The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Hid Sinister Message in Speech to Generals

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling joins the Beast’s Hugh Dougherty to unpack the jaw-dropping spectacle at Quantico, where Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth addressed 800 top military leaders. Hertling breaks down how Military brass in the room really reacted when Trump rambled on about “dangerous cities” as training grounds, mocked rules of engagement, and praised a random World War II documentary made in the 50s. Hertling pulls no punches, calling the speeches “berating,” “embarrassing,” and dangerously out of touch with modern military standards. He explains why generals were silent, what U.S. allies and adversaries are thinking, and the legal and constitutional risks of Trump’s orders. From the impact on troop morale to how Russia is exploiting the chaos, Hertling offers an inside look at a Commander-in-Chief unlike any before, and what it means for the military and the nation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One that's resonated most was his discussion, his idea of let's train our troops in what he called dangerous cities. What are the dangers? 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 to be. telling everyone in that room is be prepared to do that. And that only happens once an insurrection occurs, like during the Civil War. Welcome to the Daily Beast podcast. I'm Hugh Docketty, executive editor of The Daily Beast. I'm keeping the seat warm for Joanna Coles. Thank you for

joining us. Thank you for your many comments. Please keep them coming. We love them. Thank you especially to everyone who commented on the last edition of the Daily Beast podcast, where my guest was the unmissable Daily Beast columnist, David Rothkopf. Our member, Tanya Unin, put it best. David Rothkopf is brilliant and he will be back soon because he is always full of insight and even reassurance in troubling times. Thank you also to those of you who understood my accent and said nice things about it. Apologies to those still struggling with it. I am lobbying YouTube for simultaneous translation. I will let you know, although you may not understand me when I say it. We have a very special guest in this new edition of the Daily Beast podcast. I am all

honored to be joined by Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling. General, thank you for joining us. Thank a few of 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, 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, you know, 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 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 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 Hegsteth 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 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 about this because you mentioned drill sergeants and 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 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 did that description of laying hands on recruits and shark attacks and not bullying not he kept saying not bullying but it sounded pretty much like bullying to an outside observer is that what

Is that what the military should be doing to 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 and 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 takeaway 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 Hegesith. 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? Yeah, 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 cheering and interactions with the 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 graduate. 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 sergeants majors yesterday. It was meandering, it was

insulting, it was, it was laced with political diatribs, 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 Atina Sturics 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. 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, 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 way? 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 trying 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 walked 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 Hegsafe's 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. When there was, 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. General, let me just hold you there for a second so we can hear from our sponsors. And we are back with General Mark Hurtling. If you're 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 pressure? precedent for this? Is this something that people have grappled with before, or are we in new territory? No, 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'm 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 commands. 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 want 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, Those who don't know, I had to check, I will confess. It was made in 1953, 1953, 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 battleships, which were, of course, you know, part of the US 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? Hugh, 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 apparently that's the tail. That's what the secretary of. Either that or a CIA agent, one of the two. But, you know, 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 represented 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 state.

the early segments of the Patton movie. And President Trump has said on numerous occasion that he loves that movie. Okay, great. But also even Secretary Higsepp who, you know, he disrespected three general officers, Corelli, 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. Well, I mean, all generals have flaws. Don't get me wrong. Patten, 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 spays 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, one of the, 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 our allies thinking about this?

What was the takeaway in Europe? 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 assued.

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 real. 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.

General, we have got to take a commercial break and we will be right back. and here we are back with General Mark Hirtling. 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 a commander of U.S. Army in Europe, we used to have a twice-yearly conference called the CEA in the Conference of European Armies. And every time we would get together with our counterparts, usually in our headquarters in Heidelberg, one time it 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 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 Hegsett 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 there have been reports that 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 recognize, and also really de-emphasizing that Russia is in any way a threat and possibly focusing on China only in the sense of Taiwan. I mean, you've obviously worked very hard on a lot of those issues. is 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... 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 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. 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. All right. Thank you, Hugh.

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