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Top Generals Raise Alarm Over Trump and Hegseth

26m 4s

Top Generals Raise Alarm Over Trump and Hegseth

The transcript blends promotional content with political commentary. It begins with a lighthearted promotion of Pepsi as the perfect companion to a sub, emphasizing shared joy and enhanced flavor. This transitions into a significant segment criticizing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, highlighting his removal of top military leaders, promotion of culture wars, and blocking of promotions—particularly of Black, Hispanic, and female officers. Senior military officials, including former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Senator Tom Tillis, argue that Hegseth’s leadership is damaging military modernization, especially in drone warfare and logistics. The Pentagon has reportedly deleted classified documents related to defense strategies, and Hegseth has been accused of degrading the dignity of Canadian cadets. Critics, including Republican and military figures, claim he is unfit to lead, citing poor judgment, racial bias, and political overreach. Meanwhile, the promotion of DraftKings and Mudwater is layered in, with offers for sports betting rewards and a mushroom-based coffee alternative marketed to reduce anxiety. The content ultimately reflects a blend of consumer marketing and public concern over military leadership, framing Hegseth’s tenure as a decline in national defense competence.

Transcription

3998 Words, 22942 Characters

English
the perfect lunch combo that first bite of your favorite sub followed by ice cold pepsi add a couple of friends and now that's next level suddenly the laughs get louder the stories keep flowing and the food tastes better because pepsi brings out more flavor more fun and more of the moment food deserves pepsi grab a pepsi zero sugar today dave portnoy here football is here and so is draft kings the draft kings sports app is now live in all 50 states from texas to california to florida and this september draft kings is giving customers the opportunity to get boosted every football game day every game day all month long draft kings customers can get a profit boost on select football games new draft kings customers sign up with code spotify spend five bucks and get 200 in total rewards within 21 days includes all markets that's code spotify in partnership with draft kings the crown is yours event trading offered by draft kings predictions a cftc registered futures commission merchant trading involves risk of loss market availability varies eligibility restrictions apply fifty dollars and non-withdrawable predictions dollars issued every seven days via click to claim for 21 days predictions dollars expire in one year one football boost per customer maximum trade limits and restrictions apply tokens expire at the end of the final select game each day when offered nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and or free-to-play sports contests availability varies by state terms at dkng.co offer by the time i hit my 50s i'd learned a few things like how family is precious work can always wait and 99 of people over 50 already have the virus that causes shingles not everyone at risk will develop it but i did the painful blistering rash disrupted my life for weeks don't learn about your shingles risk the hard way talk to your doctor or pharmacist today sponsored by gsk top military generals and admirals past and present are warning that hegseth and trump are destroying and have destroyed our once great military in the past 24 hours take a look at some of these headlines leaking out from the inside of the pentagon and from the inside of our top military layers hegseth's culture war fixation disrupting army progress sources say hegseth extends mid-east deployments into 2027 escalating strain on troops trump has told aides privately he believes his strategy will eventually work as 50 000 troops remain on hand to give him options meanwhile our top admirals and generals all gave a do not concur in the secretary of defense order books in response to that plan so what's the plan for the top generals and admirals hegseth and donald trump do yesterday oh yeah the pentagon has now cut off access to classified information amid iran war concerns documents associated with the secretary of defense order books that were once on a classified portal were deleted and removed from the internal pentagon web portal after the washington post report this is what three people have now leaked to the washington post meanwhile a top republican senator who previously voted to confirm pete hegseth has now said once again hegseth needs to go hegseth is incompetent hegseth can't lead and hegseth is destroying our military all the while pete hegseth is posting photos of high school students in canada who are cadets not actually in the canadian military in the summer cadet program and hegseth is shaming them and mocking the children the kids this is what the u.s secretary of defense is doing a vile and despicable piece of trash meanwhile axios reports pentagon turmoil deepens as hegseth consolidates control this of course follows dan driscoll the former army secretary resigning from his position and we now know a lot of information about that resignation that driscoll met with donald trump and said it's me or hegseth and hegseth is destroying the military we're out of ammunition he's fired our top military leaders our top generals and our admirals and we are screwed and trump's like yeah i want hegseth okay that's who i'm gonna go with and according to some sources some sources wanted to speak with driscoll about the golden ballroom and how much xi jinping is gonna love the golden ballroom and how much putin will love the golden ballroom and isn't that grand and driscoll's like i'm getting the hell out of here axios reporting this summary of events hegseth has fired or forced out senior officers across nearly every service including the chairman of the joint chiefs the navy's top admiral and the army chief of staff the washington post counts more than two dozen top officers dismissed under hegseth who who has remade nearly the entire joint chiefs only the marine corps and space force chiefs he inherited are still serving the new york times reports that hegseth has also personally removed at least 45 officers from promotion list this year an extraordinary intervention in a system traditionally insulated from political leadership nbc reports tuesday that hegseth has blocked more promotions in recent weeks including more than a dozen black hispanic or female officers across the services because hegseth has demonstrated that he is a very racist individual and people knew this about him before he is refusing to promote people in our military who are qualified simply because they are black they are hispanic and they are women what a vile scumbag loser hegseth is now the republican senator who made posts yesterday about how hegseth needs to go was the republican senator who cast the decisive vote confirming hegseth republican senator over here tom tillis ripping hegseth and saying dude you confirmed the guy it's because of you tell us your legacy will be you contributed to the destruction of the united states military by putting this low life this scumbag loser in charge of the defense department this was a guy hegseth who couldn't run a non-profit a small veterans non-profit he ran he mismanaged that and you're gonna put him in by the way all the other accusations against him you're gonna put this guy in charge this is what tom tillis republican senator had to say yesterday here play this clip pete hegseth has demonstrated to me he doesn't have the confidence to run a large complex organization and we always need a highly competent highly focused unselfish leader of the department of defense i'll show you more in a bit about what other members of congress are saying about how tillis needs to go but this was the story by the washington post with high level leaks from top military officials documents associated with the secretary of defense order books the sdob's were removed from an internal web portal on the secret internet protocol router network the cybernet three people familiar with the matter told dan and alex horn and alex horton who they've been doing some great reporting the washington post defense reporters and the other top defense reporters actually do a very stellar job and they were pushed out of the pentagon by hegseth hegseth has now referred to all of the surrounding area around him as a skiff a sensitive compartmented information facility so that he can just say everything around me is classified so the press can't get near me he hasn't held a brief for months and months and months hasn't addressed anything about the catastrophic war and instead we also learn that the pentagon has hired all of these maga influencers on x who masquerade as maga influencers but they are feds yeah the people who accused others of the deep state turns out they're the deep state a lot of these maga x influencers work for the pentagon they're literally feds hired by hegseth to spew regime propaganda heck in 1984 orwellian stuff isn't that bad it was bad but not that bad take a look at this washington post article they go on and report about how the sdob the secretary of defense order book is kept on this cyber net portal as it's called and there is access to this portal by certain people who have the right types of classification credentials after the washington post reported how some of the top commanders did a do not concur with hegseth's war plans for 2027. uh hegseth basically removed the cybernet portal uh link to this SDOB report and the associated documents, and they are now hiding that from the American people. How utterly sick. That's how thin-skinned he is that they're deleting the portal. They delete the portal. Just get rid of the information, Hegsith. Run, Hegsith, you freaking loser, you. Then we have a Republican Congress member, Bacon, Don Bacon, who was in the military, had a fairly high-ranking position in the military. He agrees with Tom Tillis that Hegsith's got to go play this clip. So, Congressman, do you agree with your GOP colleague in the Senate, Tom Tillis, who, as we mentioned, tonight is calling on President Trump to replace Pete Hegsith, saying on social media, quote, I have never witnessed a more inept management of the brave men. And women who serve our country. Of course, you served your country as well. Do you agree with that? I agree with the sentiments of Senator Tillis. I hate to tell the president who he should hire and fire. I don't know if it's really my role, but I would say this. He would not be on my team. I think he has not been a very good leader in many ways. So, I agree with the sentiments of Senator Tillis, and I wouldn't hire him myself. You, of course, served. You reached the rank. Brigadier General, you did four tours in the Middle East. So, when you say, see that the Secretary of Defense disparaging a Canadian cadet, a teenager, we should note, taking part in a summer training camp and her instructor on social media, posting a photo of two women, you see them there at a moment of what's clearly great pride for them. Is that beneath the dignity of the office, as Canada's defense minister said? It is. It's lowbrow. I think it's unprofessional. And I'd like to think that our leadership, representing us in the Pentagon and in the White House, we should be better than that. And I thought it was demeaning and uncalled for. As you know, there were questions about Hegseth during confirmation hearings, quite hard questions. And yet, Republican senators confirmed him. Should they have seen this coming? I think so. I told a few senators that I would vote no. And I was told by some, and I'll keep them nameless, Don, you're not under all the pressure that we're under to vote for him. But I said, I've been under a lot of other pressure and other bills. I still vote no or vote by conscience. I felt like he was trouble from the beginning. And then right after he got confirmed, then we had the signal gate. And what bothered me there, he put classified information on an unclassified phone in an unclassified application, gets caught. And instead of just saying, you know, I was wrong, I shouldn't have done it, he gets mad at the reporter. And I expect leaders to take responsibility when they fail and they make a mistake. None of us are perfect. But when you fail, you own up to it and say, I was wrong and it won't happen again. And I heard somebody that acted more like my teenagers, they're 30 and 40 now, but when they were teenagers, just deny and accuse somebody else of being at fault. I didn't like it. I thought it was wrong. Are you one of those people who loves coffee, the taste, the smell, the whole ritual, but the caffeine sends you straight into an anxiety spiral? Because, well, same. I love trying new coffee shops and fun seasonal drinks, but one full cup and suddenly my heart is sprinting and my brain, it's running in five different directions at once. That's why I love Mudwater. Same morning ritual, coffee, chai, or matcha, but with functional mushrooms and adaptogenins instead of a full caffeine hit. Steady energy and no spiral. I've been loving their original blend. It's cacao, chai, turmeric, and functional mushrooms, like a spicy hot, cocoa. Warm and grounding and actually satisfying. 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Please support our show. Let them know that Midas Touch sent you. We then also heard from former Republican Congress member Adam Kinzinger. Here's what he had to say. I've got to tell you, it's been interesting to me because typically my time in the military, I would say in the officer corps, it was generally about 80% Republican, 20% Democratic, and we all got along. That's shifting a lot, and there are a lot of people that are seeing Hegsath as a guy focused on these shallow things that don't matter. Yeah, fine. Maybe do a video or two occasionally where you're doing some pull-ups or push-ups to encourage good health among the troops, but when that becomes the obsession, and I'll tell you, I also know bad commanders, and bad commanders are the ones that always end up reverting back to focusing on things like, did you shave close enough? What does your uniform look like? And they use the old adage of, if we can't trust you to get your uniform right, how can we trust you to fly an $8 million plane? Always bad commanders that do that. And to put on Twitter, you know, kids, kids that have a desire to some level to serve in the Canadian military and shame them to an entire country is not just punching down. It is the most beta male guy who is scared to death of his own shadow thing I've ever seen, and nobody can defend that. It's disgusting, and he needs to apologize for it. But Donald Trump says it's all roses, all peachy, Donald Trump says. He says Hegsath has done an amazing job. This is what Donald Trump said yesterday. He invited a lot of Republicans from swing districts for this midterm rally. This was part of the midterm rally. And here's what Donald Trump said yesterday in front of everybody. Play this clip. Trouble, right, Pete? You did a good job last night in Iran, by the way. You knocked the hell out of them. Very good. We're winning. We're winning that one very big, by the way, in case you haven't noticed. Now, here's the message from Republican Senator Tom Tillis. I thank Army Secretary Dan Driscoll for his leadership to our army and service to our country. Dan was the right man at the right moment to lead our soldiers and army civilians. Our understanding and assumptions of warfare are being challenged in places like Ukraine and Iran. And Dan understands the old way of doing business no longer applies. He and General George began a transformative period of innovation in how we array our forces and equip our soldiers. He challenged our legacy approach to manning and procurement. Most of all, he cared deeply about the army and service to our country. He was the right man at the right moment to lead the army. Army formations and quickly earned their respect. If we had a secretary of defense who maintained the same priorities and forward thinking, he would be fighting to retain talented leaders like Dan Driscoll and the many flag officers he has forced into retirement. Instead, he is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks. I served on the Senate Armed Services for eight years and as chair or ranking member of the Personnel and Readiness Committee, I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country. He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly, these are all words that he picked, ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force. Ginning up soberly, you get what he's saying there. I urge the president to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it. Dude, you were the deciding vote, bud. You allowed Hegsith to get into power. Now you want a mulligan? Now you want an oopsies? Meanwhile, CNN's reporting that in addition to Hegsith now deleting all of the files on Cybernet because the SDN's reporting that SDOB got out and it said that the top generals and admirals frickin hate the guy and think he's got loser plans. Hegsith's culture war fixation is disrupting the army progress. Top military sources are indeed telling CNN the following in the aftermath of the resignation of Dan Driscoll, army secretary, multiple sources told CNN. They believe defense secretary Hegsith is damaging the army's efforts to adapt to the battlefield as he focuses on culture wars and prioritizing his own image of the American warfighter and pushes out leaders who don't align with his vision. In submitting his resignation, a source familiar said Driscoll brought up concerns with the administration surrounding the army transformation and readiness and Hegsith blocking those efforts specifically by firing top generals who were responsible. The generals like Randy George, the former army chief of staff, Randy George, his wife Patty, were beloved in the United States military. George was perhaps the most well-respected, decorated, active duty serviceman in the member four-star general there was donahue got they got rid of him cq brown jr driscoll announced tuesday evening would be his last day multiple sources told cnn they agree with the concerns driscoll raised that hegseth is damaging the army's efforts to modernize and adapt to the 21st century battlefield environment where drone warfare is becoming increasingly important by firing or pushing out leaders who were spearheading those efforts it's critical that you have key leaders that understand technology and have the temperament to deal with industry and turn that into the formation a former senior army official said when you fire these guys for arbitrary reasons it creates confusions and devoid the army is enduring turbulence right now senior u.s military officials have privately acknowledged that they have come under what could be capitalized and they have come under what could be capitalized and they have come as political pressure during hegseth's tenure particularly when he has prioritized culture war issues and voiced concerns about the secretary's recent efforts to fire or push out uniformed and civilian leaders a defense official in europe told cnn that even though hegseth has spoken about technology reform and even previously released guidance on unmanned systems in practice they see secretarian pentagon leadership more focused on culture issues than on modernization that brings me to the wall street journal article hegseth extends middle east deployments into 2027 escalating the strain on troops it talks about this open-ended military strategy that donald trump and hegseth want to have options in the war but the deployment of 19 warships air defense units fighters and military personnel are not going to be able to do that they're going to have to deploy in the future and the military is going to have to deploy in the future and the military is going to have to deploy in the future and the military is going to have to deploy in the future squadrons and power troopers across the region is straining service members and their families and creating a maintenance backlog that could take years to unwind the people said not to mention that our logistics in the middle east in bahrain and other areas have been destroyed by iran that leaves the main logistical hub that's not even close to where our aircraft carriers are in the is one of the reasons why our brave sailors and marines aboard the aircraft carriers and in the neighboring ships the protective ships that are part of the group why they're not getting basic food and nutrition and supplies and mail and other things that their family is sending them as well and then you saw the uss abraham link in the condition it was in a when it headed to thailand it just arrived in thailand and then you saw the uss abraham link in the condition it was in a no doubt you have putin and g having their team and having lots of people in thailand as our service members are going there i could assure you that that's probably what's going down there as well and uh you see the condition of our ship ain't looking too good this is i mean and you can say well ben that's because it was deployed for 286 days i know it shouldn't be deployed for 286 days they should be going back to there there should be plans and there should be places where it goes to uh doc and then goes back but okay there you have it everybody let me know what you think hit subscribe let's get do 7 million subscribers order wtf america as well thanks before you go our book wtf america is available for pre-order now it's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back to pre-order scan the qr code or click the link in the description let's do this dave portnoy here football is here and so is draft kings the draft kings sports app is now live in all 50 states from texas to california to florida and this september draft kings is giving customers the opportunity to get boosted and they're going to be able to get boosted and they're going to be every football game day every game day all month long draft kings customers can get a profit boost on select football games new draft kings customers sign up with code spotify spend five bucks and get 200 in total rewards within 21 days includes all markets that's code spotify in partnership with draft kings the crown is yours event trading offered by draft kings predictions a cftc registered futures commission merchant trading involves risk of loss market availability varies eligibility restrictions apply fifty dollars and non-withdrawable predictions dollars issued every seven days via click to claim for 21 days predictions dollars expire in one year one football boost per customer maximum trade limits and restrictions apply tokens expire at the end of the final select game each day when offered nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and or free to play sports contests availability varies by state terms at dkng.co offer

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Pepsi is promoted as enhancing the flavor and enjoyment of food and social gatherings, with a humorous emphasis on its role in creating fun and connection.
  2. DraftKings launches its sports app nationwide, offering football customers a profit boost on select games and a special sign-up reward with code "spotify" for $200 in rewards within 21 days.
  3. Multiple military officials and former leaders criticize Pete Hegseth for removing top generals, promoting culture wars, blocking promotions of qualified officers, and deleting classified military documents, citing serious damage to military readiness and leadership.

Summary:

The transcript blends promotional content with political commentary. It begins with a lighthearted promotion of Pepsi as the perfect companion to a sub, emphasizing shared joy and enhanced flavor. This transitions into a significant segment criticizing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, highlighting his removal of top military leaders, promotion of culture wars, and blocking of promotions—particularly of Black, Hispanic, and female officers.

Senior military officials, including former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Senator Tom Tillis, argue that Hegseth’s leadership is damaging military modernization, especially in drone warfare and logistics. The Pentagon has reportedly deleted classified documents related to defense strategies, and Hegseth has been accused of degrading the dignity of Canadian cadets. Critics, including Republican and military figures, claim he is unfit to lead, citing poor judgment, racial bias, and political overreach.

Meanwhile, the promotion of DraftKings and Mudwater is layered in, with offers for sports betting rewards and a mushroom-based coffee alternative marketed to reduce anxiety. The content ultimately reflects a blend of consumer marketing and public concern over military leadership, framing Hegseth’s tenure as a decline in national defense competence.

FAQs

The perfect lunch combo is a favorite sub followed by a cold Pepsi, which enhances the flavor and creates a more enjoyable, social dining experience.

New customers can sign up with the code 'spotify' and spend $5 to receive $200 in total rewards within 21 days.

Yes, the DraftKings sports app is now live in all 50 states, from Texas to California to Florida.

Customers receive a profit boost on select football games each game day throughout the month, with one boost per customer.

Event trading involves risk of loss, market availability varies by state, and eligibility restrictions apply.

The predictions feature allows users to trade on sports outcomes, with $50 in non-withdrawable predictions dollars issued every seven days for 21 days.

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