sharing and interactions with a crowd. And what he received on Tuesday from the soldiers in the room was quiet, soldiers and all other services was quiet professionalism. And that, I took it as I watched the presentation, that rattled them a little bit. But that silent wasn't disrespect. It was restraint and a professional adherence to standards and the oath of office to not be political. And that was before he got into his very meandering bevy of issues.

But what I'd like to relay is I've seen him speak twice before this, once on television when he spoke to the crowd of 82nd airborne soldiers at Fort Bragg that were recruited to be supporters. Actually, they were said, we are supporters, we want to be close to him. And it turned into a mob scene. and it was anathema to everything that we would want in our professional military. The second time I saw him in person was at the West Point graduation this last May. A thousand incoming lieutenants sitting in front of him, and his speech to them was similar to the one that he gave to the generals and admirals and sergeant's majors yesterday.

It was meandering, it was insulting, it was late. with political diatrives. It was showing how the past administration was horrible, even got in at West Point to someone, a friend of his trophy wife. And what I watched in those young cadets was stone faces, a stoic look, no facial expressions, no rolling of the eyes, because they had been reminded of their professional duty. Now, I'm sure there were some in that audience, just like there was yesterday in the general audience, that support, President Trump and the things that he's doing. But that's not what we do openly when we're wearing the uniform as part of the military. So I think you hit the atmosphere absolutely correctly.

It was a tough crowd for him. And even going back to the West Point graduation, there were the graduates in the crowd, and then there were people in the stands, and there were segments of the stands civilians cheering for him. Okay, they can do that. But the soldiers and the new lieutenants on the field could not and should not. And that's what I think riled him yesterday, because he had an audience of almost a thousand people in that room who were not going to hoot and holler and raise their voices. Our columnist, David Rothkoff, who I know you know, wrote, I think somewhat provocatively and, you know, I think in search of reaction perhaps, but he said that the generals frankly should have walked out. That would have been quite a gesture.

Is that, would that have been wise? No, not at all. That would have shown their unprofessionalism. And, I mean, even though he offered them that opportunity, if there's anybody in that audience that's thinking of resigning because they can't follow legal orders, then they resign later on. They don't do it in a public display of walking out

on the president of the United States. there is the difference between the respect toward the office of the president and the person itself. And all of the people in that room have a deep respect for their commander-in-chief and the office. They sometimes may not see eye to eye, and certainly that was the case yesterday with the actual person. I just wanted to get into one of the substantive points that he talked about. And I think it's the one that's resonated most was his discussion, his idea of let's train, our troops in what he called dangerous cities. Many people, I think, you know, might generally say, well, you know, maybe these cities are

dangerous. The National Guard seems to be doing a good job in D.C. But spell out, you commanded troops in real and actual danger. Why should we, what are the dangers? Why is the success of the American military over the last 250 years predicated on not being used in that? Well, it's because it's the difference between a police force and a military force. And first of all, soldiers, and I'll use that generic term for all the services, soldiers,

do not get any training on police activities other than those who are going to be military police men and women. So you're putting an infantryman, a tanker, a truck driver in front of America's people, And that would be like saying you or I could go out and arrest people and quell riots and do all those kind of things. The military does have for its force a mission called support for civilian authorities. If manpower is needed, certainly military forces can go to an area and protect guard buildings, put up fences, do the kind of things that you need a lot of people to do. But breaking that razor's edge into policing activities, again, is contrary to the Constitution and contrary to our laws. So it shouldn't be done.

But what I heard the president say yesterday was an implied remark that he was telling everyone in that room is be prepared to do that. And that only happens once an insurrection occurs, like during the Civil War. So unless he's prepared to stoke that kind of insurrection by further dividing the American people and it turns to violence, soldiers are the means of last resort for any kind of police activity, primarily because they're not trained to do things like that, and secondarily because it's against the law. you were in command of troops in many different situations. How would you deal with that order if it was to come to you? And what is going to be going through the heads of all those generals and admirals, I should say, when they heard that imply implication? Yeah, I believe that each one of them walk out of that room yesterday doing a personal analysis

of what does this mean for me? And I know for a fact that there's talk inside the military ranks of what is the best way to disobey an unlawful order. How do you do that? And especially now, given the recent Supreme Court ruling, which holds the president immune from criminal acts, but the people he's ordering to do these things are subject to those criminal violations. So how do you say no, especially if the staff judge advocate, the lawyer chain of command has been disrupted, that the military chain of command from civilian to military leaders has been co-opted. It was obvious to me in Secretary HECS speech that he also is all for doing whatever the president orders him to do.

And that breaks the boundaries of what two previous Secretary of Defense, both Mattis and Esper in the first term, when they were ordered to do illegal things, they spoke for the force and said, we don't do that. And it also goes back, Hugh, truthfully, to the Bush administration. And I was in the room when this was happening, when there was conversation about using waterboarding in Iraq. And the military commanders and the Secretary of Defense said, we don't do that, get somebody else. So that mission was actually

shuttled over to the CIA to set up the torture sites. And I'm glad that happened because it would have been a violation of land warfare by my read of the legal implications of it. How, if you were back in uniform, how do you even begin to process that sort of, what is the analysis going to be like

for those generals? because, as you say, in previous times, the issue of unlawful orders has stopped at the point of civilian command, but bringing it down into the chain of military command, is there a precedent for this? Is this something that people have grappled with before, or are we in new territory? I don't think we're in new territory other than the fact that this is extremely abnormal, and the consequences are greater. I've had a couple of instances in my career where I've had to go to my bosses

and say, hey, I was just issued this order. I think it's either illegal or immoral, and I think we need to talk about that. And I usually have my staff judge advocate standing right next to me to give me the legal implications, although most commanders at senior ranks have legal training, certainly to take care of their command. But in each one of those cases, and I think, looking back, I think I did it three times.

In each one of those cases, my bosses, higher-ranking officials, took my input, said, yeah, you're probably right. This is illegal. Let's change this order. I'm not sure we're going to get the same kind of action from the current civilian chain of command in both the White House and the Department of Defense. I wanted to turn to one of the more kind of bizarre aspects of this Trump address. was his perhaps understanding of the military or certainly his approach to it. He talked about how he'd been a fan of a documentary series called War at Sea, which for those who don't know, I had to check, I will confess,

it was made in 1953, 1954. It was of course black and white at the time, and it was about the US Navy's success in World War II. And particularly focused, I believe, on battle. ships, which were, of course, you know, part of the U.S. Navy's success in World War II was down to battleships. And Trump went on about how that was what the military should be like. Now, you've distinguished career commanding many aspects of the military. I'll just put this bluntly, is it anything like that? Is it anything like an NBC documentary from daytime TV in the 50s? You, I think I would probably not surprise you if I said there's an awful lot of people sitting in the corner chair

of a bar on a stool somewhere who have watched a lot of bands of brothers or World War II documentaries who become experts at the military and sometimes even proclaim to the young women nearby that they are special operators or special forces when they would never identify with that. I hope they wear beards because probably that's the tail. That's what that's the secretary of. Either that or a CIA agent, one of the two. But it's interesting, even what both Secretary Higseth and President Trump have said in the past about their heroes from the war. And it was from the past wars. And it was represented in the stage they were standing on.

I mean, I don't think it was a mistake. Somebody asked for that giant flag to be behind the podium because it was representative of the early segments of the patent movie. And President Trump has said on numerous occasions that he, loves that movie. Okay, great. But also even Secretary Hegseft, who, you know, he, he disrespected three general officers, Corelli, and Millie, and there was one other, and I can't remember who the other one was, and then put in their place Schwarzkopf, MacArthur, and Patton. Right. I mean, all generals have flaws. Don't get me wrong. when you go into their history was not a very good leader in terms, he was a very good commander

and a warfighter. He was not a very good leader. MacArthur actually rebelled against the president. So I'm wondering how Trump would feel if the chairman of the Joint Chiefs or some combatant commander did something that he wouldn't want to do. So it's a real paucity of information on the things that they're talking about. And there was even a couple of times. during the secretary's speech yesterday, where I thought he's talking at this from the standpoint of an army lieutenant. He's not even considering the Air Force, the Navy, the Marines as part of this force. It's all directed to what his experience was in the Army. And that was really one of the things that I think alerted some people when he was nominated for the Secretary of Defense job. He

didn't have the business acumen to run an organization the size of the Department of Defense, and he didn't have the experience with the services. So all of that came through, and it comes through in space with President Trump. Talking about battleships being the great surface fleet of the U.S. Navy, and any Navy guy will explain to you why that's not such a good idea today. and also objecting to the shape of stealth ships because he's an aesthetics guy, which I assume we're going to see our Navy painted in gold after that. I don't know. But more seriously, you know, you talked about being in Russia,

you commanded the army in Europe. What are people, first of all, what are people who are allies thinking about this? What did they take, what was the takeaway in Europe? Well, I had, I won't go into the details, but I had several of my former counterparts in other militaries in Europe that I worked very closely with. We continue to stay in contact. And I got several text messages and emails yesterday asking me about what I thought this was doing to the U.S. military. And on at least two occasions, those retired generals from foreign allied forces said to me, I don't understand why this is happening, given how much respect we have for the capabilities of the U.S. military,

specifically the U.S. Army who they had dealt with. Why is this even going on? We know the quality and the capability of your soldiers and your leaders. And you have taught us things, why would they be going after you now, on what seemingly to them are somewhat silly and mundane issues, as opposed to national strategy or national security strategy. And the flip side, what do you think has been thought in the Kremlin? What is Putin's general staff looking at this and thinking?

Well, I think, you know, instead of saying someone, a general staff like Gerasimov, saying the U.S. military is in bad shape, look, they have to have. their astude, I think they are saying that their strategy of the continued attempt to help divide the people of the U.S. against themselves and against their institution is working pretty well. I mean, I'll tell you quite frankly, I was on the air several times yesterday on different cable channels, and, you know, what I could tell is the Russian bots are in full force in terms of trying to expand on the messaging, that there are a lot of people that think this is crazy

and it just shows how screwed up the U.S. is and they're a waning society and things like that. So to answer your question in a shorter sentence, they are loving this because it falls right into what their strategy is. And one of the developments that happened in the last couple of days that I imagine the Russians maybe aren't welcoming, but Europe is now talking about having its own drone defense system, calling it a drone wall,

because of incursions that have been taking place along the eastern borders of Poland, of Estonia, possibly into Danish airspace. That seems like they wouldn't have been saying that in the past. This would have been something that would have been, at the very least, led or in cooperation with the United States. and can you just talk to what people who have spent careers cooperating with Europe and leading in Europe have, what view do they take of that when the Europeans feel they have to go out on their own? When Hugh and I was the commander of U.S. Army in Europe, we used to have a twice yearly conference called the CEA in the Conference of the European Armies. And every time we would get together with our counterparts, usually in our headquarters in Heidelberg, one time.

that was held in Italy, we'd have the 49 countries of Europe represented over a two or three-day conference. And we would talk about the requirements for our force to partner better, to exercise on specific things, to really take the approach of one is much, or the whole is much stronger than the sum of the parts. And that was our requirement. And I think today, not only are European allies doubting the civilian military connections within the U.S. forces, but they're very concerned about the future strategy of U.S. forces in Europe.

And I think part of this whole thing yesterday was a lead-in to the potential of Secretary Hague set issuing a national defense strategy that really reduces the focus on areas. of the world where our partnerships are important and our threats are lively. And that strategy, which we, there have been reports that it's, it's certainly going to be working on. There's a suggestion that it is going to be focused on the idea that threats are at home as much as they are, or even more than they are abroad, which does not seem to comport with any reality that people would, would recognize. And also really de-es, and also really de-emphasizing that Russia is in any way a threat and possibly focusing on China only in the sense of Taiwan. You've obviously worked very hard on a lot of those issues. What should we think are the

real threats to American national security? Yeah, you know, they're on a yearly basis. The DNI usually comes out with a threat composite to tell where the threats are. The last one that was produced in an unclassified form was 2024. In that, it outlined all of our threats. And it would take me too long to go into them, but the top 10 are not being addressed in the manner they should be by this current administration. All right. General, I know that we are nearing the end of our time. I just want to say, can you give people some hope here? I mean, the American military is by far the most respected institution in the country. Something that the president didn't mention.

He came to those generals and he complained about the ratings or he crowed about the ratings the press have. He mocked the ratings that Congress have. He didn't mention that the top rated institution by a margin that even he would not be able to challenge as rigged is off the charts. Can you just give people some hope that there's? Yeah. The hope I will give them, Hugh, is that yesterday's atmospheric showed it was a collective reminder of the professional culture of the military that transcends politics.

The professionalism of the people in that room and their discipline was on full display in the audience, if not on stage. I think that gives a great deal of hope to the future, that this instance. institution is bending a little bit. Our military institution is bending a bit because of some civilian leaders, but it's not breaking. And there's a culture in place that's going to withstand any kind of attempt to diminish the institution as a whole. General, we hope that you're absolutely right in that verdict. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for taking the time. And again, thank you for your service. And we hope that you'll come back and give us more of that insight, because it's a fantastic opportunity to see what really happens inside the American military

and not, as described, apparently fat, bearded and woke. Okay, so if you're in the cabinet and you're watching this play out and you understand that, A, everybody hates Trump around him and this is the beginning of the end, as you proclaim, How are you trying to build your own power base? You've spent a lot of time with politics. You've seen it up close. As you said, yeah, well, you've spent a lot of time watching it.

How would you, how do you think this is playing out with J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio and Pete Heggseth. I mean, they're all circling. They're all circling for the job. I would have said eight months ago, Pete Hexeth, good looking kid, he's articulate. He's got a good television president. Presidency. He would have a shout at the presidency. now after watching his intellectually vacuous behavior

over the last nine months and the deer in the headlights' insecurity that he represents, he's got no shot, okay, and he's going to get run over. He's just not, he's not up for the job, okay? There are so many things that we could be talking about, but I think there's only one topic that has dominated DC for the last few days, and that is Pete Heggseth. and it's more than, it's, you know, it's multiple topics included in one.

But I wanted to start with this controversy, is probably putting it mildly, over the strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs, which was shown to a number of legislators this week. And they, many of them came out and recoiled in horror at what they had seen. I just wonder if you can start with your perspective on this. Yeah, well, first of all, I was not one of those lawmakers who saw the video. I think it should be obviously made available to all of us on the Armed Services Committee at a minimum, and at this point probably made public. But I think, look, part of the problem that Secretary Haguestaff has been having in this controversy,

in the Signalgate controversy, is just an unwillingness to just kind of own up and be transparent. You know, I worked for many secretaries of defense under Democratic administrations, Republican administrations. Stuff happens, right? I mean, stuff you don't want happens. But the buck stops with the secretary. You own up and you say, look, this is what's gone on. Here's the accountability.

Let me come and talk to Congress about it. Talk to the American people about it. And he seems just allergic to doing that. And it ends up making it a bigger controversy for him anyways. On the boat strike, I mean, I think in general, many of us have been concerned about You know, us being in an armed conflict, America's in an armed conflict with a list of narco-terrorists that we're not allowed to see, right? Even the armed services committee, they won't provide us the list of groups that we're going after. The legal justification for going after these folks is classified, and even the guys conducting the operations don't get access to it.

And then the intel packages, you know, the sort of showing your math part of, you know, going after this boat or this group is not there. And I will tell you, a lot of us are sympathetic to going after these cartels, these, these, you know, drug runners. I said openly, come to me and we need to be more aggressive and more creative on how we go after these groups. But I was also involved in the, you know, the operations against and targeting around al-Qaeda and ISIS. And you show your math. You come up to Congress. You say, this is why we're going after this group.

This is what they've done. this is who we're targeting and this is the intel that's leading to it. So they haven't done the basics there. So I think all we're asking for is some basic oversight. As you say, you've been involved in these sort of targeting operations before. And some people in the MAGA world have been saying, well, Obama did it, that he killed people from the air. He killed an American citizen, Alawaki.

Is it the same? How do you make a distinction between that sort of, that sort of version and what people have seen or actually haven't seen happening in the Caribbean? Yeah, well, I think, you know, certainly, and it's lots of administration. I mean, you know, the Obama, Bush, I mean, long list of American presidents that have authorized targeted operations against terrorists. And but the terrorist groups usually have a very clear agenda, stated agenda of targeting Americans, the homeland, our assets abroad, and killing us, right? I mean, Al-Qaeda is, I think, probably the perfect example, but ISIS, too, like taking up a whole state blit in Syria and Iraq and wanting to kill Americans and attack the homeland. So what's different about these, the drug traffickers, it's not that what they're doing isn't reprehensible. It's, are they in active armed conflict with the United States?

Are they coming to kill Americans? And then to me, what I think is really important is these ships that we're targeting, you know, are these leaders? Are these, do they have intelligence? Is there something interesting there that's actually going to help us unwind these cartels? or are they guys who were paid to take a boat full of cocaine, you know, from one place to another? So I just think it's a little bit of a different compare and contrast when you're talking about a group that has attacked the United States like Al Qaeda, killed American citizens and continues to want to kill American citizens versus drug cartels that it can be very dangerous because of what they ultimately sell inside the United States, but are not what I would define as someone in active armed conflict with the United States.

So it's a different, a little bit of a different apples to oranges sometimes. Do you feel that Hexeth has his head round that difference? Or do you just not know because he won't even talk to you? I think that there is a long-held desire to go after these drug cartels and narco groups. what they sell, what they bring into the United States and how they fund their organizations do affect millions of Americans. And so I'm sympathetic to wanting to really step that up. And it was clear they came into this administration like, how are we going to do that?

There are about a hundred different ways I can think of to be way more aggressive without just the strikes, right? I mean, like I said, I like the intelligence that comes off of these folks. I like to grab the leaders and understand how they communicate. and who runs the show and how do they get their weapons and how do they do the you know how do they move drugs so there's a bunch of different ways to do it but what's clear is in the past um just kind of identifying these things and not doing anything about it also wasn't working for the united states you know don't Trump often has the wrong answer to the right question right he often picks up on the right kernel of thing that we need to address but his his solutions are you just take us just to me to a very different place so um i think we had to do more against these drug cartels. But just show your math if you think we need to be in an armed conflict like this. Donald Trump and his questions and his answers, it appears that

he is after you as well, rather directly. With Hegzeth, you and a group of democratic lawmakers spoke in a video telling members of the armed forces they don't have to obey legal orders. When you were talking about that, did you have in mind what was going on in the Caribbean? Yeah, I mean, we made that video, you know, three weeks ago or whatever it was, certainly not thinking that the president would go high and right, as we say, at the Pentagon on it like that. But because there was so many people coming to us who were, you know, on active duty, who were recent veterans, family members of service members, who were coming to us individually and I'm saying two things. One, I'm concerned, you know, I'm going to be sent in uniform to an American city, you know, like L.A., Chicago, Memphis. And I'm going to be asked to do things I either don't think are legal or I'm not trained for. And that's what do I do?

And then this fall, it really turned and it became a lot of people who were involved in the operations around the Caribbean asking those same things. Hey, I'm not sure they, I don't know if this is legal. I don't know if I'd be held accountable later after this administration. I can't get a straight answer about whether this is legal or not. What do you think we should do? So we were hearing that. There was a lot of juju in the system on that for months. And so that's why we made the video just restating the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

And, you know, it just you never know. And it happens in a week when the Epstein files are approved for release and all these things. And so the president wants to talk about something else. But I think the reaction to it tells you more about them than it does about the six of us who made this pretty simple video. You know, the best commentary I heard was from someone saying, if you walk into a crowded bar and someone yells, hey, ugly and you turn around, you're probably ugly, right? And I think that was to me their reaction, number one, of calling for us to be. arrested, investigated, and then ultimately hung. You know, when the president of the United States threatens you with death, we shouldn't be surprised when people across the country do that and

worse. So the threat picture completely changed for all of us. You know, we all have 24-7 security and we had bomb threats at my house and my family's been targeted. But then the second shoot-a-drop was weaponizing the federal government against people who you disagree with, right? So getting the FBI and pushing the FBI to do some sort of inquiry or investigation. Obviously, one of us is now being looked at for a military investigation. So to me, regardless of whether someone agrees with our video or not, I think, do we think it's normal and okay for the president to threaten people with death and weaponize the federal government just when he disagrees with them? And fed a lot of people, especially back home, say, look, I didn't like that you made that video or I didn't agree with your video, but you shouldn't be targeted for death because of that.

Have you even heard from the FBI yet? The FBI reached out, this is all public, the FBI reached out through the Senate and House, you know, sort of legal advisors or legal folks, and, you know, asking seemingly to start an inquiry. And we're waiting, we're kind of in the back and forth. we're waiting to hear what they're going to do. And, you know, I will wait to see what the next step is. But there's certainly took some action and reached out to us here officially, yes. And how do you even respond to that? I mean, you know, as you say, presence threatening people with death is an incredibly crazy thing to happen. What goes on inside your head when that happens?

I think for me, you know, most of us certainly at the six of us, of us who did that video have served in dangerous places. We've felt under threat before. I think the thing that's different is when it's targeting your family or your staff, right? I mean, that's a, I signed up for this. And this, you know, but, you know, the second part of it is like, I just, I don't think anyone is proud of our politics right now. And I think the majority of Americans, no matter what side of the aisle they're on, don't think that we should be threatening each other with death and arrest when we disagree with each other.

So I'm sort of, you know, I'm all right, but I'm just sad for the country that this is the point we've come to. And it shouldn't be that if you decide to run for office, you should just expect this kind of weaponization of the government. That's not something that I think we want, again, no matter whether you're a Democrat or a public, Just to turn to the other aspect of this week with Hegsseth, it was obviously also we've had the report into Signalgate. And you were talking about, you know, stretching the norms might be putting it charitably about threatening people with death.

But in Signalgate, it seems that Pete Hegesith used this signal chat. He copied over secrets into it. And then his defense was, well, I get to declassify things. I'm not secret. How concerned are you about one law for him and one law for everybody else? Yeah, I mean, I think, again, there's sort of a, there's the legal set of issues, but also there's just the leadership issues. And, you know, just to be clear, if you, if any rank and file soldier, put in an unclassified

email on a commercial app, the time, location, and type of military operation that was going to go on in the next two to four hours, they'd be fired, there'd be an investigation, there'd be an absolute accounting for that, because they'd put people at risk. And actually, if the secretary had just said that, you know, if he had just said that months ago in May and just said, you know what, I was moving fast, these were operations that were going on in real time, I was trying to keep people informed, I made a mistake, I own up to it the way I would want any young officer or enlisted to own up to it, I swear to God, we wouldn't be talking about it right now, right? Just like it could have been a one-time-on-camera thing, and I'm going to, you know,

redouble my efforts to only use the correct systems. I certainly would be done with it if he had just done that. So there's the legal issue of, you know, I'm the Secretary of Defense, and so just by me writing it into an email, I'm declassifying. I think that's real questionable. There are proper procedures for declassified. things. And but then secondly, it's just more of a leadership climate thing. Just you're trying to set an example for the million people that you represent in the Defense Department and any of them.

I mean, the best commentary, again, I saw on that back when Signalgate happened was I have a close friend whose spouse was on one of the destroyers that was involved in those operations off Yemen. And she said, if we, we as spouses know that we can't put that kind of information. out into the world. It's just like an understood thing. The Facebook group for the spouses would never deign to put the type location and timing of an attack on the open Internet. And the Secretary of Defense did it.

So just own it. And we could have moved on. Is there going to be some sort of accountability for this? Can you see that coming in some shape or form? I think that that this report and the fact that we're all talking about it right now openly is probably the only. accountability we're going to get. And I'm glad that the IG did the investigation. I think, you know, it's a low bar these days on, you know, IGs were all fired, Jags were all fired. So I'm glad that

it happened, but I don't expect there's going to be much more formal accountability. Now, I know you've, you tweeted about this earlier on the week. The hypocrisy involved in this as well that Pete Higgsith, before he was in office, had certainly been somebody who spoke about obeying the laws of war. And he also, of course, as a Fox commentator, repeatedly went after Hillary Clinton for her server. I just, when you finally get to talk to him, are you going to raise this with him?

It seems like almost a hallmark of his behavior now, that there's the past hexeth and there's the present hexeth. Yeah, I think it's not just the secretary. I think that this is a sort of characteristic of a lot, lot of people in Washington, which is there is no real center of gravity on an issue. You know, if something is unlawful for you because you're my political enemy, then I'm going to beat the drum on that. But if it's, if it's not appropriate, but it's my team, I'm going to defend it till the last, right? And I think what's hard, especially in national security, is there are really

things where you have to be able to call balls and strikes. It doesn't matter what political party, the president's from, you know, a threat to the United States is a threat to the United States. And military operation, you have to be straight about these things. And I think that's what's difficult is that Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense, right? He's not some commentator on Fox who could just flip or a political, you know, guy who is working, supporting the president on political stuff. He's the Secretary of Defense. So we expect more from someone who's in charge of the greatest fighting force in the world. And so it just sticks out more.

But that's that inability to just call a spade a spade when you see it on tough issues. You know, this is like what I'm trying to say to all these folks is like I'd be with them on some pretty aggressive things around the narco traffickers in the Caribbean. I'm like, I'm here for some of that. But you can't just get to pick and choose facts and you can't pick and choose right and wrong just based on who said it. You've got to have a center of gravity as the Secretary of Defense. I noticed, by the way, in the subject of calling things by their name, you're not calling him Secretary of War, which I should say the Daily Beast does not recognize either. But it seems like renaming things, rebranding things seems to be part of the pattern here.

Yeah, and I think, I think, I mean, the Secretary of Defense is the name. You can call yourself something different, but, you know, we went back and looked and the power to rename things, right? Because before it was the Secretary of Defense, before it was the Department of Defense, it was the Department of War, right? Back in World War II era. And Congress changed the name after a big discussion. So Congress hasn't changed the name. It's the Secretary of Defense. And, you know, people can call themselves what they want.

But I'm going to follow the law. Have you had more people coming to you after this video and, in the wake of what's happened in the Caribbean. Have more people been raising concerns about awful orders with you? I'll just give you a perfect example. Last night, 7.30 p.m. last night. I was at an event, and this young man who works here in Washington came up to me, pulled me aside after the event,

got out of earshot and said, I just wanted to thank you. I'm part of a National Guard in the Midwestern state, and I'm an intel officer. And I just went to a training and all of my fellow intel officers are worried that we're going to be asked to do intel collection and exploitation inside the United States, right? The skills we learn to protect against foreign adversaries, which is the job, that we're now maybe going to be asked to do that inside a detention facility or inside somewhere in the United States with American citizens. So this is someone, and he said everyone was talking about it. that was the conversation quietly in the corners of the training. So this is not coming out of nowhere.

And certainly since we made the video, people have been finding their way to us just to say, hey, we've been expressing this angst amongst ourselves. Thank you for saying something. And it certainly, I mean, I have to say it, I didn't expect it. But it certainly helped prompt a conversation that's, I think, is an important conversation about the use of force in America. You know, how do we use our military? And I just feel very, very strongly that one of the worst things that can happen from any administration, but from this one in particular, is that American citizens doubt their military. They don't trust, you know, if you see someone in uniform in your city and they're asked to do something they're not trained for, and the president has been open. He said, we're going to use our cities as training grounds. He said

it in front of 800, you know, general officers that, you know, American citizens want to want the military to be protecting them from foreign threats. Given our history, we do not want our military, you know, participating in things like arrest and detention and crowd control and having potential escalation in American cities. To me, that is a real strategic risk to the role of the military, which I love. How much of this is a exit and how much of it is just Trump? I think a lot of it is coming from the White House. And I think the president in this administration, different, I think, a little bit from his last administration, he's really just picking people for jobs who are going to do whatever he says, right? I don't think he's looking for

that, like, kind of pushback and that the things that, like, you know, most CEOs will say they're looking for, right? I want someone who will push back on me and tell me when I'm going off course. I don't think this administration, he's looking for that. And we've seen in the folks who have come up, you know, I voted for some of Trump's nominees, especially on Unipore military side because I've known some of these folks and I want someone in there who's going to uphold the values that I believe in and uphold the Constitution. But so many of these nominees that come through every day are just yes men who are literally chosen to do whatever the president's going to say above anything else, including above their oath. In the last Trump

administration, 2019, you were one of the Democrats who came out quite early calling for him to be impeached on the Ukraine phone call. And I'm just wondering, how does this compare this time round? Is that on the table? Is that, is that where your mind goes? Or is this something that it's three years and we have to find ways through it? You know, back then the, there was, the Democrats had the House of Representatives. You know, I mean, I think there was, there was tools there. And I think, look, he, he went through two of them. impeachments. And certainly the second one, you know, given that he incited a riot and the, you know, the armed engagement of in this building where I'm sitting right now. I mean, so there are,

there are important strategic things that he has done. I would be happy with just basic oversight from my Republican colleagues in the committees that they chair. I've watched them seed basic, basic oversight responsibilities. I think sometimes about what John McCain would be doing as chairman of the Armed Services Committee if he was alive today. And all I want is basic oversight. I'm not looking for them to get into a fight just to get into a fight. I'm looking for them to do oversight over something that's fundamental to who we are

as American. So I don't think impeachment is really on the table, to be honest. I'd be thrilled with basic oversight. How do you get your colleagues to go along with that? I mean, they're, they obviously, as you say, they've ceded those opportunities. How did you get that back? Look, I think some of my colleagues have been very open about fear. They're literally acting out of fear.

And now that I've been on the receiving end of it, I understand why that can be an effective tool. We can't let it govern our politics. That's the worst case scenario. But a lot of my colleagues will say openly, including to the press, if we go against Trump, He's going to weaponize the political system and potentially the federal government against us and death threats and my family and the whole thing. Okay. The only thing more powerful, I think, to a lot of elected officials than that sense of fear is the fear of losing their own elections. And I think what the only chance I see right now of a real wholesale change is if people feel like President Trump is a liability to them as elected officials,

rather than a bonus. And, you know, I think the elections we had a month ago, the elections that they had in Tennessee, obviously the midterm elections will be a very important indicator. That to me is, I would not be surprised if you'd see more sort of strength from my Republican colleagues correlated to the fact that Trump is maybe more of a boat anchor than a help to their election. His polling is obviously looks in that direction now.

You're from a swing state or what is seen as a swing state. What's your feeling about where that's going to go? You know, I just don't think it's really rocket science. The Democrats at the top of the ticket lost Michigan this last time because the public perceived that Trump was more focused on cost of living than the Democrats. And that's still the galvanizing issue. That is, whether you're in Manhattan or Kansas or Michigan or whatever, that whether people can afford the American dream or not is the galvanizing issue of

our time. And when President Trump gets into a cabinet meeting and says openly that, quote, affordability is a democratic hoax, people are not stupid. They were talking about affordability when they had a Democrat in office, right? And I've been open, like Joe Biden tried to tell people for a year, you know, that the economy was better than it actually was. People know their own pocketbooks. They may not know fancy policy positions going on in Washington. They know how much their family saves and spends every month. And they know if they're able to save to get ahead. And so to me, the issue of those midterm elections, polling is fine. You know, we are all, you know, that's all we have. So we cling to it, I guess. What is much more important to me is

what is the economic situation going on in my state and what are the policies doing to improve or hurt their situation. And that's going to be it. That's how they're going to vote, just like they did last time. Does this issue about about boat strikes and about what Hexith is doing, is that cutting through? Do you hear it from voters? You know, some, but any day of the week, people are like, can we just stop the chaos so that someone can lower our costs? Electricity, healthcare, housing, groceries and food, services, something, right? So as much as I'm a national security person by training and so I find these issues important. I do think they're important to who we are as Americans. Nothing comes close to the level of urgency on affordability and the American dream. Nothing.

Well, that's a fantastic note to finish it on. Centres Lockin. Thank you for joining us. It's been fascinating and educational. And we would love to have you back. Anytime. Thanks so much. Now, we've heard from a very powerful civilian about what the military think. I'm delighted to say we are now joined by someone who knows exactly what it takes to be at the top of the military. Major General Paul Eaton is one of our country's most distinguished soldiers. He is now speaking out in a way his comrades who are still serving cannot. General, thank you for joining us. There's so much that we could talk about, but I wanted to talk first about somebody that you have been very critical of,

the Defense Secretary or the self-styled Secretary of War, Pete Hegsafe, he has had an extraordinary week and I know that you're somebody that has raised warnings about him before this week he's been found to be using he used a signal account to pass on what he said were not secrets but clearly we were the secrets of war plans and he was also involved in the aftermath of this strike on a boat from Venezuela and the Caribbean Ian, just tell us, what is your view of Pete Higgs' performance this week? If I were rating Mr. Hegseth as a superior officer, he would be out of a job.

He has consistently demonstrated that he does not have the grabbitas, he does not have the experience, he does not have the mindset. He does not have the ethical base to, to perform the duties expected of the Secretary of Defense. And he is demonstrating this on a daily basis. You bring up Signalgate. My father was a fighter pilot, fought in Vietnam. And the level of detail that Mr. Heggsath put out in a public space

would have given gunners in Vietnam plenty of opportunity to prepare the worst they could deliver to men like my dad. And so that is just a fundamental failure to understand the seriousness of the job. The fact that he would declare murder on the high seas and issue instructions that have been taken down. I mean, we're going to see everything in the analysis because we've got the Republicans on board right now to get to the bottom. of the so-called double-tap that he invoked back in September, I gather. Do you think he, Pete Hegseth, is the person that's ultimately responsible here, or do you think this goes up to Trump?

I don't know. What I do know is that Mr. Higgseth has issued instructions that leave no doubt in the mind of the recipients and those who heard them, that it's either. an authorization for murder or a war crime. And whether it goes to Mr. Trump, you might make the point that from an emotional perspective and setting the emotional and ethical groundwork, he is the senior man in our government and he has set the tone for everybody who reports to him. and he has set an unethical tone.

He has set an immoral tone. He has set a lawless tone to those in his employ. And that is more of an emotional nature associated with the behaviors that we see from Mr. Egg-Seth. Clearly, as Commander-in-Chief, we know that Donald Trump has some degree of immunity. But you've warned yourself that, you've warned yourself that, there can be consequences for those who do not have immunity, and one of those people is Hegsseth. I'm just wondering, take us inside the kind of the military mind here.

What does somebody who wears the uniform when they are presented with this sort of order? What goes through their mind? If it smells bad, don't do it. If it smells bad, go to your lawyer. And to be clear, lawyers give advice. They do not give directive. and lawyers, if they smell something bad, they have recourse to go to the legal chain of command above them, and that brings a greater understanding into the whole mix and, if necessary, advice from high.

And what we've got right now is a chain of command that is looking over its shoulder, and I think the Wall Street Journal published it's a very lonely place to be in an American foxhole right now because you definitely don't have the backing of the civilian leadership. How do you process that? Just again, takes into takes inside that mindset. Had you ever been in a scenario where you felt that you had been presented with an illegal order?

Or is this so outside the norm of the military experience that these are the generals and admirals are dealing with really unprecedented situations. It is unprecedented. Operational experience from my perspective, Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq. I was blessed with terrific military leadership and civilian leadership. I was never asked to do anything untoward or even close to the line of, illegality. The men and women in those commands and subordinate to me left and right had the clear backing of the chain of command and understand the higher commanders retain authority and responsibility

for everything that happens or fails to happen in the operations in their area of operations. So I see what's going on right now as unprecedented, and I believe that our uniform military is in a very tough position, and I will be very interested to hear what Admiral Halsey, the former Southcom commander, whose retirement will take effect within days, I'll be very interested to hear him provide advice or observations on what's going on right now and observations around his early retirement and how he interacted with outside agents, either lettered agencies or our special operations command. because the South Kong commander has an area of operations. He commands and is responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen in that AO, area of operations.

Outside actors coming in are operating in his AOR area of responsibility, and they are executing missions in a different command line. all of which makes the four-star Admiral in command of South GOM's life more difficult. And I would love to see some analysis and observations from a great retired Admiral Halsey. One thing that has stood out in this is that this strike, the first strike of the, well, I was going to say the first strike, but the fact the first and sixth. second strikes of this campaign, for want of a better word, we now know we're run by SEAL Team 6 and through Special Operations Command. Did that strike you as kind of off or odd? It seems to the outside observer, you might say, that seems like not quite what we all understood SEAL Team 6 was about. Well, to me, the issue is somebody operating in my AOR. Now,

if you are the Southcom commander, what are the command links between the Southcom commander and the SOCOM, the Special Operations Command, how, where are the coordinating points between those two four-star commands? One owns the AOR. One is operating in the AOR, separate from the chain of command of Southcom. This is not a new dilemma. We had this, you may recall, Black Hawk down. Of course. That incident, the fact that Special Operations Command was operating in an AOR that

belonged to conventional army. And what were the coordinates? points as far as supporting fires or supporting activities or, if necessary, expilitation facilitation, all of that seemed to indicate that all was not particularly clear to the commanding general of the AOR Mogadishu. And this is not a new problem. And it's not because we're trying to make mistakes. It's just You can go after the fog of war. It's just complicated, and I don't know what those arrangements were between Southcom and Socom and what's going on killing boats in the Caribbean. Do you think it's a legitimate use of the United States forces that's the starting point here?

No, no, absolutely not. I live in Key West. We have a robust coast guard. operation going on here. And very recently, you saw on the news that one of our cutters stopped a ship or a boat and recovered some $300 million worth of cocaine. And our guys in the Coast Guard are very well trained in boat operations at sea, how to stop, how to present, how to.

a board and they know how to operate within U.S. law, which is applicable in international waters. And when the Coast Guard shows up, they show up with a full force of American legal systems. And they do it without any problems. They don't go in killing people. They go in, and if necessary, they arrest people. And in the case of this recent activity, I believe that after questioning the crew in question, they delivered them back to, I believe, Ecuador, I believe that was their own land after recovering the contraband. So America knows how to do this. This is the purview of the Coast Guard.

If the Coast Guard is overwhelmed by activity level, let's give them some more tax dollars so that they can expand their operations. This is not what I want the American Navy to do. We can do it, but they are not manned, trained, and equipped to do it in concert with U.S. law in international waters. I presume you hear, obviously, from your friends, from people that you served with that are still in uniform. What's the mood inside the military about this? What we've got going on right now is whack-a-mole going on in the Caribbean, and the people I hear from are looking for a traditional explanation of what is my task and what do you expect me to deliver on that task? And that's not happening. What we are getting is looking for high-speed boats and killing high-speed boats.

without an explanation of are they just fishermen from Venezuela who have been threatened, either harm to family or harm to themselves? Have they been forcibly employed to move cargo, which, again, the Southcom chain of command has failed to make the case to the American public that what we are doing in Venezuela, and north of Venezuela in the international waters is a valid task for U.S. armed forces. What advice do you give to people in that situation? If Pete Hegesith and his civilian command can't define a mission, does it then fall to the military to work out, or do they have any ability to do that themselves? So when you are given instructions or intent from a higher commander,

before you leave the room, you've got to have crystal clarity and what it is that you were told to do. If you leave the room, you have failed in your job, failed in your duty to your peers and subordinates. And what the U.S. military has to do, and I again invoke the name of Admiral Halsey, who appeared to be uncomfortable to the point where he dropped his retirement papers. Retirement or resignation are options when you are presented with inappropriate or illegal orders. Do you feel that's going to happen more?

It's almost the perfect moral dilemma for somebody who's held a rank like yours that they have risen to that level because they are crystal clear in their own command structure and are then presented with an impossible situation. I empathize with the men and women in leadership positions in our armed forces because I've never seen a more fraught nature of civilian military relations in my life. I was 18 years old in 1968 when the Tet Offensive occurred and when Walter Cronkite effectively ended the war, it took years to truly end it. But we asked the men and women in our armed forces during the Vietnam War to do the impossible. The mission was vague.

The rules of engagement kept changing, and we were operating with a forced service, a conscription environment. and young men and women were forced into a situation that was extremely difficult. We are embarking upon, so we have embarked upon a very difficult situation for our armed forces, and only our Congress, our first branch, only our Congress can help. the men and women of the armed forces. And every American citizen can join in on that help by contacting their representative and their two senators and ask the question, what the hell is going on in the Pentagon civilian leadership? That's the question. We saw some oversight in the last few days from the Inspector General on the Signalgate report,

and it painted a picture which I think anybody would agree was pretty damning that the Secretary of Defense or self-styled Secretary of War the Secretary of Defense was basically cutting and pasting secrets and putting them in an unsecured format and there seemed to be there was a defense on offer of well I just get to declassify things in that sort of environment how effective even is Congress to to deal with that contempt, essentially, for the checks and balances that are already in place. And I should say, I know that you've tweeted about the ultimate point that there is the

possibility of action after HECSeth has left office on accountability. Indeed. And the real power that Congress holds is the power of the purse. And it requires a concerted effort to require the military leadership, civilian and uniform to report for interrogation in Congress. Interrogation is the harsh word, but that's what it is. And then it is a real threat to withhold monies for operation, and it is a, they have the power of the purse. That denial is a very difficult step for anybody to make with the armed forces deployed at risk. But our system is not working right now. And we don't have Richard Nixon

to ultimately say, well, I will retire. I will resign from the presidency. We're not getting that behavior from the world of Maga, and I don't expect it to show up. But the nature of a requirement to come in and brief Congress, and two of the most unhappy men I've seen lately were Admiral Bradley and General Kane walking into a congressional office to undergo what they knew was going to be a series of most unpleasant questions. But to your question,

it's not going to be an immediate fix to what is developing into a very big problem for our own forces. And that problem might develop further if there's an escalation, we keep hearing aggressive language from the president about Venezuela, about land action there. You obviously were involved in something, you know, not dissimilar in terms of going into Somalia and you train troops in Iraq. What advice would you offer on going into Venezuela? Careful as you go. Where's there easy to start? They take on a nature of their own very quickly. The men and women who are going to be at risk and all this deserve better

than what they're getting right now. How dangerous do you feel it is for the military at the moment? From a civil military danger extraordinary. When you start looking left and right and you don't trust the fellow left or right because of informal links with the civilian leadership, are you going to be cast as as a failure to honor the the Maga chain of command?

Are you going to be cast as an apostate in a world that is essentially a cult that Mr. Trump has established? That's a great danger. The danger at the tactical level

is no fellow ever went into a deliberate attack with 100% intelligence pictures, nature of the objective. So it is what don't we know about what it is we've been asked to do as far as capacity to to execute the mission and get back home safe. And we've also obviously had the president talking in that speech to the entire general and general, I was going to say the general staff. In fact, every general and admiral he talked about using American cities as training grounds. That's obviously something that people have viscerally reacted to. But in that context of the MAGA chain of command, what can you do if you are ordered into that sort of situation? would like to shout out to every man and woman in that auditorium, their behavior, their silent

hands on their knees, stoicism in the face of two unruly, disrespectful civilian leaders. Hats off to them. As for what they can do, they have an oath to the Constitution, and they have an obligation to every man and woman in their command to do everything that they can to ensure that their men and women in their command are taken care of, that they are safe and that they're sound, and that they will not get stupid orders. And if it means to do what the distinguished Admiral Halsey did where he said, I am not willing to do your bidding. I am retiring. This magnificent man owes America a little bit more information about what happened and what drove him to what he did. You're obviously confident that he is going to provide that information.

I believe that a man with his experience, with the full faith that America placed in him by promoting him to Forstar Admiral, that he will do the right thing. General, we'd all hope that people would do the right thing, as you have done. We want to thank you for joining us. Thank you for your service. Thank you for offering such an extraordinary insight into how the military deals with this. incredibly unprecedented situation. And I just wanted to finish by asking, can you perhaps offer us some hope

that we are not going to see things get worse? I have great faith in the men and women in the United States military. I have watched, distinguished civilian leadership. I expect that we will be back there soon enough. And to borrow from a movie, the time for flattering yourself, Emperor, will soon come to an end.

Well, I hope you can come back to discuss it with us when it does. General, thank you so much for joining us. And we look forward to hearing from you again in the future. I'm flattered to be included. Be well, thank you, sir. Looking back across these conversations, one thing is clear. Trump's vision of command, his loyalty and spectacle is unlike anything the US military or the country has ever faced.

From misguided parades to pet rallies that make generals cringe from loyalty tests that confuse strategy with flattery, the former military leaders, former Trump staffers and journalists we've spoken to make it clear. The military is navigating. The nation is paying attention, but Trump remains trapped in a fumbling world of his. own creation. Understanding what happened and what could happen next isn't just fascinating. It's vital. So big thank you to Sandra Clark, Me Thinks, Travels with Carl, Andrew Beaver, Capinator, Harry Clark, Dawn McCarthy, Daniel Dogglover, M. Griner, Fulvia, Orlando, Herbie, Andrew Mella, as Michael always says, Las Condé, Bonzo, Val, Laugh, Francisco, Andrea Hodel, Bocault,

DC, Sharon Shipley, Connie Rutherford, Karen White, and Heidi Riley. Thank you to our production team, Devin Roderino, Annavalerson, and Jesse Millward. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.