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Lethal, Lazy Liars · Political Junkie Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: The first couple of strikes,
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SPEAKER_00: as you would,
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SPEAKER_00: as any leader would want,
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SPEAKER_00: you want to own that responsibility.
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SPEAKER_00: So I said,
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I'm going to be the one to make the call after getting all the
0:08
information and make
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SPEAKER_00: sure it's the right strike.
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SPEAKER_00: That was September 2nd.
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SPEAKER_00: I watched that first strike live.
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As you can imagine,
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at the Department of War,
0:16
we got a lot of things to do.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours,
0:20
SPEAKER_00: whatever,
0:20
SPEAKER_00: where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: So I moved on to my next meeting.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Call them out.
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Thank you.
0:43
At the top of the show,
0:44
we had Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump at a cabinet meeting.
0:49
SPEAKER_03: And as anybody who watches those cabinet meetings knows,
0:52
SPEAKER_03: the whole point of cabinet meetings is not to do business.
0:55
SPEAKER_03: It's to sit around and generate a lot of publicity,
0:59
SPEAKER_03: tell Donald Trump what a smart and wonderful person he is,
1:02
and that the entire United States would be in the toilet if he
1:04
hadn't been elected
1:05
SPEAKER_03: in 2024.
1:07
SPEAKER_03: This is the Lethal Lazy Liars edition.
1:11
SPEAKER_03: I'm Claire Potter.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: Neil Young.
1:15
SPEAKER_03: And we're here to talk about all things Pete Hegseth today.
1:18
SPEAKER_03: But before that, the news summary.
1:21
SPEAKER_03: So in a closely watched special election,
1:24
SPEAKER_03: MAGA Republican Matt Van Epps defeated Afrin Bain,
1:28
SPEAKER_03: the Democrat,
1:29
SPEAKER_03: in a race to replace Mark Green,
1:31
SPEAKER_03: who took a job in the Trump administration.
1:34
SPEAKER_03: Now, this is Tennessee 07.
1:37
Van Epps was endorsed by Trump and Bain,
1:40
a former community organizer,
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by DSA.
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SPEAKER_03: And Van Epps won by nine points.
1:45
SPEAKER_03: But why is this interesting, Neal?
1:47
Well,
1:47
it's interesting because,
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I mean,
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this is a heavy,
1:49
heavy Trump district.
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SPEAKER_01: Just a year ago, Trump won by 22 points.
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SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
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SPEAKER_01: Bain did a whole lot of work here in making it a close,
2:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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SPEAKER_01: not a close race,
2:01
SPEAKER_01: but way closer than this district normally is.
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also democrats won a bigger percentage of the vote in every
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county in this district
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and bain also won really big and in nashville the part of the
2:14
district that
2:14
actually goes into nashville you know it's been watching
2:17
interesting to watch sort
2:18
of republicans and trump administration folks talking about
2:22
this because of course
2:22
they want to turn this into like the media gets everything
2:25
wrong and they you know
2:26
SPEAKER_01: but they should be panicked that again
2:31
A district that Trump won easily a year ago by double digits
2:36
dropped by double
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SPEAKER_01: digits in terms of support for a Republican there.
2:41
And so I think this was probably not a district that anyone
2:45
really expected Bain to win.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: And I think Republicans should certainly not see this as good news.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
2:53
it is a Republican victory after a lot of Democratic victories
2:57
over the last year
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SPEAKER_01: that we've talked about.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: But in a lot of ways,
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SPEAKER_01: I think this is sort of a moral victory for Democrats who,
3:03
SPEAKER_01: again,
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SPEAKER_01: are looking at the year ahead and what 2026 might shape up to be.
3:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_03: and listeners,
3:12
SPEAKER_03: just thinking about this over the next year,
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SPEAKER_03: and there will be more special elections,
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SPEAKER_03: there will be numerous elections at the state and local level,
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SPEAKER_03: which we may be watching as well.
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SPEAKER_03: Part of the point is in 2026 to make the Republicans defend
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Counties and districts that they have not had to defend in the
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past to make it
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SPEAKER_03: expensive,
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SPEAKER_03: to make it chaotic for them.
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SPEAKER_03: And,
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SPEAKER_03: you know,
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one of the interesting things is that not only did Trump win
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this district by 22
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SPEAKER_03: points,
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SPEAKER_03: as you said,
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SPEAKER_03: Neil,
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SPEAKER_03: but Mark Green won it that same year by 24 points.
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SPEAKER_03: Right.
3:46
SPEAKER_03: All right.
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So it also kind of points the finger at the number of talented
3:53
congressmen that the
3:54
Trump administration insisted on removing from Mike Johnson's
3:58
majority and placing
4:00
SPEAKER_03: in the administration.
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SPEAKER_03: They haven't done such a good job of replacing those people.
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SPEAKER_03: Right.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's a really smart point.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: And I think,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: it's been interesting to see the folks that Trump has called up into the
4:13
SPEAKER_01: administration that seems like a sort of short-sighted plan,
4:16
SPEAKER_01: as you've just said,
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and then not having like a real strategy about what that means
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for seats that come
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SPEAKER_01: up.
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And I think just sort of the broader vulnerability that like is
4:26
the case for the party.
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I think it's a really good point also to think about these
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districts where the
4:30
SPEAKER_01: party,
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SPEAKER_01: the Republicans could take for granted suddenly being
4:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:34
SPEAKER_01: maybe not tight battlefields,
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but places that they have to put money into and they have to
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put operations into.
4:40
And that certainly creates a more complicated ground game for
4:43
the next year for Republicans.
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SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
4:46
SPEAKER_03: And,
4:47
SPEAKER_03: you know,
4:47
SPEAKER_03: just to just to add a little coda,
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SPEAKER_03: it's beginning to look like,
4:50
SPEAKER_03: despite all the hysteria,
4:52
SPEAKER_03: despite all the criticisms,
4:54
SPEAKER_03: that the Democratic Party is starting to fire on all six cylinders.
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If anything has six cylinders anymore,
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the Democratic Party seems to be firing on them.
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So I think people can relax a little bit around what do the
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Democrats stand for?
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SPEAKER_03: What are they doing to win back this country?
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SPEAKER_03: Don't you think, Neil?
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SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
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SPEAKER_01: And I think that's actually a really good point,
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SPEAKER_01: because think of all the death knells we heard,
5:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:17
SPEAKER_01: not that long ago about the Democratic Party.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: And certainly it was a bleak, bleak moment.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think in a lot of ways, the party seemed rudderless, right?
5:26
And without sort of a clear direction,
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a clear narrative,
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I think in a lot of ways.
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Democrats are benefiting from the chaos and the disorder that
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the Republican Party
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SPEAKER_01: and the Trump administration is creating in American life.
5:40
So we shouldn't necessarily imagine that what this means is the
5:45
Democrats suddenly
5:46
have a coherent message that is resonating with the American
5:50
people as much as this
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SPEAKER_01: is just a vote of opposition.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: That said,
5:54
SPEAKER_01: I think you can also interpret a lot of the results,
5:56
SPEAKER_01: as we have,
5:57
that speaks to the strength of the Democratic brand and also
6:01
the variability of the
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SPEAKER_01: Democratic message in different districts and different locations that is
6:08
SPEAKER_01: resonating with voters.
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SPEAKER_01: So if it's moderate Democrats in Mississippi and Virginia and liberal,
6:14
SPEAKER_01: even social Democrats in places like New York City and Seattle,
6:17
SPEAKER_01: clearly there's a
6:19
political spectrum being represented in a way that is not the
6:22
case for the Republican side.
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SPEAKER_01: And that political spectrum seems to be,
6:28
SPEAKER_01: for the most part,
6:29
SPEAKER_01: something that voters are willing to get behind right now.
6:32
Again,
6:32
maybe in just a vote of opposition to the way things are going
6:36
from current leadership.
6:38
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
6:39
SPEAKER_03: And I want to jump on that vote of opposition thing,
6:41
because I think one of the things that's really not working for
6:44
Donald Trump is his
6:45
insistence that the economy is just splendid and that anything
6:49
that's not splendid
6:50
SPEAKER_03: about it must be Joe Biden's fault.
6:52
SPEAKER_03: So it doesn't exist.
6:54
SPEAKER_03: Right.
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And Americans don't have to look very far to see that things
6:57
aren't splendid.
6:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
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I think of myself as a relatively well resourced human being
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who goes to the
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SPEAKER_03: grocery store,
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SPEAKER_03: buys what I want and comes home.
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SPEAKER_03: and doesn't really think about it,
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I have noticed over and over and over again since this summer
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how expensive
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SPEAKER_03: groceries are.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_01: I think,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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most Americans are watching those things a little bit more
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closely and you can
7:22
SPEAKER_01: blame the past.
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SPEAKER_01: And I think like every president,
7:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: for some period of time in their new administration points to,
7:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: a prior administration and lays some blame there.
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SPEAKER_01: But it only works so long with voters.
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SPEAKER_01: And I think especially going into a holiday season.
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when you are a year into your president stops with you and
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folks um folks don't
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have the sort of long memory that i think you know someone like
7:48
trump does or that
7:49
trump tries to create for people and tying it back to biden
7:52
over and over at the
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end of the day the economy isn't strong people know it the
7:56
people feel it and
7:57
people i think are all the more mindful of it in a holiday
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season in which
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SPEAKER_01: Spending is front and center.
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SPEAKER_01: And so I think none of this looks good for him.
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And certainly the message of blame isn't something that
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actually makes a difference
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SPEAKER_01: in people's lives either,
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SPEAKER_01: which I think is an important part of this too.
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That's not a message that people like changes their lives
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measurably and something
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that they can get behind because they want it fixed and they
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want it better.
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SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they want it fixed.
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SPEAKER_03: They want it better.
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SPEAKER_03: And in fact,
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your average American doesn't understand the economy writ large
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any better than
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SPEAKER_03: Donald Trump does.
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And so it's worth saying that what a family sees in front of it
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is the economy.
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SPEAKER_02: Right.
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SPEAKER_03: And you can tell them something different.
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You could even be telling them the truth,
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like the stock market is booming.
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That makes no difference to the 60% of Americans who own no
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equities whatsoever.
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SPEAKER_03: It's really difficult to keep gaslighting people,
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particularly since it seems that people are less attached to
9:01
party and much more
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SPEAKER_03: attached to self-interest.
9:04
And they are willing to whipsaw back and forth in the absence
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of getting an
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SPEAKER_03: argument as to why they shouldn't.
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SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
9:13
SPEAKER_03: Okay,
9:13
SPEAKER_03: so in other bad news,
9:15
SPEAKER_03: this week for the first time since 1988,
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SPEAKER_03: the Trump administration declined to commemorate World AIDS Day,
9:23
SPEAKER_03: which I just want to say is mean and small and screwed up.
9:28
The State Department issued a statement saying that an
9:31
awareness day is not a
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SPEAKER_03: strategy,
9:34
SPEAKER_03: but it's also true that they don't have a strategy either,
9:37
SPEAKER_03: right,
9:37
SPEAKER_03: Neal?
9:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they've cut almost all funding for domestic AIDS prevention.
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Programs aimed at developing a vaccine for the HIV virus have
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been eliminated.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just want to echo your point that this is just ugliness.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: This is pure ugliness.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: And I also think it speaks to like the,
9:58
SPEAKER_01: I was going to say the latent homophobia,
10:00
SPEAKER_01: but latent is not even the appropriate word.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: The homophobia of this administration that imagines AIDS as a
10:07
disease of gay men when of course that's not the case at all
10:10
but i think like if
10:11
you truly understand hiv aids and its current um disease um
10:18
patterns um and uh just
10:21
SPEAKER_01: the nature of of the disease uh in 2025 just it just seems to sort of
10:27
SPEAKER_01: tie into something we've talked about over and over again,
10:30
which is the broad assault on LGBTQ folks that this
10:33
administration is carrying out.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: I also think it's worth saying,
10:37
SPEAKER_01: as we talk about a Republican administration,
10:39
SPEAKER_01: that so much of the good work of the federal government
10:43
SPEAKER_01: in HIV AIDS prevention,
10:45
SPEAKER_01: especially on the global scale,
10:47
SPEAKER_01: came out of the George W.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Bush administration.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
10:49
that's one of the things that I think we can positively credit
10:52
Bush's presidency
10:53
SPEAKER_01: for having done commitment to increasing HIV AIDS funding.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Gay Republicans played a huge part in that.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: Read my book to hear more about that.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: You know,
11:02
there was a real policy agenda there that I think the Bush
11:06
administration should
11:07
SPEAKER_01: get credit for.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: So this isn't even like
11:10
SPEAKER_01: hasn't been historically a highly partisan issue.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, all of this is ugly and gross.
11:16
And I think just especially not commemorating a day is,
11:19
it's just part of their meanness.
11:24
SPEAKER_03: It's so mean.
11:26
SPEAKER_03: And it is also really kind of dovetails with the current administration's
11:32
SPEAKER_03: libertarian bent,
11:33
SPEAKER_03: which is if you get sick,
11:35
SPEAKER_03: if there's something wrong with you,
11:37
SPEAKER_03: it's really your fault.
11:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:38
SPEAKER_03: You know,
11:38
because you shouldn't need to get vaccinated because if you
11:41
were really in good
11:42
SPEAKER_03: health,
11:42
SPEAKER_03: you wouldn't get COVID in the first place.
11:44
SPEAKER_03: Or if you did get COVID, you wouldn't die from it.
11:47
You shouldn't need any kind of coverage for AIDS because you
11:50
shouldn't be having
11:51
SPEAKER_03: the kind of sex that gives you AIDS.
11:53
SPEAKER_03: Sectioning off what we know is that AIDS is heterosexually transmissible.
11:59
SPEAKER_03: It is transmissible through drug use.
12:00
SPEAKER_03: It is transmissible through a range of ways.
12:03
SPEAKER_03: But I think you're right to associate it with the homophobia.
12:07
SPEAKER_03: I would also say,
12:09
SPEAKER_03: and I'm really interested in what you think of this,
12:12
SPEAKER_03: Neil,
12:12
SPEAKER_03: because you are the religion expert on this podcast.
12:16
SPEAKER_03: Which is,
12:17
it really shows a shift in the quality of the Christianity that
12:22
is informing the
12:23
SPEAKER_03: presidency.
12:24
SPEAKER_03: When we had George W.
12:26
SPEAKER_03: Bush,
12:26
SPEAKER_03: we had a kind of,
12:29
SPEAKER_03: to refer back to his father,
12:30
SPEAKER_03: George H.W.,
12:32
SPEAKER_03: compassionate conservatism,
12:34
SPEAKER_03: that Christianity meant
12:36
SPEAKER_03: helping people.
12:37
SPEAKER_03: And that was in fact the approach.
12:39
And one of the reasons the Bush administration was so effective
12:42
in places like
12:43
Africa is that it utilized already existing networks of
12:47
evangelicals to make sure
12:50
that the drugs were distributed and taken properly and that
12:53
strategies were
12:54
SPEAKER_03: developed within communities,
12:55
SPEAKER_03: which missionaries actually knew how to do.
12:58
SPEAKER_03: It's a very, very big deal.
12:59
But we're seeing a really different kind of Christianity
13:02
informing the Trump administration.
13:05
SPEAKER_03: It's punitive.
13:07
SPEAKER_03: It's an Old Testament mean God, right?
13:10
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: To add to the compassionate conservatism of George W.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: Bush,
13:14
I would also say there was this notion of the servant's heart
13:18
or servant leaders,
13:19
which was very big in evangelical culture and the late news and
13:24
the thousands
13:24
SPEAKER_01: around the George W.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: Bush administration.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: And this notion,
13:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
13:27
SPEAKER_01: it was highly patriarchal and there was a lot of like,
13:30
SPEAKER_01: I think,
13:30
SPEAKER_01: sort of.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: it was problematic in itself in a lot of ways,
13:33
but also it generated a sense of like white evangelicalism that
13:39
was sort of
13:40
SPEAKER_01: community oriented,
13:41
SPEAKER_01: sort of servant driven,
13:43
SPEAKER_01: servant leadership driven,
13:45
SPEAKER_01: like outwardly focused.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: All of that, again, was in service of like,
13:50
SPEAKER_01: spreading the Christian gospel as they understood it,
13:53
but I think shaped a sort of humanitarian politics that has
13:57
almost entirely
13:58
SPEAKER_01: disappeared.
13:59
And I think the Obama years really scrambled a lot of that
14:04
spirit and redirected it
14:06
SPEAKER_01: into the sort of punitive path that you've mentioned,
14:10
SPEAKER_01: one that is very vengeful,
14:12
SPEAKER_01: one that has an oversized sense of grievance and of offense,
14:16
SPEAKER_01: and that the way to
14:18
handle that is through like a raw assertion of power and
14:22
punishment on really others.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: And it's not just punitive, it's also like really miserly, right?
14:31
SPEAKER_01: Like everything is being withdrawn from the public square,
14:34
SPEAKER_01: the only sort of,
14:35
SPEAKER_01: and we'll get into this more,
14:36
SPEAKER_01: I think,
14:37
SPEAKER_01: in our discussion about Hegseth,
14:39
but just a really sort of vicious display of sort of a
14:42
religious superiority and
14:44
SPEAKER_01: sort of religious judgment.
14:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, hard to agree on that one.
14:49
And also thinking about that religious judgment in relation to
14:54
different models of masculinity.
14:56
SPEAKER_03: And I don't want to spend too much amount of time on this here,
15:00
because we're going to be getting back to masculinity when we
15:02
get to our news focus
15:03
SPEAKER_03: on Pete Hegseth.
15:04
SPEAKER_03: But it seems to me that under the George W. Bush model of
15:10
SPEAKER_03: There was a kind of provider-protector model of masculinity,
15:17
SPEAKER_03: whereas in the Trump administration,
15:20
SPEAKER_03: it is brutality,
15:22
SPEAKER_03: violence.
15:23
SPEAKER_03: You assert your masculinity by harming others, right?
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Completely.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
15:29
SPEAKER_01: again,
15:29
SPEAKER_01: another sort of very popular notion,
15:32
SPEAKER_01: and it was driven by this huge bestseller book called Wild at Heart,
15:37
SPEAKER_01: which was sort of like,
15:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember what the subtitle was,
15:39
SPEAKER_01: but it was something along the lines of like,
15:41
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:42
SPEAKER_01: evangelical manhood and a modern America or something like that.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: But this was a huge bestseller and it had,
15:48
SPEAKER_01: again,
15:48
SPEAKER_01: this sort of like benevolent patriarchal notion of what men should be,
15:53
SPEAKER_01: like caretakers,
15:55
SPEAKER_01: guardians.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: And again,
15:56
SPEAKER_01: a lot of it is like obviously very conservative,
15:58
SPEAKER_01: but in a way that I think like upholds a lot of virtues that like
16:03
SPEAKER_01: non-conservatives, non-evangelicals would admire.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Like the man as provider,
16:08
SPEAKER_01: the man as guardian and caretaker,
16:10
SPEAKER_01: the man as sort of community servant and community caretaker,
16:15
the man as sort of a pillar of society through his goodness and
16:19
through his own
16:20
SPEAKER_01: self-denial and his own sacrifice,
16:23
SPEAKER_01: right?
16:23
SPEAKER_01: Sacrifice for family, for community, for nation.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: Again,
16:28
that sort of spirit has been replaced by this sort of vengeful
16:31
model of like brute
16:33
masculinity of anything that's like a limitation on what he
16:38
wants to do is sort of
16:40
SPEAKER_01: some sort of like feminist assault on men.
16:42
And so therefore,
16:43
they should be able to do anything and everything they want
16:45
again.
16:46
I think we see a great example of this and the person we're
16:49
about to spend a lot of
16:50
SPEAKER_01: time talking about.
16:51
But like a masculinity that is about brutishness and violence
16:56
and unchecked power
16:58
has really become what's held up as like a God-ordained sense
17:05
of what men are
17:05
SPEAKER_01: supposed to be.
17:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that's right.
17:09
SPEAKER_03: And,
17:09
SPEAKER_03: you know,
17:09
SPEAKER_03: in our next news item,
17:11
SPEAKER_03: one of the things we're seeing in Congress and,
17:13
SPEAKER_03: you know,
17:14
SPEAKER_03: we were tracking this story before with Marjorie Taylor Greene,
17:17
but a lot of very high profile MAGA women who are rebelling
17:21
against Speaker Mike
17:23
SPEAKER_03: Johnson's leadership.
17:24
And that was kind of a big story this week that Johnson is kind
17:28
of on the ropes.
17:30
He seems to be holding on to his speakership by a thread in the
17:33
face of criticism
17:35
SPEAKER_03: from his caucus.
17:37
SPEAKER_03: Johnson's critics now include Elise Stefanik,
17:39
SPEAKER_03: who,
17:40
SPEAKER_03: of course,
17:40
is not running for Congress again in New York 21 because she is
17:45
running for
17:45
SPEAKER_03: governor.
17:46
SPEAKER_03: But Stefanik had very, very, very harsh words for Mike Johnson this week.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: What did she have to say, Neal?
17:54
well she's saying that like he's a liar she's accused him of
17:57
lying of getting
17:59
rolled by democrats like the democrats are playing him and he
18:01
doesn't know how to
18:02
like handle his his uh his party and i think she's right he
18:06
doesn't really seem to
18:07
be a good leader here and in terms of like managing the caucus
18:11
and um you know and
18:13
SPEAKER_01: this of course
18:14
builds upon things that Marjorie Taylor Greene has said about
18:17
Johnson and other
18:18
SPEAKER_01: Republican women have said.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a lot of disgruntled Republican women in this caucus.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: And I saw on Twitter or something,
18:27
SPEAKER_01: or maybe on Instagram,
18:28
someone saying something to the effect of all these Republican
18:31
women who are
18:32
SPEAKER_01: bristling at Johnson and sort of MAGA leadership in general.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: And it's like,
18:36
them discovering feminism is just example one million of
18:42
adopting progressive
18:44
SPEAKER_01: values when they're personally affected.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: And I think that seems really accurate analysis to me.
18:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:52
SPEAKER_03: And it also shows that there are two problems I'm looking at here.
18:57
SPEAKER_03: One is the problem of Christian leadership.
19:00
SPEAKER_03: When you take it out of the family and
19:03
SPEAKER_03: and put it in Congress, right?
19:05
SPEAKER_03: Because a lot of these women,
19:07
SPEAKER_03: let's add Nancy Mace to the group,
19:09
SPEAKER_03: let's add Lauren Bobert to the group,
19:11
SPEAKER_03: they're all Christian.
19:12
SPEAKER_03: They are all evangelicals of one kind or another.
19:16
SPEAKER_03: They don't appreciate being treated as less than,
19:19
SPEAKER_03: and that is what they have explicitly said,
19:22
SPEAKER_03: that it's lousy to be a woman in today's Republican Party.
19:26
And I have seen people speculate on this connection,
19:30
like how,
19:30
in fact,
19:31
can Mike Johnson...
19:33
believe in that patriarchal model of male leadership that is
19:39
given to men by God,
19:41
SPEAKER_03: and then give women any authority in his caucus,
19:44
SPEAKER_03: or actually even treat them seriously.
19:46
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure there's ways that that happens in churches,
19:49
SPEAKER_03: and maybe you could tell our listeners what that is.
19:51
SPEAKER_03: How does it work out on the ground in a church,
19:55
SPEAKER_03: and Congress doesn't actually make room for a more nuanced dynamic?
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Well,
20:01
I think the way it works out on the ground in a church is that
20:03
there's roles,
20:04
SPEAKER_01: there's roles you play and you're in this area of leadership,
20:08
SPEAKER_01: which is usually children's ministry,
20:10
SPEAKER_01: maybe sometimes music,
20:12
SPEAKER_01: but like in no position that puts you in authority over men.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's in the sort of conservative evangelical structure.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: And so like that doesn't translate to Congress.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: Or to the workplace either, right?
20:23
SPEAKER_01: Like,
20:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:24
SPEAKER_01: where you're like,
20:24
SPEAKER_01: well,
20:25
you can only be in charge of these things or you can only have
20:27
this title.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're all representatives.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: They all have the same exact job title and job function.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
20:34
I think like obviously this works sort of structurally and
20:37
culturally in terms of
20:38
like who gets leadership positions and who gets named to
20:41
committees and things like
20:42
SPEAKER_01: that where that can play out a little bit.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: It can be shaped by ideas about gender and power and all the rest.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: But these are just two very different systems.
20:52
And so I think that you can't bring over those ideas about
20:57
gender and power and
20:59
SPEAKER_01: organization into a place that operates by entirely different
21:04
SPEAKER_01: rules,
21:05
SPEAKER_01: logics,
21:05
SPEAKER_01: norms,
21:06
but also like is a place that's still being shaped by those
21:10
ideas of patriarchy,
21:11
SPEAKER_01: of power,
21:12
SPEAKER_01: of gender and all the rest that,
21:14
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:14
SPEAKER_01: these folks like spend,
21:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:16
SPEAKER_01: the majority of their time in.
21:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:18
SPEAKER_03: And,
21:18
SPEAKER_03: you know,
21:19
SPEAKER_03: just listening to you,
21:20
SPEAKER_03: Neil,
21:20
I think there's something we may be getting to here about
21:25
gender equality and how
21:28
SPEAKER_03: certain kinds of agendas like the anti-trans agenda,
21:31
SPEAKER_03: anti-gay agenda,
21:32
SPEAKER_03: are actually coming out of this Christian model of male dominance.
21:37
SPEAKER_03: Because, of course, you're right.
21:39
SPEAKER_03: Everybody in Congress, everyone in the Senate is equal.
21:42
SPEAKER_03: Everybody in the cabinet is actually equal.
21:45
SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, when we look at our target for today...
21:50
SPEAKER_03: Pete Hegseth,
21:51
SPEAKER_03: you know,
21:51
he has repeatedly said throughout his career that he doesn't
21:55
believe women belong
21:56
SPEAKER_03: in operational roles in the military,
21:58
SPEAKER_03: that they are not suited for them,
22:00
SPEAKER_03: they cannot compete with men successfully,
22:03
SPEAKER_03: and therefore they cannot be trusted with those operational roles.
22:07
And it makes me think of back in the 1970s when women were not
22:13
allowed to fly fighter jets
22:16
because of their menstrual periods that their bodies changed so
22:21
dramatically during
22:22
SPEAKER_03: their menstrual periods that,
22:24
SPEAKER_03: you know,
22:24
SPEAKER_03: if you had a mission
22:26
SPEAKER_03: During your menstrual period,
22:27
SPEAKER_03: you might not be able to fulfill it,
22:30
or you might get suddenly really angry and send off a missile
22:33
when you didn't mean
22:34
SPEAKER_03: to or something.
22:35
So this idea that women are sort of flighty and irrational and
22:41
delicate and that
22:41
SPEAKER_03: they ought to be that way,
22:43
SPEAKER_03: that's God's plan,
22:45
is really kind of foxing the capacity to hold the house
22:53
majority together,
22:54
SPEAKER_03: right?
22:55
Yes,
22:56
I think that there's a lot at work here,
23:00
sort of culturally and politically.
23:01
I think what's going to be interesting to see is just how this
23:04
story develops.
23:05
What are these women...
23:06
What's their larger project that they're carrying out here?
23:13
SPEAKER_01: Is this a way of...
23:16
getting johnson in line like i don't necessarily i mean i can
23:19
understand their
23:20
grievance and like i think the things they're saying are
23:23
probably very accurate but
23:24
like what is the resolution for this in their minds is it a
23:28
toppling of like
23:29
conservative ideas about gender probably not and yet like
23:33
that's what's driving
23:34
SPEAKER_01: this so like what's the resolution here
23:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:38
SPEAKER_03: You know, I'd also like to just sort of drop into this conversation.
23:41
One of the things that has occurred to me is that because the
23:44
MAGA Republican Party
23:46
SPEAKER_03: is so contemptuous of authority,
23:49
SPEAKER_03: period.
23:50
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
23:50
SPEAKER_03: you know,
23:51
I read a story today about John Thune that said John Thune is
23:56
actually having a lot
23:56
SPEAKER_03: of trouble in his leader role in the Senate as well.
24:01
And,
24:01
you know,
24:01
if in fact your party says over and over and over again,
24:05
elites lie,
24:06
SPEAKER_03: make your own decisions, do your own research.
24:09
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
24:09
you're basically setting yourself up for having a congressional
24:13
majority and a
24:14
Senate majority in which everybody kind of does their own thing
24:18
and can't be
24:19
SPEAKER_03: counted on in the end,
24:21
SPEAKER_03: right?
24:21
SPEAKER_01: Yes, because ultimately the philosophy is anarchy, right?
24:25
SPEAKER_01: And so that's great in spirit,
24:28
SPEAKER_01: that's great in idea,
24:29
but when you translate that actual animating politics into a
24:34
workplace that has to
24:36
SPEAKER_01: function and that relies on things like structure,
24:39
SPEAKER_01: hierarchy,
24:39
SPEAKER_01: leadership,
24:40
SPEAKER_01: and all the rest,
24:41
SPEAKER_01: as any organization would,
24:43
SPEAKER_01: let alone...
24:45
congress that's designed actually for that this is what you get
24:48
but like this is
24:49
the politics that has actually animated this party and has like
24:54
put it in the
24:54
position of power that it's in um but it's a snake eating its
24:59
tail essentially
25:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, no, totally agree.
25:03
SPEAKER_03: So let's move on to health care ever so briefly,
25:05
SPEAKER_03: because this may be on a lot of listeners' minds right now.
25:08
They may be looking at their proposed payments for their health
25:13
care next year,
25:14
SPEAKER_03: their health insurance,
25:15
SPEAKER_03: and sort of trying to catch their breath.
25:18
SPEAKER_03: Republicans said they would try to solve the problem.
25:22
And some Republicans seem to be sort of caucusing and trying to
25:26
put together
25:27
SPEAKER_03: certain kinds of plans to
25:29
Democrats are now circulating a discharge petition to renew
25:33
existing health
25:34
SPEAKER_03: insurance subsidies under the ACA for three years,
25:37
SPEAKER_03: which would take them through the Trump administration and into the next
25:41
SPEAKER_03: administration.
25:42
But Republicans are struggling to agree on how to respond to
25:45
this hole that they
25:46
SPEAKER_03: basically dug for themselves.
25:48
SPEAKER_03: All they had to do was continue the
25:51
SPEAKER_03: They wanted to propose another plan.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: They could have done it next year.
25:55
But now we've got another discharge petition and it's beginning
25:58
to look like that's
26:00
how the Democrats are planning to operate because all they have
26:03
to do is peel off
26:05
SPEAKER_03: three or four Republicans and they bring it to the floor for a vote.
26:08
SPEAKER_03: So what's going to happen if this problem is not solved by January, Neal?
26:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, a lot of people are going to lose their insurance, right?
26:19
Like there's a new pullout that shows a quarter of those who
26:22
are now insured through the ACA
26:25
would drop their insurance completely um so that's catastrophic
26:29
for probably
26:30
millions of americans about half of them say it would affect
26:34
how or even whether
26:35
they would vote in the midterm elections which i think is
26:38
actually sort of
26:39
fascinating you would think if anything it would might you know
26:42
mobilize them to be
26:43
more politically engaged but i also think it speaks to what the
26:46
poll also found
26:47
SPEAKER_01: which is that basically you know
26:49
People in this position have very little faith that politicians
26:53
of either party are
26:54
SPEAKER_01: able to solve this problem,
26:56
although it does show that they're more critical of Republicans
26:59
than Democrats.
27:00
So I think there is an opportunity here politically for
27:03
Democrats to seize on this
27:06
SPEAKER_01: issue and really front load it for messaging for the coming year.
27:13
to tie it to republicans i mean they've already done so fairly
27:16
well over the past
27:17
couple of months with you know the government shutdown and
27:20
whatever but i think um
27:22
this should be an issue that democrats can message successfully
27:26
and i think win but
27:28
we'll see how those numbers shift but like it isn't surprising
27:31
that americans most
27:33
SPEAKER_01: affected by this very scenario don't feel all that
27:37
politically engaged because they feel like politicians writ
27:42
large are the problem here.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: And they're not entirely wrong.
27:45
SPEAKER_03: No, they're not entirely wrong.
27:47
And I think one of the big downsides for Republicans of having
27:51
made absolutely
27:52
SPEAKER_03: everything political,
27:54
SPEAKER_03: from our bathrooms to the food we eat to our vaccines and so on,
27:59
SPEAKER_03: is that
28:01
it drives a kind of disgust with politics when legislators are
28:06
not doing their job.
28:08
SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot of Republican Congress people know that.
28:11
I think there are a lot of Republican Congress people who are
28:14
in sort of purplish
28:15
districts or who are watching what went down in Tennessee 7 and
28:19
sort of saying,
28:19
SPEAKER_03: you know,
28:20
SPEAKER_03: guys,
28:20
SPEAKER_03: you can gerrymander as many states as you want with
28:23
But my constituents are angry and upset and you are making
28:28
their lives dramatically
28:29
SPEAKER_03: less affordable.
28:30
SPEAKER_03: They will be sicker.
28:31
SPEAKER_03: You know,
28:31
SPEAKER_03: and of course,
28:32
SPEAKER_03: we're already seeing illness on the rise,
28:35
SPEAKER_03: serious illness that was more or less eliminated because of
28:39
SPEAKER_03: of RFK Jr.
28:40
SPEAKER_03: 's vaccine agenda.
28:42
SPEAKER_03: So I think there is a big opening for Democrats here.
28:46
SPEAKER_03: I would also like to say Democrats have consistently said to Americans,
28:51
SPEAKER_03: we want you to have healthcare.
28:53
They haven't always been great on producing the system that is
28:57
going to get
28:58
SPEAKER_03: healthcare for everyone,
28:59
but it has always been a positive vision and one that has been
29:03
tied to growing the
29:04
SPEAKER_03: pie of who is included.
29:07
Republicans have done just the opposite,
29:10
which is partly why they have no policy to offer.
29:15
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so let's get to our boy, Pete Hegseth.
29:20
So Pete Hegseth is really on the griddle this week because of a
29:26
new investigation
29:27
SPEAKER_03: into strikes on
29:30
Venezuelan fishing boats that he and President Trump claim are
29:35
carrying drugs to
29:36
SPEAKER_03: the United States.
29:37
We have not seen the evidence that they are carrying drugs to
29:40
the United States.
29:41
SPEAKER_03: I'm willing to have an open mind about this.
29:43
SPEAKER_03: But as many,
29:44
SPEAKER_03: many,
29:45
SPEAKER_03: many people have mentioned,
29:47
SPEAKER_03: in the United States,
29:48
SPEAKER_03: when you know somebody's dealing drugs,
29:50
SPEAKER_03: you don't send a missile into their apartment.
29:52
SPEAKER_03: You go and arrest them and you try them.
29:55
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, there are lots of problems with this approach.
29:58
But are we surprised that Pete Hegseth has ended up in this
30:04
position,
30:05
Neil?
30:05
SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think he's sort of everything he's said.
30:10
in his nomination period as secretary has indicated like this
30:16
is the type of
30:17
military philosophy he has and this is also sort of like the
30:20
poor decision-making
30:22
qualities he has and i think that's true not only in this
30:26
position but we've seen
30:27
throughout his career in his own personal life this feels very
30:30
consistent with what
30:31
we know about him and what he's shown us over time it's also i
30:35
think pretty
30:36
SPEAKER_01: consistent with
30:38
Trump's own ideas about like how issues are handled and the
30:41
sort of like just punch
30:42
SPEAKER_01: them in the face type approach to anything and everything.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's not surprising for Hegseth.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: I think what's important here is like military strategists and,
30:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
30:55
SPEAKER_01: military analysts who are saying like,
30:57
this is not reminding us and reasserting that this is not how
31:00
things are done.
31:00
This is not how we carry out things strategically for a whole
31:03
host of reasons.
31:05
SPEAKER_03: Right.
31:05
SPEAKER_03: And,
31:06
SPEAKER_03: you know,
31:06
and we don't carry things out like this strategically in part
31:12
because actually,
31:14
even though Donald Trump has said he is at war with drug
31:18
cartels coming out of
31:19
SPEAKER_03: Venezuela,
31:20
SPEAKER_03: and it's very unclear what that means because they're always calling,
31:23
SPEAKER_03: designating people terrorists.
31:24
SPEAKER_03: And then you say, well, why are they a terrorist?
31:26
SPEAKER_03: And they're
31:27
SPEAKER_03: Well, because I say they're a terrorist, right?
31:29
SPEAKER_03: So he veers back and forth between saying, are they terrorists?
31:32
SPEAKER_03: Are they drug traffickers?
31:34
SPEAKER_03: Which are actually,
31:36
SPEAKER_03: in terms of international law,
31:37
two entirely different categories of people that suggest two
31:42
entirely different
31:43
SPEAKER_03: kinds of approaches.
31:44
SPEAKER_03: But one of the things that has been coming up in this is the question of
31:49
SPEAKER_03: you know, are these war crimes, which begs the question, are we at war?
31:54
SPEAKER_03: And the answer is no.
31:56
SPEAKER_03: And some people in Congress have been working on that.
31:59
And we know Trump actually is sort of toying with the idea of
32:03
going to war with Venezuela.
32:04
SPEAKER_03: The other thing,
32:05
SPEAKER_03: Neil,
32:05
SPEAKER_03: that I think you're sort of pointing to,
32:07
SPEAKER_03: which I was listening to a conversation NPR about this the other day,
32:11
SPEAKER_03: is that what the United States does to the
32:16
SPEAKER_03: Let's just assume these Venezuelan fisher people are combatants.
32:20
What the United States does to other nations' combatants are
32:24
the things they do to us.
32:26
So what was particularly at issue in this week's news with
32:31
Hegseth was the
32:32
SPEAKER_03: so-called double tap on September 2nd,
32:35
SPEAKER_03: in which a Navy soldier,
32:39
SPEAKER_03: airplane jet fired a missile into one of these boats.
32:43
SPEAKER_03: The boat burst into flames.
32:45
SPEAKER_03: It capsized.
32:46
SPEAKER_03: There were two survivors and the order was given.
32:49
SPEAKER_03: We're not sure who gave the order.
32:51
SPEAKER_03: The order was given to kill them too in the water.
32:54
SPEAKER_03: If you are at war, you don't do this.
32:57
SPEAKER_03: This is against the laws of war.
32:59
And as somebody was pointing out on NPR,
33:02
you know,
33:02
what would the United States do if the
33:05
Our seamen were in the water trying to save their lives,
33:08
had no possibility of attacking back.
33:12
SPEAKER_03: And a Chinese plane came in and took them out.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: Right.
33:17
SPEAKER_03: So where are we going with this?
33:20
SPEAKER_03: Is this going to be,
33:21
and we should talk a little bit about who Hegseth is and how he
33:25
ended up in this
33:26
SPEAKER_03: place,
33:27
SPEAKER_03: but is this going to be the thing that takes him down?
33:29
SPEAKER_01: It seems pretty bad.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: And I think,
33:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:31
SPEAKER_01: Republicans in Congress are saying,
33:33
SPEAKER_01: not all of them,
33:34
SPEAKER_01: but there seems to be sort of a growing...
33:37
SPEAKER_01: chorus of folks that are not happy about this.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: And particularly,
33:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:42
SPEAKER_01: having seen the video,
33:44
SPEAKER_01: there's a lot of them that are like really concerned with this.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you don't do this because of what you just said.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: You don't want American service persons to be
33:54
um treated to this same side this same um treated the same way
33:59
um in their
34:01
engagements and so there's a real danger in in opening the door
34:05
to this in terms of
34:06
just like what this means for military action and violence you
34:12
know around the
34:13
world that american troops could be subject to so i don't know
34:17
if hegseth survives
34:19
SPEAKER_01: this trump seems to like him
34:21
so far and i think in part trump likes him because of the way
34:25
that hegseth operates
34:28
the sort of you know pound your chest like bravura the attacks
34:34
on media i mean i
34:35
think like the opening clip clip uh clip that we shared at the
34:39
top of the show is
34:41
actually really worth watching not just listening to because
34:44
there's this moment i
34:45
SPEAKER_01: don't know if you spotted this claire
34:48
SPEAKER_01: when,
34:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
34:49
Hegseth is just sort of scrambling for an answer in response to
34:53
a reporter's
34:53
SPEAKER_01: question.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: And like halfway through,
34:56
he turns it and it becomes about attacking the media and like
35:00
turning this back on
35:01
SPEAKER_01: you journalists who sit in your air condition.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: You don't know anything about,
35:04
SPEAKER_01: you know,
35:04
SPEAKER_01: the fog of war,
35:05
SPEAKER_01: which of course is not like,
35:07
SPEAKER_01: it's just like jumble mumbo jumbo,
35:09
SPEAKER_01: but like,
35:10
SPEAKER_01: but also mumbo jumbo that isn't a tried and true story.
35:14
trump you know discourse of like attack the media and trump
35:19
literally like becomes
35:21
completely engaged i mean he's like all these stories about
35:24
trump barely staying
35:25
awake in these meetings like he's barely paying attention and
35:27
all of a sudden when
35:28
hegseth starts turning into an attack on media like literally
35:32
new life is given to
35:33
trump he like sits up in his chair he starts smiling like this
35:36
is what animates and
35:37
SPEAKER_01: like engages trump and so hegseth knows how to operate in a way that like
35:44
SPEAKER_01: I think, keeps him in good standing with Trump.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: But we also know Trump can turn on anybody at any moment.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: So who knows how this plays out?
35:51
SPEAKER_03: No, that's absolutely right.
35:52
SPEAKER_03: And,
35:53
SPEAKER_03: you know,
35:53
just speaking to what you were saying about what animates Trump
35:57
and that Hegseth
35:58
SPEAKER_03: has a talent for judging him up,
36:01
SPEAKER_03: I am,
36:01
SPEAKER_03: I will admit,
36:02
SPEAKER_03: reading Olivia Nuzzi's Newtzi.
36:04
SPEAKER_02: Ugh, why, Claire?
36:07
And well,
36:08
there's some stuff in there where she shows some real insight
36:11
into this guy.
36:12
SPEAKER_03: And she says that too,
36:13
SPEAKER_03: that actually most of the time he's incredibly,
36:17
SPEAKER_03: Trump is incredibly bored.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
36:19
SPEAKER_03: And that the people he likes are the people who do something interesting,
36:25
SPEAKER_03: who provide an entertainment,
36:27
SPEAKER_03: who put on a show for him.
36:28
SPEAKER_03: And those are the people he takes seriously.
36:30
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
36:31
SPEAKER_03: All right,
36:31
SPEAKER_03: so let's go back to Pistol Pete Hegseth,
36:35
who was a controversial nominee for Secretary of Defense in the
36:38
first place.
36:39
SPEAKER_03: There were reports of financial mismanagement in earlier jobs.
36:43
SPEAKER_03: There was at least one credible report of sexual assault.
36:47
SPEAKER_03: He had an unresolved alcohol addiction.
36:50
All of these things came into the nomination process and he
36:54
barely squeezed through.
36:56
SPEAKER_03: There were three Republicans who voted against him,
36:59
SPEAKER_03: Susan Collins,
37:00
SPEAKER_03: Lisa Murkowski,
37:01
SPEAKER_03: and somebody else.
37:03
SPEAKER_03: And so J.D.
37:03
Vance had to get off his fat fanny and come to the Hill and
37:07
cast a tie-breaking
37:08
SPEAKER_03: vote to get Pete in.
37:09
SPEAKER_03: That wasn't a great start.
37:12
SPEAKER_03: Who was he before he came to this nomination?
37:17
I mean,
37:17
it's a relatively short trajectory he's had from college to
37:21
Secretary of Defense.
37:23
SPEAKER_03: except for like one other, I think, Rumsfeld, Donald Rumsfeld.
37:27
SPEAKER_03: He's the youngest Secretary of Defense ever.
37:30
SPEAKER_03: So who was he?
37:31
SPEAKER_03: What did he bring to this other than a lot of really bad news?
37:36
mean he's a fox news personality and of course that's why you
37:41
know he was on
37:41
trump's radar to begin with and um you know why he'd be the
37:45
type of person that
37:46
trump would pick for this uh you know i think he started off as
37:49
like a weak weekend
37:50
talking head and maybe rose to a little bit more prominence on
37:53
fox news he's
37:54
written a bunch of books that are like these you know culture
37:57
war grievance books
37:58
that do really well in conservative publishing he's been
38:02
married a lot of times
38:03
SPEAKER_01: He's on his third wife at the age of 45.
38:05
SPEAKER_01: He has a bunch of different kids by all those different wives.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: He has a terrible history there that's, I think, fairly documented.
38:12
His second wife was said to have requested aid for spouse abuse
38:16
on,
38:16
like,
38:17
several occasions.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: He's also known to have had, like...
38:21
a very bad relationship with alcohol,
38:24
habitually drinking to the point of passing out.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's been family interventions around this.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: It's all been pretty public record stuff.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, also a military veteran with two bronze stars.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: He went to Princeton.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: He played basketball at Princeton.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Actually, he didn't play, apparently.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: I just read this article that
38:40
SPEAKER_01: But he was a basketball recruit and sort of a bench warmer there.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: Also,
38:45
he was very involved in the conservative publication at
38:48
Princeton called the
38:49
Princeton Torrey and has like I was reading this article from
38:52
the Princeton alumni
38:53
magazine talking about sort of a Hegseth as a Princeton
38:56
undergraduate and like
38:58
SPEAKER_01: didn't have like a,
38:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:59
SPEAKER_01: notable academic or athletic record,
39:02
SPEAKER_01: but was like a big sort of campus campus figure figure and sort of,
39:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
39:08
SPEAKER_01: being this mouth for like
39:10
anti-woke politics at Princeton,
39:12
which of course works well in the media career he pursued.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: What else should we know about him?
39:20
SPEAKER_03: Well,
39:20
SPEAKER_03: you know,
39:20
SPEAKER_03: just from what you were saying there,
39:22
SPEAKER_03: Neil,
39:22
I think one of the things that's really interesting to me is
39:25
that there was all of
39:27
SPEAKER_03: this stuff bubbling up when you and I were like 25 years younger.
39:31
I know it's hard to imagine we were ever 25 years younger
39:34
because we are so youthful right now.
39:36
SPEAKER_03: But when we were 25 years younger, people like Pete Hegseth seemed like
39:42
SPEAKER_03: They were on the fringe.
39:44
Like they were not people you took terribly seriously and
39:47
possibly that's what motivated them.
39:50
But it's,
39:51
you know,
39:51
all of these people seem to have congealed in the second
39:55
administration.
39:56
SPEAKER_03: People who never got a college degree.
39:59
SPEAKER_03: Not that there's anything wrong with that,
40:01
but that they are often in positions where actually a little
40:04
education might have
40:05
SPEAKER_03: helped them,
40:06
like maybe going to law school or even getting a BA or
40:08
something like that.
40:10
SPEAKER_03: And then someone like Hegseth,
40:12
SPEAKER_03: who seems to have been kind of a horrible person all along,
40:17
SPEAKER_03: and then he sort of directed that into a patriotic mission.
40:21
So it's really like 9-11 that motivates him to become involved
40:27
with the military,
40:28
right?
40:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
40:29
SPEAKER_01: and I think also what's useful to think about here and to bring into the
40:33
SPEAKER_01: conversation is his self-avowed Christian nationalists.
40:37
right theology and politics he belongs to this really deeply
40:42
conservative and
40:43
really really small but influential denomination called
40:47
communion of reformed
40:48
evangelical churches these are this is out of idaho this man
40:52
named douglas wilson
40:53
that folks may have heard about who presides over a pretty
40:56
small denomination but
40:58
one that has often gotten itself in the news for its level of
41:02
influence you know
41:03
SPEAKER_01: around people who really matter including hegsa but having like
41:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
41:08
SPEAKER_01: conservative doesn't even seem the right word,
41:10
SPEAKER_01: but sort of reactionary ideas,
41:12
SPEAKER_01: especially about women.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: Douglas Wilson has said that women shouldn't vote.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: And Hegseth has like reposted a lot of Douglas Wilson's, you know,
41:23
SPEAKER_01: sermons and video clips and all the rest.
41:27
And I think that's also tied to a sort of obsession that
41:31
Hegseth has with Islam and
41:33
this notion that Islam represents the greatest threat to the US
41:38
and to Christianity
41:39
SPEAKER_01: around the world.
41:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:42
SPEAKER_03: No, I think that's right.
41:43
SPEAKER_03: And to his really zealous investment in the Trump anti-woke strategies,
41:51
SPEAKER_03: the expulsion of transgender service people.
41:54
SPEAKER_03: And he says he's doing it not because they're transgender,
41:56
but because they're obviously insane because they believe
42:00
themselves to be another
42:01
SPEAKER_03: gender other than the one they were doing.
42:03
SPEAKER_03: given at birth.
42:04
SPEAKER_03: And he wants to ideally eliminate women from combat roles,
42:08
which is something that he promoted before he became secretary
42:12
of defense.
42:13
SPEAKER_03: He then recanted it in his Senate hearings.
42:16
SPEAKER_03: But then he sort of put all this garbage out there about how,
42:19
SPEAKER_03: you know,
42:19
women can get through to these combat roles without doing the
42:22
same things men can.
42:24
SPEAKER_03: And it's just not true.
42:26
SPEAKER_03: It's not true at all.
42:28
SPEAKER_03: And numerous people from the military have stepped forward to say that.
42:33
SPEAKER_03: And he hasn't exactly reinstituted a ban on...
42:39
SPEAKER_03: lesbian and gay service people,
42:41
SPEAKER_03: but he certainly has reduced their visibility within the service.
42:45
SPEAKER_03: He has eliminated the celebration of lesbian and gay soldiers.
42:49
And my favorite one was characterizing LGBTQ troops serving
42:54
openly as part of a Marxist agenda.
42:58
SPEAKER_03: And I want to know,
42:59
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you've read any more Marx than I have,
43:02
but where did Marx say that lesbian and gay people ought to
43:06
serve in the military?
43:07
right yeah marx you know always wanting to focus on shoring up
43:11
national security
43:12
through expanding involvement in military regimes yeah famous
43:18
famous part of das
43:19
kapital probably when he was hanging out in the men's room at
43:21
the british library
43:23
SPEAKER_03: But,
43:24
SPEAKER_03: you know,
43:24
SPEAKER_03: I would also say this is having serious,
43:27
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
43:28
SPEAKER_03: this is all done in the name of increased lethality and effectiveness.
43:33
SPEAKER_03: In other words,
43:34
the whole point of the American military is to go and kill
43:37
people into submission,
43:39
which is actually a really wacky idea about what the military
43:44
is supposed to do and
43:45
SPEAKER_03: radically different.
43:46
SPEAKER_03: from,
43:47
SPEAKER_03: say,
43:47
SPEAKER_03: a Reagan-era vision that said,
43:49
SPEAKER_03: we want the most powerful military in the world,
43:52
SPEAKER_03: so nobody will ever do anything without our permission.
43:55
SPEAKER_03: It's a very, very different vision.
43:57
SPEAKER_03: But what has this done in terms of black officers, female officers?
44:03
SPEAKER_03: We know trans people have been expelled.
44:05
But what have these policies actually,
44:08
what effect have they had on people's real lives?
44:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, they've driven a lot of those folks out of the military, right?
44:14
SPEAKER_01: People are either being expelled because of some sort of like,
44:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
44:18
SPEAKER_01: made up violation or they're quitting on their own,
44:21
SPEAKER_01: which obviously is the point of a lot of this.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: But like black men, you know, are...
44:26
A lot of them are resigning because there's this policy now
44:29
from Hegseth that bans beards.
44:31
And a lot of black men can develop a really painful skin
44:34
condition from shaving.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: So that's why they keep a beard.
44:37
SPEAKER_01: And Muslim soldiers also wear beards for religious reasons.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: So there's a way that these policies are actually...
44:48
part of a concerted attack on the diversity of the military and
44:54
of course we know
44:55
as historians that the military the u.s military over the 20th
44:58
century has been one
44:59
of the best examples of diversity and of and obviously there
45:03
was a long complicated
45:04
history there as well of the ways in which the military was
45:07
long a you know of a
45:09
SPEAKER_01: agency and a force of exclusion,
45:11
but the transformation over the 20th century really served as a
45:15
model in so many
45:16
SPEAKER_01: ways for the nation.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: And Hegseth is launching a direct attack at that very history.
45:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, that's absolutely right.
45:23
SPEAKER_03: And I just want to underline that point.
45:24
I think the American military is perhaps one of the greatest
45:28
institutions for upward mobility.
45:31
SPEAKER_03: And you see people talking about it today.
45:33
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
45:34
SPEAKER_03: like single mothers will say,
45:36
SPEAKER_03: I joined the military because I want my child to have a better life.
45:39
SPEAKER_03: You know, my child was born on public assistance.
45:42
SPEAKER_03: I don't want to live that way.
45:44
SPEAKER_03: And so people see the military as a place where
45:47
SPEAKER_03: where you can learn important skills,
45:49
SPEAKER_03: where you can learn certain kinds of discipline,
45:51
SPEAKER_03: where you can gain financial literacy,
45:53
where you can gain access to the education that you might not
45:56
otherwise have access
45:57
SPEAKER_03: to,
45:57
either because of where you were born or who you are or not
46:01
having any money.
46:02
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I knew a fair number of people at Yale in my class
46:08
who came to Yale on scholarship and then joined the military so
46:11
that they could go
46:12
SPEAKER_03: to medical school.
46:13
SPEAKER_03: And they served in the military for 10 years as doctors and so on,
46:18
SPEAKER_03: and then graduated into private practice.
46:21
SPEAKER_03: So the military serves really important roles for a range of Americans.
46:26
And what Hegseth seems to understand about the military almost
46:30
exclusively,
46:31
SPEAKER_03: and maybe this is because most of the time he was in the military,
46:36
SPEAKER_03: he was going back and forth to Iraq and Afghanistan and so on.
46:41
SPEAKER_03: But what he seems to understand about it is violence and force.
46:45
SPEAKER_03: So he's promoted the return of hazing,
46:48
SPEAKER_03: bullying,
46:49
SPEAKER_03: and harassment as part of the training process in the military.
46:53
SPEAKER_03: Why was that eliminated in the first place, Neal?
46:57
SPEAKER_01: Well,
46:57
SPEAKER_01: because people were seriously hurt and worse,
47:02
SPEAKER_01: and there was a lot of legal,
47:04
SPEAKER_01: there were a lot of lawsuits over that,
47:06
SPEAKER_01: understandably so.
47:07
I think a lot of military leaders also didn't think that those
47:11
things in any way
47:13
SPEAKER_01: strengthened and made the U.S.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: military better.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: If anything, it undermined that.
47:17
things like unit cohesion competence and the battlefield and
47:21
all the rest like that
47:21
these were actually undermining of military operations and
47:25
military strategy and so
47:26
that's why you don't have them there you don't want a culture
47:29
that breeds this sort
47:30
of chaos and and chaos this sort of chaos and this you know
47:36
undermining of order
47:37
SPEAKER_01: and so i just think this is such a like
47:40
SPEAKER_01: telling example.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of different things happening here.
47:44
But this particular one just sort of speaks to what I think we
47:47
were talking about
47:48
SPEAKER_01: at the top of the show,
47:49
the sort of new ideas and the new version of masculinity that's
47:54
really becoming
47:55
SPEAKER_01: dominant and mainstream throughout conservative culture right now of
48:01
SPEAKER_01: Like this frat boy excess and this sort of lawless,
48:04
no checks on male aggression that's being held up in general in
48:10
the context of like
48:11
SPEAKER_01: military culture and military operations.
48:15
SPEAKER_01: It's a telling one for,
48:16
SPEAKER_01: I think,
48:17
sort of a broader foreign policy position and also a broader
48:23
military strategy
48:24
SPEAKER_01: globally.
48:26
SPEAKER_03: Right.
48:26
SPEAKER_03: I think that's right.
48:28
And also what it does is render any criticism of this approach
48:34
to the military as
48:37
SPEAKER_03: effeminate and weak and a vulnerability,
48:42
SPEAKER_03: making the country unpatriotically vulnerable to other nations.
48:47
SPEAKER_03: This may seem like a stretch to some of our listeners,
48:50
SPEAKER_03: but I think it's really significant that this week,
48:53
Hegseth has also announced that his department will sever all
48:58
ties with Scouting
48:59
SPEAKER_03: America,
49:00
SPEAKER_03: formerly Boy Scouts of America,
49:01
SPEAKER_03: which he claims promotes DEI.
49:03
SPEAKER_03: And he also claims it's not a boy-friendly space anymore.
49:08
SPEAKER_03: And he's very ambiguous about what that means.
49:10
But I think it means that you're allowed to be gay in the
49:13
Scouts and that there are
49:16
SPEAKER_03: girls in the Scouts.
49:18
SPEAKER_03: Now,
49:18
scouting America admitting girls has actually had the most
49:21
deleterious effect on
49:22
SPEAKER_03: Girl Scouts of America,
49:24
SPEAKER_03: which is a substantial drop in girls that want to be part of that.
49:28
SPEAKER_03: Neil, were you a scout?
49:30
SPEAKER_03: You seem so scouty.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: I was a Cub Scout for like a couple of years,
49:36
SPEAKER_01: but I quit before we went into the Boy Scout thing.
49:39
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that popular actually where I grew up,
49:41
which is sort of surprising given what a conservative community
49:45
I grew up in,
49:46
SPEAKER_01: but it wasn't as popular.
49:48
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I don't know.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: I had the cute little Cub Scout outfit for a couple of years.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: I got a bunch of the badges.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: I really loved the Derby, the Pinewood Derby.
49:55
SPEAKER_01: That was the best part of it.
49:57
SPEAKER_01: What was that?
49:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
49:58
it's when you like carve out a race car out of like this block
50:04
of pine wood and
50:05
SPEAKER_01: then you send it down a ramp.
50:07
And,
50:07
you know,
50:08
if you win,
50:09
if yours comes,
50:09
I mean,
50:10
like my wheels like barely stayed on mine.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: So I did not.
50:15
I was not a future engineer nor a future race car driver,
50:19
but it was a lot of fun.
50:21
SPEAKER_03: But you got the badge for training the most obedient dogs.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: Having the neatest bedroom.
50:27
SPEAKER_03: Back to the Boy Scouts.
50:29
SPEAKER_03: What seems unusual to me about this,
50:31
SPEAKER_03: and I think others have commented on it,
50:33
SPEAKER_03: is that actually the American military has no formal ties.
50:37
SPEAKER_03: to the Scouts.
50:38
The Scouts have always been this kind of parallel organization
50:43
intended to raise
50:45
upstanding boys who might then become soldiers or who might be
50:50
prepared for
50:50
SPEAKER_03: military training and in many ways
50:53
SPEAKER_03: scouting became a substitute for universal military training,
50:57
SPEAKER_03: which,
50:57
SPEAKER_03: you know,
50:57
SPEAKER_03: had periodic upsurges of enthusiasm from the East on,
51:02
SPEAKER_03: mostly because of Theodore Roosevelt.
51:03
SPEAKER_03: But a fair number of scouts,
51:05
SPEAKER_03: my own father included,
51:07
SPEAKER_03: did go into the military,
51:08
SPEAKER_03: did go into the CIA,
51:10
SPEAKER_03: did go into the FBI.
51:11
And so the scouts have,
51:13
in fact,
51:14
been a training ground for certain kinds of ideals.
51:19
SPEAKER_03: They weren't about being a
51:21
SPEAKER_03: Boy, they were about being honorable and good and decent and patriotic.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
51:28
SPEAKER_01: about duty,
51:29
SPEAKER_01: about patriotism,
51:30
SPEAKER_01: about honor,
51:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
51:32
SPEAKER_01: virtues,
51:32
SPEAKER_01: not sort of the vices of violence,
51:35
SPEAKER_01: of aggression,
51:36
SPEAKER_01: of like unchecked male power.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: That seems to be what Hegseth think is,
51:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
51:42
SPEAKER_01: what a man is and also how the military should be run.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot happening here,
51:48
but I think that one of the things that's just really
51:52
resonating for me as we think
51:53
SPEAKER_01: about this whole conversation we've had is just,
51:56
SPEAKER_01: again,
51:56
SPEAKER_01: this huge cultural shift around ideas of men and masculinity,
52:01
SPEAKER_01: which also means huge attitudes,
52:05
SPEAKER_01: huge cultural shifts around women and just gender.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: And I think just to tie it back again to Hegseth's religious beliefs,
52:17
know one of the things we didn't really talk about was the sort
52:20
of notion of
52:20
complementarianism that's like really really a huge part of the
52:24
theology that he
52:25
subscribes to which is that like men and women are like
52:29
fundamentally different and
52:30
they're fundamentally different because they were created by
52:33
god to have absolutely
52:34
different roles in society and and within a family and within
52:40
like you know
52:41
different structures and different organizations and obviously
52:44
that has real
52:44
SPEAKER_01: bearing on
52:46
ideas about women in combat and and women in the military in
52:50
general and so i don't
52:52
SPEAKER_01: know i think like i don't want to there there's like
52:56
there's versions of complementarianism that are just like
52:59
hard-edged,
53:00
right?
53:00
That aren't as like about holding up men as sort of like
53:03
vicious,
53:03
violent,
53:04
vengeful folks.
53:05
But like he's clearly of the stripe that like that's his notion
53:09
of like of who men
53:10
SPEAKER_01: are,
53:11
SPEAKER_01: of what masculinity is and how a military should operate.
53:14
SPEAKER_01: And I think this,
53:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
53:16
as many military analysts have pointed out this and foreign
53:19
strategy experts point
53:20
SPEAKER_01: out,
53:21
A lot of these ideas and a lot of these strategies really make
53:26
the American
53:26
SPEAKER_01: military vulnerable and actually undermine national security,
53:29
SPEAKER_01: which is the scary part of this.
53:33
SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't overrate the role of virtue on the battlefield,
53:38
but I do think virtue is one of those things that gives people
53:42
something to hang on
53:44
SPEAKER_03: to when they are in the midst of moral chaos,
53:48
SPEAKER_03: when terrible things are happening around them,
53:50
SPEAKER_03: to be able to come back to a core set of values that
53:53
SPEAKER_03: that says, you know, this is why I'm a human being.
53:56
SPEAKER_03: Forget like, this is why I'm a patriot.
53:58
SPEAKER_03: This is why I'm a human being.
53:59
SPEAKER_03: And this is how I'm going to get through this terrible thing.
54:02
SPEAKER_03: So we have a couple of other things on our plate here.
54:05
SPEAKER_03: One is that on Thursday, SignalGate came back.
54:09
Pentagon watchdog report concluded that not only did Hegseth
54:13
violate his own
54:14
department's policies by discussing a military operation
54:16
against the Houthis on a
54:18
SPEAKER_03: signal app.
54:19
SPEAKER_03: What was surprising about this incident, Neil?
54:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I think just the lack of... I mean, just like...
54:26
SPEAKER_01: how dangerous this was and how sort of,
54:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
54:29
SPEAKER_01: it's outside of like government policy of how this stuff should be done.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: It's putting American service persons at real risk.
54:35
I mean,
54:36
part of the messaging was actually to tell the exact times that
54:40
attack would take place.
54:42
SPEAKER_03: I mean, like where we're attacking, this is who is coming to attack them.
54:45
SPEAKER_03: This is when they'll be there.
54:47
SPEAKER_01: The most confidential.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:48
The most confidential and classified information you can
54:51
imagine in such a scenario.
54:54
and a total disregard for you know strategic and security
55:00
practices that like any
55:02
government official should be adhering to let alone the
55:06
secretary of defense and of
55:07
course this is now all being spun as like a wild media story
55:11
you know nothing no
55:12
comp no um intelligence was compromised no one was made
55:16
vulnerable all the rest but
55:18
SPEAKER_01: like really really dangerous stuff and like
55:21
SPEAKER_01: Apparently on some of these things,
55:23
SPEAKER_01: like his wife and I think even his brother-in-law was copied.
55:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just real carelessness.
55:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: That in any other moment would be the biggest national scandal.
55:35
But like,
55:36
it's just sort of par for the course and just the way things
55:39
are.
55:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
55:40
SPEAKER_03: And here's something else that's par for the course.
55:42
SPEAKER_03: The report comes out.
55:43
SPEAKER_03: It says, yes, absolutely.
55:45
SPEAKER_03: The secretary of defense compromised national security in these ways.
55:49
SPEAKER_03: Hangs that then tweets total exoneration.
55:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
55:53
And then,
55:54
you know,
55:54
some reporter asked Caroline Levitt about it in the next press
55:58
conference.
55:58
SPEAKER_03: And she says, you know, I would refer you to Secretary of War Hegseth.
56:03
SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, I mean, it's just absurd.
56:05
SPEAKER_03: It's the sort of black is white, white is black.
56:08
And then somebody said at one point that the Secretary of
56:13
Defense could declassify things.
56:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:16
on his own initiative so that if he was using that signal app
56:20
and sending that it
56:21
was all declassified because he wouldn't have done it unless it
56:24
was declassified so
56:25
he had already declassified it exactly it is crazy making so in
56:30
the midst of the
56:31
SPEAKER_03: crazy the new york times has filed a lawsuit
56:34
SPEAKER_03: that has named numerous administration officials,
56:36
SPEAKER_03: including Hegseth and Parnell,
56:39
that the new Department of Defense rules that require
56:42
journalists to take an oath,
56:44
SPEAKER_03: they will not report anything that has not been approved for release,
56:48
SPEAKER_03: is unconstitutional.
56:49
SPEAKER_03: Why is it unconstitutional, Neal?
56:52
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a violation of the First Amendment, right?
56:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
56:55
SPEAKER_01: like,
56:55
SPEAKER_01: clearly,
56:56
SPEAKER_01: like,
56:56
SPEAKER_01: the due process of freedom of speech,
56:59
SPEAKER_01: of freedom of the press,
57:00
SPEAKER_01: like,
57:00
SPEAKER_01: right there in the First Amendment,
57:02
SPEAKER_01: this seems like an easy case for them.
57:04
SPEAKER_01: This notion that, like, reporters would take an oath?
57:09
SPEAKER_03: Right.
57:09
SPEAKER_01: In order to receive briefings?
57:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, it's insane.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: But we shall see how this proceeds.
57:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it should be an easy win for them, but who knows these days.
57:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
57:19
It also means that like right wing outlets have like completely
57:22
taken over coverage
57:24
SPEAKER_01: of this,
57:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
57:26
of this space because all the normal folks are obviously not
57:30
willing to do
57:31
SPEAKER_01: something that's like a breach of journalistic ethics,
57:33
SPEAKER_01: let alone of like the First Amendment.
57:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, my favorite one that's in the room.
57:38
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we've got Gateway Pundit.
57:39
SPEAKER_03: We've got One American News.
57:41
SPEAKER_03: We've got Turning Point USA's publication, which is called Frontlines.
57:45
SPEAKER_03: We've got The Federalist.
57:46
SPEAKER_03: We've also got Human Events, which has been around since like the 90s.
57:49
SPEAKER_03: I don't know what they do nowadays.
57:51
SPEAKER_03: But my favorite one is Lindell TV.
57:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:55
SPEAKER_03: Which is Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy.
57:58
SPEAKER_03: It's like a YouTube channel.
58:00
SPEAKER_03: So they are the ones...
58:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
58:01
you would think that the people who are actually at the
58:04
Pentagon would be beside
58:06
SPEAKER_03: themselves...
58:07
SPEAKER_03: in part because actually leaking,
58:11
SPEAKER_03: talking to reporters,
58:12
getting stories out there is often a strategy for an
58:16
administration to float
58:17
SPEAKER_03: policies and see how they go over.
58:20
SPEAKER_03: Like, how will experts discuss this?
58:23
SPEAKER_03: What do the people think?
58:25
SPEAKER_03: What do lawmakers think?
58:26
SPEAKER_03: So when you see someone anonymously quoted in
58:29
in the New York Times about something that's going on in the
58:33
White House.
58:34
SPEAKER_03: Very often, that's not a rogue leak.
58:37
That's a policymaker trying to get something out there to see
58:41
what other people
58:42
SPEAKER_03: think about it or to send a message to Congress that says,
58:45
SPEAKER_03: no,
58:46
SPEAKER_03: actually,
58:46
SPEAKER_03: we're not kicking all the women out of the military.
58:49
SPEAKER_03: Don't worry about it.
58:50
SPEAKER_03: But, you know, the press has historically, and Catherine McGarr,
58:55
wrote a great book about this,
58:57
about the foreign policy press in Washington,
58:59
D.C.
58:59
SPEAKER_03: during the Cold War.
59:01
The foreign policy press in particular has always been this
59:05
kind of resource for
59:06
politicians to debate policy with and to learn in ways that you
59:13
can't learn from
59:13
SPEAKER_03: polls whether their policies are going to be viable or not.
59:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
59:18
you just keep saying a word that I don't think is really an
59:20
animating word for the
59:21
SPEAKER_01: Trump administration,
59:22
SPEAKER_01: which is policy.
59:23
SPEAKER_01: Policy.
59:26
If that's not what the majority of the focus is of these
59:30
different departments and
59:32
SPEAKER_01: the administration generally,
59:34
SPEAKER_01: as much as it's grievance politics and Trump's personal objectives...
59:41
SPEAKER_01: then you don't need to do that.
59:42
You don't need the traditional mechanisms of a free press and
59:46
all the rest.
59:47
SPEAKER_03: Well, and this is also, and I'll close this section on this.
59:51
SPEAKER_03: This is also the place where the Hegseth Trump doctrine,
59:56
SPEAKER_03: which is strike first,
59:57
SPEAKER_03: ask questions and have a conversation later.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:00:01
Really makes a difference because it is preempting conversation
1:00:06
altogether.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_03: Anything that happens after that is,
1:00:09
SPEAKER_03: You have already exerted your will.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_03: You have already done exactly what you wanted to do.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_03: You can't take it back.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_03: You know, we can't make those 61...
1:00:20
SPEAKER_03: Venezuelan people who have been killed by Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_03: We can't bring them back.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_03: We can't ask them questions about what they were really doing.
1:00:30
And so the absence of the press in a situation like that is a
1:00:34
real national
1:00:35
SPEAKER_03: security problem from my perspective.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_03: So Neil, what do we want to go viral this week?
1:00:40
What I want to go viral this week is this wonderful article I
1:00:43
read in Made by
1:00:44
SPEAKER_01: History,
1:00:45
which is a vertical in Time magazine that a couple of our
1:00:48
friends are the editors
1:00:49
SPEAKER_01: of.
1:00:49
The piece is called History Shows How Cooking Can Be a Pivotal
1:00:53
Tool for Activism.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_01: It's written by Bobby Smith II.
1:00:57
He's a professor of African-American studies at University of
1:01:00
Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
1:01:01
It's a really fascinating history of the role of cooking in the
1:01:05
civil rights movement.
1:01:07
It's an example of the way in which food production and cooking
1:01:11
has often served as
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: an important mechanism for activist movements.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: But this piece really focuses on this woman who I'd never heard of,
1:01:18
SPEAKER_01: but I found absolutely fascinating.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: Her name is Georgia Gilmore.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_01: I was going to say Glenda Gilmore, but that's someone else.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_01: Georgia Gilmore, Glenda Gilmore is a very famous historian.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_01: This woman,
1:01:29
SPEAKER_01: Georgia Gilmore,
1:01:30
SPEAKER_01: who was a civil rights activist and a cook in Montgomery,
1:01:33
SPEAKER_01: Alabama,
1:01:34
she had actually been a cook at a really well-known Montgomery
1:01:37
restaurant that
1:01:39
SPEAKER_01: was...
1:01:40
popular with white folks and she ended up getting fired from
1:01:43
that job because of
1:01:44
her civil rights activism this is something that happened to
1:01:47
black folks all over
1:01:48
the south they were fired from jobs once their white employers
1:01:52
found out they had
1:01:52
SPEAKER_01: any involvement in the civil rights movement but in 1955
1:01:57
SPEAKER_01: really became connected to the Montgomery bus boycott.
1:02:00
And she basically diverted her skills as a cook and a chef to
1:02:06
running a kitchen out
1:02:07
of her home where she cooked and she sold food to raise funds
1:02:10
for the civil rights
1:02:12
SPEAKER_01: activism in Montgomery.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_01: And really in organizing this whole
1:02:18
army of folks who used food production and cooking and running
1:02:22
these small sort of
1:02:23
SPEAKER_01: kitchens to raise money for the cause.
1:02:25
And I just thought it was such a fascinating story about a
1:02:29
person I didn't know about.
1:02:31
And there's something that the author Bobby Smith II calls in
1:02:36
his article.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_01: He describes what Gilmore
1:02:39
gilmore is doing as something that he calls emancipatory food
1:02:43
power and he says by
1:02:44
that i mean the black people weaponizing food at times of
1:02:48
social unrest as a way of
1:02:50
protecting themselves from oppression with each pot cast iron
1:02:55
skillet and cooking
1:02:56
utensil gilmore exemplified this long-standing tradition in
1:02:59
black life negotiating
1:03:01
SPEAKER_01: her identity in america and resisting the ills of racial segregation
1:03:05
SPEAKER_01: They're pervaded nearly every aspect of our community.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_01: So I love this piece.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_01: I actually happened to read it.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_01: It came out in early November,
1:03:12
SPEAKER_01: but I happened to read it like the day of Thanksgiving or the day after.
1:03:16
So it felt like a really cool time to be reading about the
1:03:20
history of food activism as,
1:03:23
um,
1:03:24
this really important aspect of the civil rights movement and
1:03:27
of activist history in general.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_01: So I really encourage folks to read it.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_01: We'll link to it.
1:03:32
Again,
1:03:32
the piece is called History Shows How Cooking Can Be a Pivotal
1:03:35
Tool for Activism.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_03: That sounds wonderful.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_03: And I'm going to run off and read it like now, as soon as we hang up.
1:03:45
But it also makes me think about the ways that food also played
1:03:50
a role in the Black
1:03:51
Panther Party and that the breakfast program for children that
1:03:56
I believe it was
1:03:57
SPEAKER_03: Erica Huggins who started it.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_03: Erica Huggins, who was also a lesbian.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_03: Hello.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_03: Hello.
1:04:03
But the breakfast program becomes the template for what we now
1:04:09
take for granted,
1:04:10
SPEAKER_03: or at least have before the cuts of the Trump administration,
1:04:13
SPEAKER_03: that children cannot learn unless they are fed.
1:04:17
And so feeding children breakfast becomes an act of resistance
1:04:21
against school
1:04:22
SPEAKER_03: systems that are simply not...
1:04:24
SPEAKER_03: meeting not only the cultural and educational needs of black children,
1:04:29
SPEAKER_03: but their physical needs as well.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_03: And really making the point that unless children eat, they cannot learn.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_03: Unless children learn,
1:04:37
SPEAKER_03: they cannot rise above the condition that they're in,
1:04:40
SPEAKER_03: in poor communities.
1:04:41
So I think we're going to see a lot more stuff coming up in
1:04:45
food history that
1:04:46
really ties into the political in exactly the ways you're
1:04:49
talking about with this
1:04:51
SPEAKER_03: piece.
1:04:51
So,
1:04:51
Neil,
1:04:52
my piece is from Vanity Fair,
1:04:54
end of November,
1:04:56
and it's by a guy named James Reginato.
1:04:58
It's called Oscar Wilde's Only Grandchild Investigates the Atom
1:05:04
Bomb of the Oscar Wilde Scandal.
1:05:08
Some listeners may know that Oscar Wilde was a playwright,
1:05:12
writer,
1:05:13
and esthete in the 1890s.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_03: He was bisexual.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_03: And in the midst of his greatest triumph,
1:05:20
SPEAKER_03: which was a play called The Importance of Being Earnest,
1:05:23
which is this very gay play in which people jump in and out of
1:05:26
closets and trade
1:05:28
SPEAKER_03: identities and so on and so forth,
1:05:30
SPEAKER_03: in the midst of this,
1:05:32
SPEAKER_03: Wilde ended up in court with the father of Lord Alfred Douglas,
1:05:36
who's a young man he was obsessed with and who kind of abused
1:05:39
and used him and was
1:05:41
SPEAKER_03: horrible to him.
1:05:41
But Wilde ends up in court and he ends up going to prison for
1:05:46
violating laws
1:05:47
SPEAKER_03: against homosexuality in England.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_03: What happened after that is a story very few people know.
1:05:54
Many people know that Wild got out of prison and he died about
1:05:57
three years later in Paris.
1:05:59
What people don't know is that Wild's wife changed her name and
1:06:05
the name of the children.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_03: She sent their two sons to different boarding schools,
1:06:10
SPEAKER_03: and the whole idea was to protect her and the children from the shame.
1:06:16
SPEAKER_03: of Oscar Wilde's scandal.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_03: And so as it turns out,
1:06:20
SPEAKER_03: there is exactly one descendant who is the son of Vivian Holland,
1:06:26
SPEAKER_03: the youngest son.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_03: And he has written a book.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_03: He's in his seventies now.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_03: He's written a book that's coming out in the spring.
1:06:33
SPEAKER_03: And he talks about what was lost when that,
1:06:36
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:06:36
everybody thought they were doing this for the son so that they
1:06:39
could go on and
1:06:40
SPEAKER_03: live honorable lives.
1:06:42
SPEAKER_03: But in fact, they lost their beloved father.
1:06:45
Wilde's wife continued to love him and was dissuaded from
1:06:50
joining him in Paris by her relatives.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_03: The children were told he was dead.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_03: And so Vivian,
1:06:57
SPEAKER_03: the youngest son,
1:06:58
SPEAKER_03: gets called into the headmaster's study when Oscar actually does die.
1:07:04
And the guy says,
1:07:05
you're going to read about this in the paper,
1:07:07
but your father has died.
1:07:09
And he is stunned and grief stricken because there were three
1:07:12
years in which he
1:07:13
SPEAKER_03: could have seen his father and he didn't.
1:07:15
So we talk a lot about generational trauma in terms of big
1:07:19
events like the
1:07:20
SPEAKER_03: Holocaust and slavery and,
1:07:23
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:07:24
SPEAKER_03: all kinds of war and so on.
1:07:27
We rarely talk about generational trauma that is very specific
1:07:31
to a family and how
1:07:33
the lies and errors and mistaken judgments and judgments in
1:07:41
general can have
1:07:42
SPEAKER_03: ramifications throughout generations.
1:07:45
And I'll be very interested to read the book in April because I
1:07:52
didn't even know
1:07:53
SPEAKER_03: that Oscar Wilde had a grandchild.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_03: So I recommend this.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_03: I would love it to go viral in part because I'm a huge Oscar Wilde fan.
1:08:01
SPEAKER_03: I've always been fascinated,
1:08:03
particularly with The Ballad of Redding Jail that he wrote when
1:08:07
he was in prison,
1:08:08
SPEAKER_03: coming to terms with what he had done,
1:08:10
SPEAKER_03: what was a crime and what wasn't a crime.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_03: And actually,
1:08:14
SPEAKER_03: in the book,
1:08:15
what he is most grief stricken about is what he did to his wife
1:08:19
and children.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_03: And they did not know that for decades, which is a huge burden to carry.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_01: I've been wanting to read this article.
1:08:29
SPEAKER_01: I actually know the author, James Reginato.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_01: Really?
1:08:32
SPEAKER_01: Not well, but we're friendly and gotten coffee a couple of times.
1:08:36
SPEAKER_01: So I've been seeing him posting this article a lot.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_01: I think it is getting a good amount of attention.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_01: And it's one of my open tabs right now.
1:08:44
SPEAKER_01: So I'm eager to actually read it.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_01: But that was a great overview of it.
1:08:49
SPEAKER_03: Well,
1:08:49
SPEAKER_03: when you are in contact with him,
1:08:51
SPEAKER_03: tell him,
1:08:52
SPEAKER_03: I loved it and I thought it was a beautiful piece of writing and really,
1:08:56
SPEAKER_03: really important to LGBT history.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_01: Will do.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_03: So, Neil, I think that's it until next week.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:09:03
SPEAKER_01: Sounds good.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully happier topics, but probably not.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_03: And I hope we can both keep our manliness intact until then.
1:09:10
SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_01: Top of the agenda.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_03: See you next week.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:09:14
SPEAKER_01: Bye-bye.
1:09:19
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Our podcast is supported by the New School for Social Research
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and by paying subscribers.
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Political Junkie is written,
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recorded,
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edited,
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and produced by me,
1:10:02
Claire Potter.
1:10:03
SPEAKER_03: Today's theme is Imminent Danger by Adam Sabin.
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You can find his work and all the talented artists we feature
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on these episodes on Soundstrike.
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SPEAKER_03: That's all for now.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_03: See you next week.