The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Pentagon’s Partisan Letter Against Trump, Hegseth DEBUNKED

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, was fired from his post last month, along with several other high ranking military officials. Many of the Left rushed to say that President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth were “politicizing” the Pentagon. However, “This is not the politicalization of the Pentagon. It's the depoliticalization”, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “ They said, ‘This is reckless, it hurts morale, and it will depress recruitment.’ Let's analyze that just for a second. Recruitment reached near-record levels after the election of Donald Trump. It's on the way up. It was depressed prior to that. Why would it be depressed? If you go through the Pentagon data, it's very hard to decipher. “ More importantly, Leon Panetta signed this letter. He was one, also, of the 51 intelligence authorities that said, right on the eve of the election and on a few days before the 2020 debate, that Hunter [Biden's] laptop, which was in the hands of the FBI and authenticated, had all the hallmarks of a Russian information, which meant disinformation, campaign. “ Bottom line: We don't need any more letters from so-called experts. They're always partisan. And they're to no effect.” Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk. Business. Recently, there's been a lot of controversy because five former secretaries of defense, Lloyd Austin, Jim Mattis, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hegel, and Mr. Perry have all written a letter to Congress criticizing Donald Trump, and in particular Pete Hexeth for firing a number of officers, including the chairman of the Joint Chief, General Brown. They said this is reckless, it hurts morale, and it will depress recruitment. Recruitment reached Near record levels after the election of Donald Trump, it's on the way up.

So I don't quite understand their worry about recruitment. This is not the politicization of the Pentagon. It's the depoliticalization. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. Recently, there's been a lot of controversy because five former secretaries of defense that would be Lloyd Austin, Jim Mattis, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hegel, and Mr. Perry have all written a letter to Congress criticizing Donald Trump's administration, and in particular Pete Hexeth and Donald Trump for firing a number of officers, including the chairman of the Joint Chief General Brown. And they said

this is reckless, it hurts morale, and it will depress recruitment. Let's analyze. Let's analyze. that just for a second. Recruitment reached near record levels after the election of Donald Trump. It's on the way up. It was depressed prior to that. Why would it be depressed? If you go through the Pentagon data, it's very hard to decipher. They keep records on race, gender, sexual orientation, on promotion, on units, composition, but they don't like to do it on combat fatalities or the particular demographics that are not signing up according to their past percentages. If you wade through that, you will learn that recruitment was off among white males who died disproportionately at double their numbers in the demographic. So it's an important demographic and they were not signing. Why? I think for two reasons. Eighty-five hundred of them, the majority, I think, were white males refused to get the vaccination. And most of them, they were, had natural immunity. That was a very poor decision to drum them out of the military. Now we're

trying to get some of them back. The second is that when you had that testimony by General Millie and Lloyd Austin about suggestions to read professors now the discredited Professor Kendi, the DEI emphases, the idea they were going to run an investigation of the rank and file to see if there were white supremacists, white rage, white privilege. That's That depressed recruitment, and now that that has been swept away, recruitment is coming back up. So I don't quite understand their worry about recruitment. What I'm getting at is this is not the politicization of the Pentagon. It's the depoliticalization.

And it's not new. Generals have been fired by prior president. General McKearinen, the theater commander of Afghanistan, fired. by Barack Obama with very little explanation. General McChrystal, an on-tort remark, fired his replacement. And one of the signees of the letter, Jim Mattis, fired by Obama without much explanation. He was sent-com commander. He was doing a good job.

He was fired. He signed the letter. I could go on. There were three or four other generals that were prominent that Obama fired. So it's not new. Joe Biden came in and he fired all. of the 18 political appointments on the defense advisory board. That just happens. I was on the non-political American Battlefield Monuments Commission. As soon as Obama came in in 2009, he fired

all of us. So this idea that relieving commanders or defense personnel or advisory boards is it's not. It's not. The next thing is the Pentagon has real problems. With this emphasis on DEI, they have neglected things. We are short 155 millimeter shells. We are short certain types of cruise missiles, javelins. Our munition stockpiles are depleted. We have failed three outside audits in the Pentagon since they were initiated in 2017. We allowed a Chinese balloon to traverse the continentally.

United States with impunity. I think the Red Sea and the Straits of Hormuz, the South China Sea, and the Black Sea were pretty much off limits to international shipping for a time because we had lost deterrence. So we didn't reply to over 100 attacks on U.S. installations in Syria and Iraq. So there is fundamental problems in the Pentagon, budgetary, military, and they need to be addressed. The other thing that I thought was kind of strange about the letter, is very quickly, Lloyd Austin was AWOL for several days. He signed the letter. He could have been fired for that. Lower ranking officers were. Jim Madison, Chuck Hegel were fired as defense secretaries. I mean, you could argue whether it was fair or not, but they were dismissed. But more

importantly, Leon Panetta signed this letter. He was one also of the 51 intelligence authorities that said right on the eve of the election and a few days before the 2020 debate, that Hunter's laptop, which was in the hands of the FBI and authenticated, had all the hallmarks of a Russian information, which meant disinformation campaign. So in other words, Leon Panetta is now decrying the politicalization of the Pentagon when he went out before an election and tried to use his fee days as a former CEEA. CIA director and defense secretary to basically lie to the American people in order to arm Joe Biden before the debate so he could deny what was factual. The laptop was authentic.

That affected the 2020 election. So where am I coming to in conclusion? Very quickly, this will all be adjudicated. Either the new Pentagon for the first time will pass an audit or it won't. Whether recruitment, which has reached almost record numbers since the election, 350 per day in the military, whether we restore recruitment or not, it will be adjudicated. Whether the defense cuts are wise or not will be adjudicated. Whether we have deterrence in the Red Sea, the Middle East, Ukraine will be adjudicated. But before they are adjudicated, it's seems to be highly irresponsible for a number of former secretaries to accuse the administration of politicalization.

I have one last statement. General Brown was a political joint chiefs chairman, general. He, on a number of occasions, pontificated about race and gender, and that was not central to his mission. He gave editorialization to the American people about DEA. And more importantly, he followed from a joint chief who was very political. Remember Mark Millie? He contacted his Chinese counterpart in the People's Liberation Army to warn him that if he, Millie,

diagnosed Donald Trump is erratic, he would first warn the communist Chinese general. He also, remember, interrupted the chain of command. As chairman of the Joint Chief, he has no role in the chain of command. Millie absurded that role and told theater commanders to report to him first, not the defensive secretary. And then upon retirement, he called the former president an active presidential campaign a fascist. I could go on and on, but we know that we have seen numerous violations of Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, in which retired generals have called then-president and Commander-in-Chief Trump a fascist, Nazi-like, Mussolini-like, a congenital liar and comparable to the architects of Auschwitz.

Bottom line, we don't need any more letters up from so-called experts. They're always partisan and they're to no effect. Thank you. This is Victor Davis-Hansson for The Daily Signal. Thank you for watching today's podcast. And for more news like that, subscribe to the Daily Signal. Maybe you can check out my own website at victorhansson.com for podcasts. lectures, ultra-series behind a paywall, but more importantly, just daily columns that are

accessible and free to everyone. Thank you very much.