This Is Laughable Truth About Trump's 'Tough Guy'

This is a positioning speech to the MAGA base. Will the MAGA base like this? Am I saying things that will resonate with the MAGA bros? He's running for president, but he's also struggling not to be fired by the sitting-prep current president. So he wants to hold on to his job and then he wants the bigger job, which sort of defines every lackey in the world. He's a suck up. He's willing to do this. I'm positioned as a tough guy, but what I really am is a, is a doorman, is a weak guy, willing to accept all manner of humiliation before Donald Trump. Michael. Joanna. We are still in our hotel rooms. We are still away and traveling. I'm in San Francisco, you're in London. That would put us about 6,000 miles apart. We're eight hours apart, eight hours apart, which is, which is a feat of technical, technical, whatever. Don't forget, come and see us on October 20th, terrible room, L.A. We're looking forward to seeing you. Ticketmaster has the tickets, if you would like to, but when they're going very fast, I'm not sure how many there are left, or beast.pub/ithlive, Michael. Or go to ticket masters and just put in inside Trump's head. So, Michael, when we talked on Thursday, we said that we were going to double down as Donald Trump loves to do himself on Pete Hegg's F, because there are so many rumors around that he may well be fired after the midterms, if things go badly. Well, let me put on top of that. I mean, I think the reason to double down on Pete Hegg's F is that, is that he is now the guy at the center of the worst crisis on the many crisis of the Trump administration. He's at the center of the worst. I mean, the one thing that it would appear will compromise both houses of Congress and put Trump into a, I mean, be the effective end of what Trump might accomplish during his time as the president. And even more importantly, he is Hegg Sith is at the center of a war that we shouldn't have begun, that we can't, that we basically have lost and cannot get out of. He is the, if not the, I would say, he is now the, the, the, the pivotal problem, one of the pivotal problems in the Trump administration. He's the point person at, um, for an enormous part of the world's pain right now. And one can't help wondering, Michael, what, what was it, do you think about the urge to take a risk on Iran? Because everybody had advised them not to do this. They were ahead with the Maduro extrication from Venezuela. What do you think it was that made both Hegg Seth and Trump think that they could get away with Iran? There's an important distinction to be made here. It is not that Hegg Sith is the author of this war or even really a key decision maker in, um, in going to war. Hegg Sith is, Hegg Sith has only one function which is to rubber stamp what Donald Trump says, sometimes to anticipate what Donald Trump would like. Always to be the person who, who is the, um, um, you know, the, the, the ass kiss here. And, right, they're handmade into the commander in chief. So his and, and Hegg's real job, the job as the, as the secretary of defense would be to offer the president of the United States, the commander in chief, all of the reasons we shouldn't go to war. Um, all of the reasons that it might be a unwinnable war or a difficult war to win or a costly war. And, and clearly, he didn't do that in any way. He's not even in a position to do that. Donald Trump would not construe the job of the secretary of defense to do that. He's the guy waiting there. What do you want to do? He's the guy, he's the guy. How, you know, um, jump, how high? And that's what he, that's what he did. So, um, so this, and let's understand that the background to this is, is he is unfit for this job in experience for this job, not to mention all of the personal baggage. He, um, uh, he brings to this, this job. But he is, he is, and that's the nature of the, of the crisis here. The person who is the secretary of defense, one of the most complex leadership jobs in, in the United States, probably in the world. I mean, I believe that the defense department may be the biggest employer in the United States. I think it may be the biggest employer in the world, a complex management task that, um, some of the most senior managers in, um, in American business have, have, have been, uh, un, you know, have, uh, have been unable to deal with actually. So here we have, we have heggers, the co-host of a weekend television show and, um, that's, that's what he brings to this job. Well, he brings a lot to the job. We saw him huffing and puffing because he's obsessed with physical fitness in San Diego last week. He was working out with the troops. And of course, in the very city that John Trump had said, well, you know, what a price to pay. Maybe that's the price to pay if Iran takes L.A. and Sunday. I go out. So you have made the point that despite the fact that Hegg's death is possibly the least equipped, least experienced, least appropriate person to lead the American, uh, military, he nevertheless has the presidency also in his sights. And last week he gave his second state of the force speeches where it was very clear that he was laying out his platform A to attract the mega base post Trump. But B to lay out his platform for presidency beyond his current job, if he, uh, and it does, I guess it doesn't matter if he survives his current job or not, he's still going to run, right? Just to point out that litany of, of, uh, of things that one might say are, uh, are, are would, would handicap him his unfitness and inappropriateness and, and go down the list is none of those things apparently in, at this point in history preclude you from being president. So, in fact, in Donald Trump land, in Trump land here, it might actually qualify you to be president. If healthier looking hair and skin have been on your mind, this might be your sign to stop putting it off. I received the Irish store Elite and Illumina face mask. And what I love is how easily they fit into your routine. The elite is comfortable enough to wear while working or watching TV. And it uses 300 lasers and 200 LEDs to help regrow thicker, healthier hair. You may have noticed I have grown my hair recently. The Illumina is lightweight, cordless and takes just 10 minutes. 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I think from his background in the military. And it's really at the cultural divide of what's going on in the military right now and also the cultural divide of actually what's going on in America. And I'm going to read the particular paragraph that I think really A sums up the speech in which he divided the speech into six new initiatives. And we can come back to that as a later date. But this is the paragraph that I thought encapsulated what Pete Hegseth is running on and his own experience in the military. The power in back in the hands of commanders and NCOs. Not lawyers and HR reps, very important and will come on to why. Telling someone to get in shape or shave or fix their uniform or start busting their ass, that awful colloquial speech. That's not discrimination. That's leadership. We have ended the poisonous culture of a risk aversion, oh really if only they'd decided to overt the risk of going into Iran and empowered leaders at every single leave level to simply enforce standards. The only focus, as you know in your formations, should be training, readiness, accountability, availability, discipline and leafality. And when you pursue those things, you don't have to walk on eggshells. No more social engineering, no more weaponized IG policies. The complainers, the ideologues and the poor performers are no longer in the driver seat. No more silly power point trainings or drag queen shows. No more diversity quotas, no more gender pronouns, no more identity months. I mean, you talked about how Donald Trump during the first administration, the minute he saw a power point presented by one of the joint chiefs. He was out the door, right? He couldn't stand it. And I will tell you so that's the line and all of this goes goes into to assemble these speeches is an assembly of the things that Donald Trump has said because you think, well, we'll say those and we'll repeat that back to him and that will get a positive response from Donald Trump. So this speech is a has two audiences. It has an audience of one and we know who that is. But then we also have, we're also speaking to a mega base. So this is not really about the military. It's not really about running running the Pentagon. It's not really about the war. This is a positioning speech to the mega base. Will the mega base like this? Will, um, am I saying things that will, um, that will resonate with, with, uh, you know, the mega bros in essence. So it is completely a campaign speech. Everything, nothing here means anything except a positioning statement. Right. And I will just shout out one other thing. He's the very sucky up E to Donald Trump in this speech. Simply put, thanks to the courageous and common sense leadership of our commander in chief Donald Day, Trump, the state of our force is today stronger than it's ever been in our nation's history. So at the same time, we realize he's, he's running for president, but he's also struggling not to be fired by the sitting current president. So he wants to hold on to his job and then he wants the bigger job. Right. So I mean, which is, which sort of defines every, every lackey in the world. But I'm particularly struck by this speech because I talked to a very senior member of the American military, uh, a few months ago about Pete Hegg's death. And he, he, he said that, you know, can you tell us who? No, I can't tell you who I absolutely can't tell you who. But what was fascinating? No, you can't get it. But what was fascinating was the in uniform. Oh my god. Oh my god. Stop already. Stop already. I don't do this to you when you say that you've been talking to people in the White House. But, but the point of the, of the conversation really was to he was trying to explain to me the complexities in the military and the division of culture and, and really Pete Hegg's own experience in Iraq when he was working for a character called Michael Steel, who people might remember because he was actually at the center of the Somalia incident, which later became the focus of the movie Black Hawk down in which 18 American soldiers were killed when a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in Somalia. And that left a deep, profound impression on Michael Steel, who then ended up running a large unit called the Rackessons in Iraq, which Pete Hegg's death was then attached to and then Hegg's death himself ran a smaller command. So Pete Hegg's death is running Charlie Company and there's an incident where they're out on an operation and five unarmed Iraqis are shot and killed. I'm not trying to imply he was there. But then what unfolds is three of the soldiers who are involved try to cover up the incident. And, of course, it becomes one of those things where the cover up is as bad as the crime and lawyers get involved and there's a whole, there are whole court cases over it and the soldiers themselves end up going to prison over it. And it centers around the command of this character, Michael Steel, and the fact that he had no interest in culturally understanding Iraq. He wasn't interested in learning the language. He was there only, as he said, to give the enemy the maximum opportunity to give his life for his country, obviously an ironic quote, meaning that they were there to kill as many Iraqis as they could and that his experience in Somalia had really sort of toughened him to the point where he wanted his men to be as lethal as possible. And there was a very interesting piece that appeared in the New Yorker actually 17 years ago, which quotes Hegseth in it. So this is way before Hegseth has gone on Fox television. It's way before Hegseth ends up amazingly running the American military. And it's a very detailed piece about this specific incidents, but it goes into Michael Steel in great detail. And this is a senior officer talking about the company. We were not doing Arab cultural awareness. We were not doing Arabic with Iraqi dialect language training. Instead, Steel instituted a harsh regimen of physical condition. He led the brigade on eight mile runs. And it goes into the extraordinary lengths to which he pushed his men physically to make sure that they were the most lethal force imaginable. And that is very much at the heart of the culture that Pete Hegseth was involved in when he was in Iraq. And of course, we then saw that sort of, we saw that spill over into the two veterans affairs organizations that he ran where he was accused of inappropriate financial shenanigans where he was accused of being intoxicated on the job. Let me just clarify. So he was a protégé of this Michael steel. Yeah. And the feeling was, I think, that the military were handcuffed by HR rules and by cultural rules. And there was this very much a division in the military between the men that felt like this is war, the insurgents, we have to meet them where they are. And we're just going to shoot as many of them as we can. And others who said you're only going to win by hearts and minds and reconstructing their country. And so, and if I'm correct me, if I'm mistaken, that Michael steel then had problems with the with the brass that that he became he became was was he was he kicked out of the I can't remember this his career effectively ended after this incident, which was called Operation Murray. Right. So that was ended by the the the the higher officer level, the general level, the top brass at the Pentagon, which is one of the reasons that Hegsith is well now firing almost every member the top brass that he can fire and has has made the the Pentagon a hierarchy, the military hierarchy, his enemy essentially, which actually is part when he in his first interviews or discussions with Donald Trump about this job, that Trump too had enormous resentments about the generals in the Pentagon who he felt who he felt did not take him seriously during the first administration, who were guessing him and then ignoring him, who were subjecting him actually to endless power points, which he couldn't sit in a room long enough to actually understand what was going on. So that was sort of their way of of dealing with Donald Trump bore him to death. And so he and Hegsith in the way that this this meeting has been there. I think they had several meetings before he got the nod to be the Secretary of Defense, but how this these meetings played out was each of them saying how much how much the problem was the Pentagon itself, the top brass in the Pentagon that we should get rid of all of these guys, which apparently hegsith. because gone on to do. - Well, and Hegseth talks in his state of the fourth speech that he gave 10 days ago about central casting that what Donald Trump wants is central casting. You know, he's looking at movies, you've referred to him watching movies about the military in the '50s, you know, a few good men where, you know, people look like Hollywood actors and turn up. We know that he loves those big Chinese parades where the Chinese soldiers are actually all identical height and they're chosen for their identical height when they appear in those parades and that that's what the president wants. But I just want to go back to this piece that was in the New Yorker 17 years ago by some other called Raffee Cachadorian because the reason I'm focused on steel is just that he turns out to be the mentor really for Hegseth and Hegseth's attitude to the military now. Steel told his men that he wanted to whip somebody's ass. This is when he's in Iraq. And when he heard soldiers talk about taking known enemy fighters as prisoners and this is him, this is him being quoted. They say, well, you know, they're shooting at you. What we need to do is we need to go over and we need to kick their feet out from under them and flex cuff them and bring them back and put them in a room and give them some water 'cause they're probably dehydrated and not thinking, well, well, we'll give them some food because they're probably not eating well. We need to put our arm around them and then give them an open mouth to kiss, tell them that we love them. Some soldiers laughed again and after we've befriended them, then they're gonna tell us all this intelligence. Man, that is bullshit, he continued. If you go out and someone presents a lethal threat to you, you shoot him. Do not feel bad and think you should have brought him back because I didn't want to talk to him. Steel told his men to think of themselves as apex predators. Again, the language that Hexeth uses, if you mess with me, I will eat you. I'm talking about the moment of truth when you're about to kill the other son of a bitch. I do not want you to choke. - All I'm hearing is blah, blah here. This is, nobody is saying anything of, a Michael Steele is not saying anything of substance here. He is basically saying, you know, it's all, it's all performative, it's all opposed. We have no ideas here. - Well, what I think he's saying is that we're not gonna be nice to these guys. We're not gonna embrace them. I mean, I think you see that in the language of Hexeth. - I know, but that's not an idea. You're not saying anything. We're not gonna be nice to them. We're gonna shoot them. Well, you have, that's what you do in war. This is a rhetorical posture. That's all this is. - Exactly, and that's all the Pete, right, and that's all the Pete Hexeth is doing. - And that's all Pete Hexeth is doing. Exactly, exactly. But in that becomes, that becomes the issue here in which you put someone into this job who was not there to do the job, but who is there to promote himself really. And this particular job is, it really demands that somebody do it. I mean, this is to be the civilian authority in the United States military, which is a, you know, I mean, a, you know, a constitutional privilege. Let's call it that. You know, the military does not run the military. A civilian runs the military. And you ought to be acting like that. I mean, you ought to be acting like the guy who runs a very, very complex organization. A guy who knows how to run a very, very complex organization. And if you've abdicate that responsibility to be, you know, a propagandist, I suppose, or to be launching your own campaign. We're gonna be in trouble and we are obviously in trouble. So we have gone into a war in which we've run out of bullets. I mean, we've run out to munitions. We've run out. Can there be, can there be a greater failure on the part of the senior most manager of the United States military? We've run out of the bullets. We've removed the last aircraft carrier from the South China Sea's leaving Taiwan vulnerable. And having had one achievement with Venezuela, and I think sort of giddy from that experience, going into Iran, which the five previous presidents all decided not to do. And yet Donald Trump is determined. And I mean, he says that Pete Hegseth sort of persuaded him, which I think is partly him again blaming Hegseth. But Hegseth looks extremely vulnerable at this point. - Well, let's get to that and say some speculation about what's gonna happen to him. But also let's look at the transformation of Pete Hegseth because he's had this job. Jobs in high places do a couple of things. I mean, they position you really for even higher jobs. So we have Hegseth who has no, is unfit, he's inexperienced. He comes with all of these other problems, the alcoholism, the women problems. But because he has been given this job and because he was confirmed by the Senate, and we ought to look to everyone who, in fact, voted for Pete Hegseth full well knowing he was unfit for this job. - Tom Tillis, the outgoing senator from North Carolina said it was the worst decision he'd ever made in his life to confirm Hegseth. - So he's given this job, he's promoted into this position, which means he is, you know, reality is reshaped. He can run for president, which he will certainly be doing using this job to do that. Because he is, he has the platform in which to say, I am a tough guy, and that will that make, that very well could make him someone who is attractive to this, to the Trump base, which, you know, is certainly as capable of getting someone elected. - Well, and one of the reasons Trump liked him was because he looked at the part because he's sort of squat. I mean, everything about him seems square. Doesn't it? It's got a square face. It's got a square shoulder, square body. He wears his pants too short, which I find odd. I'm surprised that Donald Trump likes that. But he is, we've talked about this before, he seems like an American boy doll. This little kerchief, and his matching socks, and his stars and stripes everywhere. I'm surprised he doesn't have stars and stripes contact lenses. - But let's, let's go back to, you know, he is, he is in this job during the first administration. There was always a kind of within the White House, it was amusing to many people how much the people at Fox wanted access to Donald Trump and how much they were, and what they were willing to do to get it, Sean Hannity, particularly, but no one as much as Pete Heggsith. So Pete Heggsith became a kind of joke within the first White House, you know, I mean, that's where then I picked up the, then they would call him Heggers because it was. - I thought we'd come up with the name, Heggers. - Well, I came up with it just because in the White House, that's what they would call him. And I actually was always interested then that it had gotten a wider, received a wider appeal, but I hope it does now because. - If you were living in England, he would automatically be called Heggers because that's what the English do. They just throw an EOS at the end of everybody's name. You would be woofers. - But at this, you know, it is, again, the central credential here is the Trump credential. He's a suck up. So the tough guy, and we should see this. You know, I'm positioned as a tough guy, but what I really am is a, is a doorman as a weak guy. I mean, is a guy who is willing to accept all manner of humiliation before Donald Trump. - Perfect man to run for president of the United States, Michael. Do you think that he will, do you think that, well, I suppose it depends what happens with other candidates, right, as to whether or not he actually stands a chance? - Yeah, no, you can't tell in this. This is all of, you know, whoever is, we know how is the, is the crap shoe. So the more interesting thing is who is, who goes into the top of the funnel? And, and, and Hakesith has certainly put himself there, but I'll see you next time. understand that leap of how incredible that is, the man who goes from the co-host of a weekend television show. In other words, a kind of a second rater in his chosen profession to be on television. But a man who has failed at running two veterans organizations, I mean the least you would think of, have come out of a difficult war. And I think he did see difficult times in Iraq. If you have come out of that, to then have the audacity to run two veterans organizations badly. And then to get elevated to run the military, it's madness. Yes, I mean, yes. Well, let's understand the sequence here. Yeah, the veterans organizations, but that's not really germane to his career interest. His career interest is, he hopes to be Sean Hannity. That's what he wanted to be. He didn't want to be secretary of defense. He didn't want to run veterans organizations. And by the way, he campaigned to be the, to run the veterans department during the first administration and didn't get that job. But the job he really wanted and wasn't far, far from getting is a primetime anchor job on Fox News. So this is to be the secretary of defense. He took that job and went after that job, as he went after the veteran affairs job, was because his career and television wasn't going where he wanted it to go. Now his career might well take him, certainly he's running for president of the United States. But I suppose it's just a world in which if Donald Trump can get elected, perhaps Pete Higgs, that could get elected. It's also what he has to do at this point. First thing, he has to try to protect his current job. But even if he can't protect this current job or can't continue to hold this current job, he kind of steps over that by then declaring his run for president, raising an enormous amount of money. I'm sure that he actually has, has a, has a, a money base that he's, that he's put together as he has been running the, the department of defense. And he, you know, he's, he's in business. He's put, he's put himself into business as a, as a person of, you know, of high political standing in the Republican party. So talking about people who had television careers, Tucker Carlson, do you think that Tucker Carlson is going to run for president? He was very successful in television, then gets fired as a result of the Fox Dominion case. Does, does Tucker run against him? Is Tucker in the mix, do you think? Well, Tucker is in the mix. I mean, you know, who is ultimately in the mix is, well, it's a question of who is in the mix at the beginning, who is in the mix and at the, um, after the beginning in the middle and then at the, at the end. So Tucker would be in, and in all of these guys, I mean, hegs, we're saying hegs is running for president, which he is. Are there things that might stymie him early on and convince him not to run for president? Yeah. I mean, this is when, when somebody comes along and you get a call and you say, you know, we got this on you. We found out you better not run for president or somebody comes along and who, who has a better chance and starts talking about, you know, other options, the other options that might be available to you. Um, you know, I don't know the secretary, the vice presidency just, just assume there are lots of things that might stop you from running for president or stop you from continuing to run for president. But he has, and also you might be stopped for running for president because, because you, you get no traction in the polls whatsoever. Um, or you can't, you can't begin to attract the kind of money that you need to run for president. So, at this point, everybody is feeling those, those, those variables out, probably foremost, can you raise the money to do this? And, um, and then you go, you take the second step and is Tucker doing that? Yeah, Tucker is doing that at this, at this point, for sure. So we'll have a lineup of people because obviously Sean Duffy's transportation secretary looks like he also wants to run for president. He was a reality television star too. So I was just thinking about the people who've been in television who are going to be running. I wonder, I can't help thinking that Pete Hegseth probably has terrible night terrors. I bet he is a man who does not want to go to sleep at night for fear of what his dreams bring. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm not, I mean, that, that to me suggests that he is more self aware than I suspect he is. I don't know if you have to be particularly self aware if your dreams do the work for you. Well, I mean, I, I guess you have to, um, you have to have some inner life. Does he have an inner life? Does you think Donald Trump has dreams at night? I don't know. I mean, maybe you're more, you're more optimistic about, about the human condition that I am. I think these guys just don't give a shit and they're just holy hollow people opportunists and, um, and it's just who's the next body I have to climb over. I suspect Pete Hegseth's alcoholism reflects some kind of deep inner anxieties about what he saw and how he shows up in the world. And the note from his mother, you know, never forget the note from his mother saying he was an abuser of women. That's not a note any son wants to get from his mother. Yeah, no, no, um, but, um, but he didn't wilt in the face of it. So on top of everything else, it would appear that he hasn't, he is as shameless, well, I was going to say a shameless as his boss, but that would be impossible. But it's what seemed to that he is. He himself is pretty shameless. Well, I'm not, I'm not disputing, I'm not disputing that. Anyway, we will see, uh, we will see if anybody else hangs out their shingle before the midterms. Do we think he'll get fired? Do we think he'll be eased out? Do we want to make any bets on that? I guess it depends how badly Donald Trump loses the midterms. And as we know, he's not officially on the ballot, but he's told all the Republicans to put him on the ballot. So it will be the loss. He will have to own the loss. And as you say, he's a blamer. He will have to blame someone. Does Hexeth get the blame very possibly? Or it works the other way that he doesn't acknowledge that in any way he is at fault or the people around him are at fault. He just, he blames. You know, who does he blame? I would blame Congress. Congress is really good. That's who will be elected or who will not be elected. So if they are not elected, he blames them, not his administrative, not himself, his administration or his people. The only thing about firing Hexeth is that both Republicans and Democrats have called for his impeachment. So to actually have Republicans calling for your impeachment when you are the Republican Secretary of Defense doesn't bowed well for your future. Yeah. But, you know, this, this, I mean, the one thing about Donald Trump is that he, well, the mirror many things about Donald Trump, but I was going to say the one positive thing is that he stands up for his people. But then I realized, well, that's not true at all. But the thing about Donald Trump is that he will not does not will not bow to anyone else's authority. So if people tell him Hexeth has to go, Hexeth won't go. If he decides Hexeth has to go, well, then Hexeth is of course cooked. But Hexeth is protected by the fact that he is so, so unfit for this job that many people saying he has to go. Therefore, he's protected because Donald Trump won't fire him. World according to the logic of Donald Trump. As interpreted by four times Trump author Michael Wolfe, we will be back on Tuesday back inside Donald Trump's head. The world will have turned since then will be that much closer to them in terms. And we will be back. back in New York. In New York, we will be back in New York. We'll be back in New York in the same studio, which I'm very much looking forward to have a great holiday weekend if you're in the States. And if you've been joining us, thank you so much. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, wherever you get your podcast. 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