Day 67: Weekend Iran War Update with Steve Schmidt, Ken Harbaugh & Malcolm Nance

0:34 Day 67 of the war against Iran, as usual on Sunday,

0:38 joined by Ken Harbaugh of the Ken Harbaugh Show show,

0:43 Malcolm Nance, black man, spy, here on a broadcast of the Save America Movement.

0:52 Gentlemen, good morning.

0:55 Morning, Steve.

0:56 Yeah, good morning.

0:58 Um, Malcolm and another week has gone by.

1:02 Um, I love the creative and inventive genius of lawyers.

1:08 Uh, the White House has responded that they need not uh,

1:14 comply with any war powers limitations, given that we're not at war,

1:20 that the war we are currently fighting uh, in fact, ended with the ceasefire.

1:29 Though Donald Trump talks indiscriminately about

1:33 blowing something else up next, soon.

1:37 What do you make of that?

1:39 Well, I find it absolutely fascinating

1:41 because according to the Geneva Convention, uh,

1:45 if there's a cessation of hostilities

1:47 and that there's a termination of activity, then they have to declare that.

1:52 It has to be ratified through some sort of document.

1:56 And by saying that we are no longer

1:58 in in a state of war because we had a ceasefire,

2:02 well, that's not technically true.

2:04 We're still in a state of war with North Korea since 1953.

2:10 Uh, so you can we're you know, let me rephrase that.

2:12 We are in a ceasefire with North Korea since 1953,

2:18 the end of the Korea you know, combat operations in the Korean War.

2:22 We could be trapped in the same cycle with Iran.

2:26 Trump has no inclination to negotiate an actual physical end to this war.

2:32 However, he is making plans based on what we're reading from, you know,

2:37 Barak Ravid and Axios and other papers,

2:40 of starting the war over in another phase so

2:45 that he could get around the War Powers Act.

2:48 No one quite understands this at all.

2:52 Ken, how do you observe what what's going on this week

2:57 on the ground in the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz,

3:02 the status of things?

3:05 Well, we're still at a stalemate.

3:07 Iran still has the strategic advantage because they

3:10 have control over the Strait of Hormuz and critically,

3:13 they have demonstrated this control.

3:16 Uh, it is akin to a Hiroshima moment for them when

3:20 their strategic deterrent up until this point was just a hypothetical.

3:25 Now it's proven.

3:26 Now the entire world knows that they hold this card

3:30 and they can deploy [clears throat] it at any time they want.

3:33 There was uh, satellite imagery, I believe,

3:35 of 40 fast boats in the Strait over the the weekend.

3:40 Um, conjecture at this point as to what they were doing there,

3:45 but it is not difficult to to lay mines uh,

3:48 and they have the drone advantage in the region as well.

3:52 Uh, and I just want to double tap

3:54 Malcolm's point about the the perfidy of this administration.

3:59 I actually didn't see this one coming.

4:00 I mean, we have all known for a very long

4:02 time that the rule of law is meaningless to this administration,

4:07 but the brazenness with which they are

4:09 simply ignoring the statutory requirements and understandings automatically,

4:16 but to just reset the clock by ending the war

4:19 on a Monday and restarting it again on a Tuesday, I'm I'm being a little bit um,

4:24 exaggerating [clears throat] just a little bit,

4:25 but that is essentially what they're doing.

4:27 You're right, Steve,

4:28 the creativity of lawyers in this administration is just astonishing and it

4:33 should be a warning for those who aren't afraid enough yet,

4:37 it should be the loudest warning we've seen yet

4:41 that the law does not matter to this regime,

4:43 whether it's matters of war and peace or elections or human rights, you name it.

4:48 They'll do whatever they have to to get their way, laws be damned.

4:53 Um, total lawlessness, absolutely.

4:58 And and we're going to talk more about that before

5:00 I turn the conversation to Pete Hegseth and uh,

5:05 his testimony with no coordination.

5:08 I think different than most of the guests [clears throat] on cable news,

5:11 I'm about to ask a question uh, that none of them would be able to answer, uh,

5:18 I think in the in the cold, but I'll go to you first, Malcolm.

5:21 Uh, major fire on a destroyer in the in the Pacific uh, this week.

5:28 What do you what do you know about that?

5:32 Um, looking at the Navy through the eyes

5:39 of a civilian and from the perspective of uh, MacArthur's admonition,

5:46 the military belongs to the uh, nation, to the people,

5:52 not to the military, not to the not not to the generals.

5:56 I've asked you this question over the last over the last month and a half.

6:01 Do we Is there a problem in the Navy that that that's

6:05 a that's a political issue that presidential

6:08 candidates need to be talking about?

6:11 I I I think the a broken Navy in in orders

6:16 of magnitude of importance is much more dire than a broken army.

6:22 One is one is much easier to fix.

6:26 Yeah, um, the I know what the problem is in the Navy right now.

6:30 Uh, you know, I'm old salty, old chief.

6:33 So my job is deck plates leadership, to look down the chain of command,

6:36 make sure everybody's complying, look up the chain of command,

6:39 give them the mentorship that they need and the advice

6:42 to make sure they don't do stupid things, right?

6:45 That's what my job was uh, and still is to this day.

6:48 What's going on is very simple.

6:52 The command climate as set by the White

6:57 House is almost an attitude of screw you, right?

7:03 What I'm doing's right.

7:05 And what that leads when when Navy regulations do not set the command climate,

7:12 when the Uniform Code of Military Justice

7:15 can be gotten around by writing letters

7:17 to your Republican MAGA congressman or by someone

7:21 who has donated money to Donald Trump,

7:24 the command climate is we can work around you.

7:27 Uh, we saw that with Trump in his first administration,

7:30 literally pointing to convicted murderer war criminals, right?

7:37 And saying, "He's my kind of guy.

7:40 He gets off 100% scot-free, full retirement,

7:43 reestablishment of his honor and all

7:46 of that, even though he disgraced the uniform."

7:48 And that's now coming down past the chiefs level into the deck plates.

7:54 Fires are not a joke.

7:56 Uh, I was on one out of my entire career,

7:59 I've written over 25 ships, submarines.

8:01 Um, we only had one lint fire on uh, on Actually, that's not a lint fire.

8:08 It was an electrical fire on a submarine.

8:11 And it was incredibly dangerous, but it didn't break out into flame.

8:15 Um, it was, you know, but still fills the sub with smoke.

8:18 You got to surface, you got to you know, you got to snorkel.

8:21 Um, what's happening now are what we call major conflagrations.

8:26 These are not jokes.

8:28 These are away the entire ship goes to battle stations to combat

8:33 this fire so that the fire parties can get down in there.

8:37 The last one on the USS Higgins occurred in main machinery, right?

8:42 That is where the jet turbines that power that ship

8:46 meet reduction gear that turn the shafts and the props.

8:49 That means there was either someone was slack in inspecting the you know,

8:55 the O-rings or the valves that lead to the fuel oil or the lubricants

9:00 and the friction caught it and it caught a fire in there,

9:04 which spread to where the ship lost power.

9:08 GOOD GOD, I I don't know who was the chief of after machinery,

9:13 but his career is over.

9:14 The division officer's career is over.

9:17 The XO and the captain,

9:18 they may have saved the ship, but their careers are over.

9:21 We're having these with frequency because these ships are being

9:25 extended to World War II level of sustainment at sea.

9:31 Not I mean, and that comes from Trump's his HIS INDIFFERENT OH,

9:35 JUST SEND IT TO VENEZUELA, let them sit there for 5 months.

9:38 They come home for 2 weeks.

9:39 Okay, send them to the Persian Gulf.

9:41 There is no rotational cycle of our Navy now.

9:45 A carrier went out for a year, you know?

9:49 And they had a major conflagration in laundry,

9:52 which I suspect was likely not just because people weren't cleaning the lint,

9:57 cuz they didn't give two F's about it,

10:01 because they're they're stuck overseas because of these attacks.

10:06 Can anything to add any impressions?

10:10 Yes, thank you for letting me jump in.

10:12 Malcolm is absolutely right.

10:14 This is in many ways a result of this insane op tempo,

10:18 but it's also a result of a toxic

10:22 culture that is pervasive now in the Department Mhm.

10:25 of Defense.

10:26 Culture is set from the top down.

10:28 And Malcolm and I and others were warning about this years ago,

10:32 when Clint Lawrence was not just not just pardoned,

10:37 when Eddie Gallagher was not just given a pass,

10:40 but when they were put on pedestals and celebrated.

10:43 I'm talking about in the case of Lawrence,

10:45 a convicted war criminal, convicted by his own peers.

10:49 People in his own unit testified against him

10:51 that he was massacring Afghan civilians or trying to.

10:55 Uh and Pete Hegseth champions this guy as an example of the warrior ethos,

11:00 basically goes on tour with him,

11:02 uses him as a poster child for his own audition to become Secretary of Defense.

11:08 That has a long-term effect.

11:10 At the time it was by some people laughed off as a blip,

11:14 but when that person who celebrates that kind of behavior,

11:17 that kind of role modeling becomes the Secretary of Defense,

11:21 it has a corrosive effect on the entire culture.

11:23 Now we are a nation at war with the US Navy leading the charge.

11:28 And Malcolm got at this, but I want to I want

11:32 to drill down on the effect of that kind of leadership,

11:37 not just on morale, but on motivation.

11:40 There's a difference between morale and motivation.

11:43 I've been in the trenches with Ukrainian soldiers at the front lines,

11:47 where morale is really low because life is hard,

11:51 but motivation is through the roof.

11:53 Motivation is absolutely through the roof because they know why they're there,

11:56 they know why they're fighting, they know what it's for.

11:59 Ask your average sailor on a US ship what they are there for right now.

12:05 The answer is hard to come up with because even

12:07 the Trump administration can't tell them why they are there.

12:10 You're telling me they're supposed to divine their own motivation

12:13 for risking their lives for cleaning that lint filter, if you will,

12:17 day in and day out on some of the longest employments in the US Navy's history,

12:22 when their own command,

12:23 when their own commander-in-chief cannot even tell them what it's for.

12:27 That has a devastating effect on motivation.

12:30 Add to it the moral injury of being led by a Secretary of Defense,

12:35 much less a president, who is encouraging war crimes.

12:39 It's going to as you intimated, Steve,

12:43 it's going to take a long time to recover from this.

12:47 Um I want I want to talk about Pete Hegseth and about what we saw this week,

12:53 but I want to I want to do it

12:54 through the lens of something that Congressman Jason Crow

12:59 said about him in a podcast on the Daily

13:03 Beast with Joanna Coles that I think is just incredible.

13:07 And so, first off, let me let me lay my prejudice out there on the on the table.

13:13 I'm a I'm a huge fan of Congressman Jason Crow.

13:17 I look at that guy and I see a future serious national leader.

13:22 Uh maybe a president, maybe Secretary of Defense,

13:26 who knows what the what the future brings,

13:28 but I he's a extremely impressive young guy.

13:36 He's an attorney.

13:37 Uh served in the 75th Ranger Regiment.

13:42 Uh commanded a platoon of the 82nd Airborne in combat.

13:47 He's a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.

13:50 I believe he has a a valor award.

13:54 Uh very very very impressive guy.

13:57 Uh Jason Crow, congressman from Colorado.

14:01 If we had 435 Jason Crows up there, [snorts] right, we'd be we'd be living

14:09 in a in a very different in a very different country.

14:13 Uh the good news is we have one Jason Crow up

14:16 there and Jason Crow's got a bunch of people uh that I

14:21 that I think are fair to describe as as peers

14:24 of his, but but he's a person um who served in the 75th Ranger Regiment.

14:31 And this is one of the most elite and storied units

14:36 in the in the history of the United

14:38 States armed forces in the United States Army.

14:42 And you were talking about Eddie Gallagher, the war criminal,

14:46 and talking about the SEALs and the culture crisis in the SEALs,

14:52 certainly in the political SEALs in Congress, the books, so on, so forth.

14:57 The bushy beards, the Oakleys, the archetype of the warrior,

15:01 the cosplay that we see bleeding out uh from that culture into ICE,

15:09 into all these other permutations in law enforcement.

15:14 None of them good.

15:15 You know, the 75th Ranger Regiment is spitten spit and shine

15:19 and polish unit uh that is that is ready to go.

15:24 They are famous uh for their tan berets.

15:28 Uh in the Second World War,

15:30 these are the men who Reagan later memorializes as the boys uh of Pointe du Hoc.

15:39 Uh they they have a long long legacy.

15:43 And and Jason Crow served with them.

15:47 And he went on this Daily Beast podcast and he says he is

15:54 going to force Trump to fire Pete Hegseth by turning up the heat

16:02 on him and creating such bad press for him um that Trump

16:11 is going to have to get rid of him like he did Bundy, like he did Kristi Noem.

16:18 And he said something that I think is remarkable and I want to talk about it.

16:23 This is this again is a combat veteran

16:26 the 75th Ranger Regiment talking about the Secretary of Defense.

16:32 And it's just I'm going to read I'm going to read from the story.

16:36 Um Representative Jason Crow, five-term legislator from Colorado,

16:42 said on the Daily Beast podcast

16:44 that Hegseth exhibits more than just incompetence.

16:48 According to Crow, Hegseth should resign and deserves to be impeached.

16:52 But since neither is likely to happen, he instead believes a flood of bad press

16:57 will ultimately make the president show Hegseth the door.

17:00 Crow, a lawyer and former Army Ranger who fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan,

17:05 told host Joanna Coles that Hegseth is worse than incompetent.

17:10 This is this is incredible, I think.

17:13 Quote, I think he is a vengeful individual who not just

17:20 lacks the qualification but has a meanness to him and a corruption

17:31 of his heart and soul that allows him to do things

17:38 to people and organization s that most normal people would not do.

17:50 I think he is an extreme danger.

17:57 What When you This is a serious guy

18:01 who's a who's a who's a serious military leader.

18:05 This guy This guy was a This guy was a company commander

18:08 of the 75th Ranger Regiment saying that about the Secretary of Defense.

18:14 How do you How do How do you process that, Ken Harbaugh?

18:22 Donald Trump attracts broken people to him.

18:27 I don't know whether it's his magnetism or it's something in a broken

18:31 person that is drawn to that kind of figure, but look at J.D.

18:35 Vance.

18:35 Look at Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem and most of all Pete Hegseth.

18:40 And I I'm not going to go too deep into this well,

18:43 but those who who know Pete Hegseth back in his Vote Vet days,

18:48 ask anybody from the veterans community who

18:52 has known Pete Hegseth for a long time,

18:54 and they will tell you what a broken human being he is.

18:58 And I won't betray any confidences here, but the man has a deeply wounded soul,

19:04 and you get the sense that his personal mission

19:07 as Secretary of Defense is to exercise his own

19:11 personal demons by using the United States military

19:16 uh as a a tool of a new crusade,

19:20 which to answer your question is is incredibly dangerous.

19:25 Jason is absolutely right.

19:27 He's a Pete Hegseth is a dangerous human

19:30 being exercising personal demons to try to make

19:34 up for I assume in his own mind the uh trials of his his past.

19:41 Uh and he is trying to impress Donald Trump,

19:45 um who attracts these these broken figures like a a menagerie of incompetence.

19:52 Uh and it's it's one thing if it's lawyers or family members or, you know,

19:58 MAGA faithful hanging on, it's another thing

20:00 altogether when it's the Secretary of Defense,

20:03 when it's someone who has nuclear codes.

20:06 We should all be incredibly alarmed,

20:09 and I'm glad Congressman Crow is raising the alarm.

20:14 Malcolm?

20:16 Yeah, you know, Pete Hegseth sees himself as a young prodigy,

20:20 maybe the American version of a young Winston Churchill back when he was sec,

20:25 you know, Minister of War and and the and Secretary

20:29 of the Navy uh back in World War I, right?

20:32 When Churchill was like 20-some-odd years old.

20:35 I think Hegseth has that image in his head that he's the guy.

20:38 He's got ground experience.

20:40 What did he say?

20:41 That he has dirt in his boots and that, you know,

20:44 he's going to represent the fighting soldier.

20:48 Hey, I I came up in that same era, right?

20:52 Or just before his, and I remember the fighting soldier

20:57 of World War that they praised so much that they changed

21:00 the Army's uniform and went back to the pink and blues

21:04 of World War pink and tans of World War II.

21:07 Those soldiers were Willie and Joe, okay?

21:11 From Stars and Stripes.

21:13 Dirty, nasty, trying to make coffee in a helmet in a trench,

21:18 and didn't give two flips about the politics of it.

21:22 They were average US citizens sent out to do a job.

21:26 Hegseth admires and adores the high-speed, low-drag, go-get-'em,

21:33 you know, as as South Park joked, right?

21:36 Where he says, "Guys with guns, dudes with, you know, guns, you know,

21:43 out looking cool." I think he really thinks that's the armed forces.

21:49 Let me tell you something, he ain't no high-speed, low-drag guy.

21:52 I'm going to quote I'm too low of rank

21:55 to do justice to the what an idiot Pete Hegseth is.

21:59 So, I'll quote General Stanley McChrystal, right?

22:02 So, as I'm senior NCO, I'll just point to this four-star general who says,

22:08 "Pete Hegseth is a disgraced National Guard major who was kicked

22:14 out of the DC National Guard by his own people." Okay?

22:18 And that [clears throat] he only got to the position

22:21 that he's in due to his personal relationship with Donald Trump.

22:26 No other reason.

22:26 He is wholly unqualified to have the job, to fulfill the job.

22:31 He doesn't seem to understand that he actually has to manage

22:36 the entirety of the armed forces of the United States.

22:40 Even I am better qualified for that job, because if I were to accept that job,

22:47 it would be long enough to get a coffee maker working in that office,

22:51 and to get a search for the real Secretary of Defense in the job.

22:57 Not him.

22:57 He sees himself as, you know, saintly appointed,

23:01 and as this crusader Templar knight who's going to go do battle.

23:07 What about the observation about the meanness in his soul,

23:18 in his in his character?

23:21 What What What does that say to you?

23:24 That that observation.

23:25 Do you think it's fair?

23:27 I think it's spot-on.

23:29 I think I think there's something wicked there,

23:32 and and I associated it with the evil of his particular political ideology,

23:40 this Christian nationalist insanity,

23:46 and the evil of his pastor who talks about slavery as being mutually beneficial,

23:54 about the subjugation of women.

23:57 All of it is an evil.

23:59 Um, but I I I want to I want to hear you guys.

24:04 Maybe you see something different from him.

24:09 Uh There's so many of these people are clowns,

24:13 uh untreated psychiatric patients,

24:16 and they are all of them dangerous and dangerous, but range on a hierarchy.

24:24 I think he's very, very dangerous.

24:27 And and I say kudos to Jason Crow for speaking

24:31 about something that's real that we don't often talk about,

24:37 the core of someone's character at a deep level.

24:41 There's something very off with this guy.

24:43 His His testament I I I challenge anybody.

24:49 Um with the possible exception of Benedict Arnold to to name

24:58 somebody associated with the American armed forces who's a bigger whack job,

25:04 more unfit over 250 years and than than Pete Hegseth.

25:10 And and good luck.

25:12 I'm not a I'm not a historian.

25:15 I'm not a historian.

25:17 Uh I'm I'm someone who loves history,

25:20 and there's a diff- difference between those things,

25:23 and maybe someone's going to come up with somebody, right?

25:26 And I'm not I'm not suggesting he's the first incompetent,

25:29 but there's never been anything anything like it.

25:32 But do you But do you guys see that?

25:34 Do you see what he sees?

25:35 Do you see the meanness,

25:37 the the something that really being off

25:39 on him psychologically in the harmony of things?

25:45 I I certainly do, and I'm glad the Congressman pointed it out,

25:48 but I don't think it's unique to Pete Hegseth.

25:50 It may be unique in how dangerous his position is as Secretary of Defense,

25:56 but again, it speaks to this theme of broken men and women around Donald Trump.

26:03 But I I focus on the men because there is this idea

26:07 among the Hegseths and the Mark Wayne Mullens and the J.D.

26:10 Vances that that strength, that masculinity, if you will,

26:15 uh means asserting dominance, means being mean, being cruel, being vicious.

26:22 And you get a sense of where that comes

26:24 from when you just look at the influencers of the manosphere,

26:28 the so-called manosphere today.

26:30 But again, it's from the top down.

26:32 I mean, Trump's his entire affect is uh is leadership through bullying,

26:37 all the way back to the Well,

26:39 even back before the the exonerated five, formerly the Central Park five,

26:44 his entire approach to business was meanness and bullying and intimidation,

26:50 and I think the people who are attracted to to that, like Hegseth,

26:54 like Vance, like the others, have something deeply broken inside them,

26:59 and the men in his company have

27:03 that that confusion about their own masculinity, maybe.

27:07 I'm looking at you, Mark Wayne Mullin.

27:09 Uh but this idea that to be a a strong

27:14 um a strong male figure {slash} leader in society today, you have to be a bully.

27:21 Everything about their leadership style is rent through with this meanness,

27:27 with this idea of the leader as a bully.

27:29 And once you start looking for it, you see it in everything they do.

27:35 I think that is so spot-on.

27:37 It's such a perfect segue for what I wanted to talk about,

27:41 and I wrote this yesterday or the in the aftermath in the aftermath

27:47 of in the aftermath of Scott Jennings' implosion on on CNN,

27:52 [laughter] is that we've spawned an entire generation of mini

27:58 Trumps in all things everywhere out across the country, no restraint whatsoever.

28:06 And so, to set the scene for that, we

28:09 have a 23-year-old who who is sitting there,

28:14 incredibly, with Geraldo Rivera on the other side of the table, right?

28:18 It's amazing.

28:19 This is And Abby Phillips is a genuinely brilliant person,

28:23 but she's, for whatever reason, is is in charge of this circus on on CNN,

28:30 which is a democracy snuff film every night at whatever hour it airs.

28:35 So, you got Geraldo who's sitting there, right?

28:39 Who was kicked out of Iraq for giving

28:42 away American troop positions at 82 years old.

28:45 [laughter] You got the 23-year-old Adam Mockler,

28:49 uh who is a um is uh works for our friends over at Midas Touch,

28:56 and he is sitting next to to Scott Jennings,

28:59 and he very calmly uh guts uh Scott Jennings in a in a debate.

29:09 Scott Jennings explodes Adam on television, on CNN,

29:13 which has been This has been all over the world, right?

29:16 You could be sitting in the business lounge of a hotel in Hanoi, right?

29:19 With CNN on, right?

29:20 You saw Scott Jennings go nuts at whatever time of day it was.

29:24 And so, Scott Jennings loses it, tells him,

29:27 "Get Get your[ __] hand out of my face." No repercussions whatsoever.

29:32 Total total loss of control,

29:34 total rage uh at at being at being challenged, right?

29:39 There's so much to read into it psychologically.

29:43 Senior Chief Malcolm Nance.

29:46 Um, right.

29:48 You uh you come from a tradition in uh in the line

29:54 of work that you were in dealing with a lot of young men.

29:59 You know, I have I have sons and I I'm

30:02 from the school of young men need their asses kicked, right?

30:06 You know, not not physically, right?

30:08 But you got to be you got to be on them.

30:12 Uh you got to be on top of them, right?

30:15 From a very from a very from a very young age.

30:18 You got to you got to have standards, right?

30:22 Of of conduct, of of of behavior, of of control.

30:27 Right?

30:28 What What tell me what you would say

30:30 to Scott Jennings if you were the if you were

30:34 the president of of CNN and you are um

30:39 you are uh Scott Jennings is sitting outside your office.

30:43 You got him cooling his heels out there for 25 minutes.

30:47 The uh assistant says uh says Malcolm will see you now.

30:51 And he walks into the office.

30:53 What do you Tell me what you're going to say to him?

30:55 Gosh, such fun scenarios.

30:57 Well, first [laughter] I would look forward to that day

31:01 in a way that none of you can possibly imagine having I mean,

31:04 I was a contributor at MSNBC and uh I had an incident where I I pretty

31:10 much knew my my time at MSNBC was

31:12 finished because the president of MSNBC believed a lie,

31:17 a straight-up fabrication that Fox News fabricated about me.

31:22 Just made it up.

31:24 And they took it seriously.

31:26 So, the same should be said and the same standard for CNN.

31:30 That outburst, there's only one response, right?

31:33 Which is come inside.

31:36 Good morning.

31:37 You're fired.

31:38 Clear your desk.

31:40 That's it.

31:41 That's it.

31:42 We will and no discussion about what cuz

31:45 you know he's going straight over to Fox, right?

31:47 He will be a high-level contributor.

31:49 They will place him with Bret Baier or Bret Baier with him after that.

31:54 Uh there should be no discussion.

31:55 And if I could just say jump back to what we were talking about before,

31:59 you said this generation of a-holes that's being created is

32:05 because as General Norman Schwarzkopf said in what I think is

32:08 one of the finest speeches ever made in the history

32:11 of the United States Armed Forces that where are them Eisenhowers?

32:15 Where are the Pattons?

32:17 Where are the MacArthurs?

32:19 They're here, but they have you have to have two

32:21 things to be great leader in the US Armed Forces.

32:26 Competence and character.

32:30 And Pete Hegseth these people the whole mantra of Trumpism

32:35 is you can be incompetent and you can be the worst

32:41 character if we choose you to be on our team

32:45 and if you allow yourself to be as mean-spirited and nasty.

32:51 Uh you know, I was talking uh to someone

32:53 just recently uh about this about that testimony.

32:56 Hegseth said, I couldn't be a congressman because I

33:00 would revert straight back to senior NCO land, right?

33:03 Senior chief world.

33:04 I'd be like, you know, SECURE YOUR[ __] MAJOR, RIGHT?

33:11 I wouldn't allow call him secretary.

33:14 I would say you're NOTHING BUT A WASHED-UP major who

33:17 needs to who needs to be recalibrated by real leadership.

33:22 Resign right now.

33:23 I wouldn't say anything more than that.

33:25 Good morning.

33:25 Resign right now.

33:27 And we're not getting that.

33:28 If it's MAGA because they're powerful due to their inherent

33:33 threat of killing people which is the strength behind MAGA,

33:37 white men with money who threaten, then that is why they're allowed to get past.

33:44 He's Scott Jennings is not getting fired by CNN.

33:48 They love him and I suspect CNN's going to become more like Scott Jennings.

33:53 Yeah, yeah, for sure.

33:54 Ken, what do you What do you make of it?

33:56 Is it a Is it a small deal that is

33:59 just we all dislike Scott Jennings and so we're we're piling

34:03 on because he got owned by a 23-year-old and he's

34:06 humiliated [laughter] humiliator is it a Is it a big deal?

34:09 I I think it's a I think it's a big deal.

34:11 The total the total loss of control on on national national television on this

34:21 [snorts] on this show.

34:21 Like what When you watch that like what do you What do you make

34:24 of it as a daily commentator and observer of all these things and as someone

34:31 who is pretty unflappable on a on a on a on a on a documentary

34:40 under fire from drone attack on the front lines in in Ukraine.

34:45 I mean, what What do you think about how unhinged he became on camera.

34:51 What do you just make about that as someone who flew

34:55 aircraft in the Navy into into harm's way that you know,

35:00 is somebody who's been on the front lines

35:02 in in Ukraine just day-to-day as a man.

35:05 It's just And that's a 23-year-old kid.

35:09 First of all, I think we need to give Adam, who I know,

35:13 who I've been in touch with, who uh I consider a friend,

35:16 enormous credit for being unflappable himself in that situation.

35:21 He was the adult in the room at CNN that day.

35:26 Uh which is a damning indictment of of CNN, of everyone at that table.

35:31 And I just have to make this observation.

35:34 Uh maybe I should pose it as a question.

35:36 But do you think Scott Jennings would have

35:38 had that reaction if it was Paul Rieckhoff?

35:41 If if it was a combat vet who was laying into him?

35:44 Do you think Scott Jennings would have had that reaction if it was Dan Barkoff,

35:49 a Navy SEAL, reading him the riot act?

35:51 Of course not because at their core these men are bullies.

35:56 They are broken human beings.

35:58 They are bullies and part of what is animating them, I am sure of it,

36:01 is the knowledge that they know they are being laughed at.

36:05 And let's take this back to Pete Hegseth

36:07 and his performative cosplay pretending to be the soft guy,

36:11 the special forces guy who can't do a pull-up.

36:14 He knows that the soft guys are laughing at him behind his back.

36:19 And Steve, Malcolm, you've talked to the the SEALs about Pete Hegseth.

36:24 They know who he is.

36:25 He will never be part of of their club.

36:29 And I just have to believe that at his core

36:32 Scott Jennings knows that he's not half the man,

36:35 frankly, that Adam Mockler is, much less Paul Rieckhoff or Dan Barkoff.

36:41 And what do weak broken men do in situations where they're being humiliated?

36:45 They lash out.

36:47 They raise their fists at a 23-year-old and say,

36:50 "Get your hand out of my[ __] face." I almost never swear on live live shows,

36:56 but Scott Jennings needs to be called out for it.

36:59 And if it were if it were anyone else, uh the FCC chairman, Brendan Carr,

37:04 would be calling for for them to be thrown off the air,

37:07 would calling be calling for the network to have its license revoked.

37:11 It's actually a massively finable offense to do what Scott Jennings did,

37:15 but that's not the problem.

37:17 The problem is a grown-ass man behaving that way on national

37:22 TV because a 23-year-old dared tell the truth to his face.

37:27 No, good for Adam Mockler.

37:29 And you know, obviously if I knew that this is

37:32 what I was going to be doing for a living,

37:34 I would have gotten a psychology degree.

37:36 I just I just worry that Adam's a better man than me.

37:39 I might have grabbed him by the finger there and threatened to break

37:43 it until he and I would have looked at Abby Phillips and said,

37:45 "Abby, make him say he's sorry." I [laughter] grabbed him by the finger.

37:51 Um we we have uh you talked about that Schwarzkopf speech.

37:58 We'll get a segment of that for for next week.

38:02 Um I I think that one of the uh most fascinating speeches,

38:08 if you're into oratory and and you want to listen

38:11 to a great speech for a lot of different reasons,

38:14 is Douglas MacArthur's speech uh to the West Point cadets

38:19 in 1962 where he is awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award.

38:25 And this is this a interesting period in time.

38:29 This is at the height of John Kennedy's uh New Frontier.

38:34 Uh this class that are freshmen will go on to graduate in 1966.

38:40 They will serve in Vietnam.

38:42 Uh they will be the highest casualty class in West Point history.

38:47 Uh the members of that class as alumni

38:50 and as veterans of the Vietnam War will be instrumental

38:54 in the construction of the Vietnam uh veteran memorial uh

38:59 which is now in litigation against the giant Trump arch.

39:05 Uh so, all things all things tie together ultimately.

39:09 But you think about the profound changes

39:13 in the country that took place between 1962 and 1971.

39:20 Uh they were epic, uh transformational.

39:24 Uh it was a era of great tumult

39:29 uh from the Kennedy assassination through the Vietnam War,

39:33 through the Civil Rights era, uh all the way into this into this new decade.

39:39 And you have at this at this address, the 82-year-old MacArthur,

39:46 who is really aesthetically a man of the 19th century.

39:52 Uh the the son of a great hero of the Civil War,

39:58 and it is one of the most interesting speeches

40:02 to listen to, and I and I always say to people,

40:05 when I when I assign this to a candidate,

40:08 for example, as curricula, I always I always make the point,

40:11 this is this is the last words, really, of the 19th century uh being spoken uh

40:20 in a culturally relevant way in the in the 20th century.

40:26 In in 1962, and I want to I want to just read an element

40:33 from this, because it's something Ken that you

40:36 you talked about as we were talking about character.

40:40 And again, he's speaking to the to the Corps of Cadets,

40:43 and this is this is a this is an excerpt from that that speech.

40:48 Duty, honor, country.

40:51 Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be,

40:57 what you can be, what you will be.

41:01 They are your rallying points to build courage when courage seems to fail,

41:07 to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith,

41:12 to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

41:17 Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction,

41:21 that poetry of imagination,

41:24 nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all what they mean.

41:30 The unbelievers will say they are but words,

41:33 but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase.

41:39 Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite,

41:44 every troublemaker, and I'm sorry to say,

41:47 some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them,

41:54 even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

42:01 What's your What's your reaction when you hear that excerpt, Ken?

42:07 And you think about Pete Hegseth?

42:10 Uh Malcolm, I had my rant.

42:11 Why don't you kick this one off while I gather [laughter] my thoughts?

42:15 All right.

42:16 Um I I have to tell you,

42:17 um those are words born of another era that was bathed in blood.

42:27 My dad's era.

42:29 He He joined the Navy when he was 15, and served in the Pacific War on troop

42:35 ships moving to the major invasions at 15.

42:39 At at 16, he had to clean out a a a destroyer that was

42:44 on fire of the the remains of sailors that were killed in a kamikaze attack.

42:50 Those people understand the meaning of the weight of those words.

42:57 And if you look at Trump going to West Point to give his commencement speech,

43:03 you know, none of the honor,

43:05 none of the the the heft of words like MacArthur's speech,

43:11 and uh I if I'm not mistaken,

43:12 that's the famous speech, the old soldiers never die, right?

43:16 Um that it's just not believed by the people who are in power anymore.

43:25 Their words are self-aggrandizing.

43:29 Right?

43:29 I feel that as a child of World War II,

43:31 as a boomer, uh I understand those words.

43:35 I understand, you know, I I read to Hell and Back by Audie

43:38 Murphy before I ever watched the movie, right?

43:41 I understood the the gravity of all of that.

43:45 And not not the the people of today, and it it will corrupt,

43:49 and it has corrupted many people in the armed forces.

43:53 And when the new president takes over, a real Secretary of Defense comes back,

43:58 a what I would call a great national recalibration of duty,

44:04 honor, country, my motto of our armed force, honor, courage,

44:08 commitment, you know, deck plates,

44:10 leadership, uh steadfastness, and sustainment.

44:14 All of these things must be re-affirmed.

44:18 And the I think that the entirety of the United States armed

44:20 forces will need a full stand-down of everything they're doing to say,

44:26 "Hey, everything that happened over this last 5 years,

44:28 you had better forget that.

44:30 We're going back to the Navy of honor, the the Army of honor,

44:33 and what those words mean, as opposed to, you know,

44:37 a bunch of thieves who are insider trading with top secret SCI

44:41 information about a mission which could

44:44 have killed all of your compatriots, right?

44:46 Command climate." I'm going to read the next paragraph,

44:50 Ken, and then and then jump in.

44:52 It's uh it's an extraordinary uh exposition

44:59 of the power of the English language, right,

45:02 [snorts] if if nothing else, but it is again,

45:06 um he's talking about duty, honor, and country.

45:11 And the last sentence ended with even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

45:17 But these are some of the things they do.

45:20 They build your basic character.

45:23 They mold you for your future roles of the custodians of the nation's defense.

45:29 They make you strong enough to know when you are weak,

45:33 and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.

45:37 They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure,

45:41 but humble and gentle in success,

45:44 not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort,

45:50 but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge,

45:56 to learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall,

46:02 to master yourself before you seek to master others,

46:07 to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high, to learn to laugh,

46:14 yet not forget how to weep,

46:17 to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past,

46:22 to be serious, yet never to take yourself too seriously, to be modest,

46:28 so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness,

46:32 the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

46:38 They give you a temper of the will,

46:40 a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions,

46:44 a freshness of the deep springs of life,

46:48 a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity,

46:53 of an appetite for adventure over love of ease.

46:57 They create in your heart the sense of wonder,

47:00 the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life.

47:06 They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.

47:13 Douglas Douglas MacArthur.

47:15 What What's your reaction to to hearing those words

47:21 in the context of the discussion we're having about Pete Hegseth,

47:26 maybe General Keane sitting next to him, about this generation of of leaders,

47:34 and what do we do to bring back

47:37 to life these virtues into the lifeblood of the nation,

47:44 put them back into the hearts and souls

47:47 of every young man in particular in the country?

47:53 [clears throat]

47:52 Well, Steve, I I needed a minute, because hearing MacArthur's words,

48:00 it actually took took me back to a moment not long

48:06 ago when I was in a a trench surrounded by Ukrainian soldiers,

48:10 and they asked me to to give a speech about

48:14 um about the significance of this war and the fight

48:20 they were in, and I I felt this deep sense of and I hate to say it aloud,

48:26 but I've been carrying it for a while,

48:27 this deep sense of not just concern about where America is headed,

48:32 but shame for where we are,

48:34 and the contrast with this nation of heroes that Ukraine represents,

48:41 and this this nation that we have become,

48:43 with a leadership that glorifies all of the things that do not matter,

48:49 that inverts the ideas of virtue and courage and honor,

48:55 and I think about the contrast between those men

48:58 and women on the front lines in Ukraine,

49:02 and [snorts] the UFC fights that that Trump goes to and parades

49:07 around and is constructing on the the front lawn of the White House.

49:13 And that is what we're supposed to think

49:14 of as courage and bravery and and honor, when it's just a grotesque spectacle.

49:22 Um and I I fear that has infected our military, as well,

49:27 with the leadership of Pete Hegseth and his uh performative clownery.

49:33 The idea that that courage and and bravery is about an affect, an appearance,

49:42 and not [clears throat] about how you behave, how you take care of each other.

49:46 And nowhere is that represented better than in a trench

49:51 in Pokrovsk in Ukraine or along the Dnipro River in in Kherson,

49:57 where bravery and honor and courage and patriotism isn't performed at all.

50:03 It's lived.

50:04 And yet you have in the US military [clears throat]

50:07 an entire generation being raised,

50:09 I just saw a comment in the chat, being raised on Fox News,

50:14 which is broadcast 24/7 in war rooms,

50:17 in ready rooms throughout the fleet, throughout um army bases.

50:23 And it it gives me it gives me real pause.

50:27 I am deeply concerned about this generation Would you unplug it?

50:32 Would you unplug it on day one as a new commander-in-chief?

50:39 Yes, 100%.

50:41 Mhm.

50:41 100%.

50:43 I mean, it it has become the equivalent of RT.

50:46 Now, I've talked to commanders who play RT,

50:48 but they play it to understand the enemy.

50:51 That's different.

50:51 They contextualize it for their troops.

50:53 They talk them through it.

50:55 If I was going to play Fox News in a ready room,

50:58 I would be there with a pointer.

51:00 Like the D-Day map, right?

51:02 Explaining how the enemy is positioned.

51:05 How the uh the disinformation campaign works.

51:09 And I would say, "This is what to look for.

51:11 These are the cues.

51:13 These are the the the trigger words.

51:15 This is what propaganda looks like.

51:18 There is a reason to play that kind of thing,

51:21 and it's to show what propaganda looks like." But that's not

51:24 how it's being played in war rooms across the fleet today.

51:28 Mhm.

51:30 Yeah.

51:30 Malcolm, um we have uh we have a couple minutes left.

51:35 I want to uh turn the conversation back to the back to the Gulf this week.

51:42 The Iranians are out with a new Lego propaganda

51:46 video this Sunday as they're as they're want to do.

51:50 Um the limitations of of American power have

51:59 been revealed um in a very visceral way.

52:04 We talked about it before the war began about the fact

52:08 that never in history has territory been taken by air power alone.

52:13 Never in history has air power alone decapitated a regime.

52:18 It wouldn't in this instance, and that at the end uh the Iranians would

52:23 be able to seize control of the Straits of Hormuz, which is what they've done.

52:29 Uh the world's energy markets are seizing

52:32 as a result with no end to this in sight

52:36 because we talked a couple weeks ago about Trump really has two moves, right?

52:41 Forward, which is which is more escalation,

52:44 or the treading water, which is where he is right now,

52:48 which inevitably leads him into more escalation,

52:51 or or backtracking and accepting the the defeat

52:55 and all that and all that goes with it.

52:58 So, we're So, we're So, we're there right now.

53:01 All of that All of that has gone on.

53:03 All of that has happened.

53:05 Where Where is this going to be in a in a week from from now?

53:12 Uh oil now has bounced around.

53:15 A lot of speculative trading, right?

53:18 A lot of people making money on trying to anticipate,

53:22 you know, what Trump's move is going to be.

53:24 But now it's at a Now it's at a record high.

53:27 You have real rationing taking place in a lot of countries around the world.

53:32 Where Where Where do you see this a week from now as we're as we're at day 75?

53:39 I think we'll be right where we are right now.

53:42 Um the the blockade will stay.

53:45 Trump does not seem to understand, and this is just absolutely bizarre to me.

53:51 He does not seem to understand,

53:52 and it is not being explained to him that he is in fact

53:58 responsible for all oil and trade out of the Persian Gulf happening.

54:03 He just doesn't understand it.

54:05 Um he thinks that this blockade is strangling the Iranians.

54:09 Pakistan just opened six routes to Iran where

54:13 trucks are going to be taking oil over.

54:15 Iran has enough bunkering capacity.

54:18 Sure, inflation is bad there, but you know,

54:20 these people have They're Shia Muslims.

54:23 They they deal in pain as part of their religious uh confession.

54:28 And he believes that they're just going to fold every

54:31 minute from now if the pain is too high for them.

54:35 These people fought the Iran-Iraq War and with a million men, right?

54:41 Almost lost a million men.

54:43 They don't care so long as food comes through.

54:46 He has does not believe in the reality of reality.

54:51 He believes in the fantasy as ground truth.

54:56 And it doesn't help that you have Pete Hegseth One little

54:59 correction I'd like to make uh you made about Pete Hegseth before.

55:03 Um Benedict Arnold was more qualified

55:06 to be Secretary of Defense than Pete Hegseth.

55:10 Hey, I come here Every time I come to London, I go to Battersea Church,

55:14 I spit on I try to spit in the direction of Benedict Arnold's tomb,

55:19 which is down in a kindergarten room.

55:21 I can't get to the crypt itself.

55:23 But you know what?

55:24 He was actually a competent commander.

55:26 Pete Hegseth is without A DOUBT THE MOST INCOMPETENT person

55:30 ever chosen to lead the armed forces of the United States.

55:34 on board.

55:35 I'll get on board.

55:36 House staff that would have chosen William Kelly

55:40 as Secretary of Defense if he had survived.

55:45 Can um we uh have this extraordinary testimony that we that we

55:54 saw this week and uh disturbing to say the to say the least.

56:01 Jason Crow talking about the meanness the meanness that he sees

56:06 and um the brokenness that he that he sees in um.

56:10 And that rot, that's a cancer that uh

56:16 that moves through the bloodstream quickly of any organization.

56:22 Culture starts at the top.

56:24 The commanders are taking their cues from the secretary,

56:28 who is taking his cues from the president.

56:30 And on the deck plates, they are taking their cues from the commanders.

56:34 And so, they're not cleaning out the lint filters.

56:36 Uh I mean, it's a it's a direct line from those fires

56:41 to the failing cultural leadership at the top of the chain of command.

56:46 But uh I want to call everyone's attention to one aspect of that testimony,

56:52 which is mostly focused on the war with Iran,

56:55 but Senator Slotkin, who I had on a couple days ago, Tremendous.

57:01 she she was incredible in her questioning,

57:03 and she focused on whether the secretary would obey

57:08 an unlawful order to interfere in the 2026 elections.

57:14 That should terrify all of us.

57:16 The fact that the secretary could not say

57:19 that he would uphold the Constitution uh over

57:23 an unlawful order to deploy active duty troops

57:27 to polling places to act as um regime protection forces.

57:33 So, we all need to be on guard.

57:35 Our best protection against that is to deliver the kind of verdict against

57:39 Trump and MAGA in in 2026 that can't be corrected with finding 11,000 votes.

57:45 It's one thing for the president to call a secretary of state and say,

57:48 "Find me 11,000." He can't say,

57:50 "Find me 111,000." But the fact that the secretary of defense could not pledge

57:55 his loyalty to the Constitution facing a situation

57:59 like that is that's a five-alarm fire.

58:03 I'm happy you brought this up at the at the uh at the end here.

58:08 Let's talk about it for a minute before we before we close it out.

58:12 What Why did she ask that question?

58:16 What What is she worried about?

58:20 [clears throat] What What does she think And this is a serious person.

58:25 I I admire her immensely.

58:27 I She's a great senator.

58:30 She's the type of person we want to have in national office.

58:34 But what What What does she think the danger is?

58:38 What What is the genesis of that question?

58:40 Do you know?

58:42 Well, first of all, she I know the motivation for it.

58:45 She was sitting right next to Senator Kelly,

58:48 and both of them were threatened with hanging just a few months ago

58:52 by the president for reminding those in uniform

58:56 that their oaths were with the Constitution, not to the commander-in-chief.

59:01 That was the motivation for the the question.

59:04 And I mean, she has said this to to many other people, but they had,

59:09 and I'm referring of course to the don't give

59:11 up the ship don't give up the ship video,

59:13 which featured her, Senator Kelly, and four other members and senators.

59:18 Um they did not think it was that controversial.

59:21 They certainly did not think their lives or their freedom

59:24 would be threatened in the aftermath of posting that video,

59:28 but it surfaced this concern.

59:30 Now, thank God everyone is talking about it because the mask has come off.

59:35 K Seth under oath would not say that he would

59:38 defend the Constitution above an illegal order from the president.

59:42 I think the question needs to be

59:43 asked of every administration official that comes before

59:46 Congress now between now and the election

59:49 because that is the clear and present danger.

59:52 Even in the midst of a shooting war,

59:53 which is a big deal, the threat to our democracy is that

59:57 Do you think that she thinks that there's a legitimate

1:00:01 chance that there could be an order issued from the president

1:00:06 through the Secretary of Defense to deploy combat arms units

1:00:12 of the American military to polling stations on election day?

1:00:18 Something similar.

1:00:19 Yes.

1:00:20 And what Okay, let's play it out.

1:00:22 And so the 82nd Airborne, right, can cover how many polling stations?

1:00:28 Right, do we do I see where you're going with this.

1:00:31 Right, but but where but but but let's

1:00:33 say the 82nd Airborne is at the polling station.

1:00:36 What do we What is the 82nd Airborne's job at the polling station?

1:00:42 [snorts] Well, the 82nd Airborne's job, I fear,

1:00:43 would be to be subordinate to a more loyal organization like ICE.

1:00:49 So, ICE would be on point and the 82nd Airborne would be the muscle.

1:00:54 But the the ones calling the shots would not

1:00:56 be the active-duty military commanders whose loyalty is in doubt.

1:01:00 Thank God.

1:01:01 Thank God that they are and in this scenario,

1:01:04 the troops are there to obstruct people from being able to vote?

1:01:08 I Look, I don't have the entire scenario played out,

1:01:10 but my suspicion would be that it is ICE,

1:01:13 which has become a regime protection force,

1:01:16 that is on point, that is acting as an intimidation force,

1:01:19 and the 82nd Airborne is there as a show of force to provide muscle for ICE,

1:01:25 um and to bolster the administration's claim that is

1:01:29 that it is protecting the security of Americans.

1:01:31 They're going to engineer a crisis coming up to the the next election,

1:01:36 uh and they want it to appear as if the American military is on their side.

1:01:41 Yep.

1:01:41 Okay.

1:01:43 Perfect place to leave it.

1:01:45 Ken Harbaugh, the Ken Harbaugh Show.

1:01:48 Malcolm Nance, Black Man Spy.

1:01:50 Steve Schmidt here with the warning.

1:01:53 Is the 67th day of the war.

1:01:56 You can follow the Save America Movement at the saveamericamovement.org.

1:02:02 Lot of great stuff going on over there.

1:02:05 Uh please uh give it a give it a follow.

1:02:10 Uh until next week, uh have a good week ahead, everybody.

1:02:15 Have a good afternoon.

1:02:16 Good night.