Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / 'People are so frightened' Military experts unpack Hegseth's purges

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'People are so frightened' Military experts unpack Hegseth's purges · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: President Trump's makeover of the military has gone so far
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: that it's even caught him off guard. The Atlantic reports
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: that former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll warned Trump that so
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: many top officers and generals had been fired that the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: president was surprised and, quote, expressed concern about the deep
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: cuts to the Army's senior leadership. By our count, more
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  Speaker 1: than 20 military leaders have been pushed out of the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Pentagon since Trump returned to the White House. The New
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: York Times reports that in recent days, Defense Secretary Pete
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Hegseth has blocked at least seven Army officers selected for promotions.
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  Speaker 1: My next guest warns the purge of the Pentagon is
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  Speaker 1: replacing those loyal to America with those loyal to Trump.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: In fact, he warns in the New York Times today, quote,
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  Speaker 1: military officers can't look away from this any longer. Former
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  Speaker 1: Air Force Secretary under President Biden Frank Kendall wrote that op-ed.
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  Speaker 1: He joins me now. He's a senior fellow at the
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  Speaker 1: Center for American Progress. Good to have you in studio.
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  Speaker 1: Let me also say, he's also the author of the
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  Speaker 1: newly released book, Lethal Autonomy. Can't leave that out. Thanks
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  Speaker 1: for being here. You wrote in your op-ed today that
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  Speaker 1: the military leaders are choosing to either deny what's happening
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  Speaker 1: or ignore it. Why do you think that military leaders
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  Speaker 1: are struggling with this?
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  Speaker 2: I think they're struggling. I think they're being asked to
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  Speaker 2: do things that they know in some cases are wrong.
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  Speaker 2: and that they shouldn't do them. And it's a sort
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  Speaker 2: of defense mechanism. These are not bad people.
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  Speaker 3: I know a number of them.
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  Speaker 2: I know General Cain reasonably well. He's a professional, but
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  Speaker 2: he's in a very, very difficult position. Here's what the
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  Speaker 2: administration's done. It has brought in handpicked lawyers, both for
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: military lawyers in some cases and for other lawyers in
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: the administration, in the executive branch, who were willing to
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: support anything Donald Trump wants to do. So if an
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  Speaker 2: officer wants to object to that, He has to do
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  Speaker 2: it over the legal authority so he should be guided
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  Speaker 2: by it. That's a very awkward position. It's a very
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  Speaker 2: difficult position to put somebody in. There's a point, though,
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  Speaker 2: at which our senior leaders need to say no. They
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  Speaker 2: need to follow their conscience, follow their oath, which is
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  Speaker 2: to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump, and tell the
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  Speaker 2: President and the Secretary of Defense, no, this is not
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  Speaker 2: something I can do. And I think in some cases, personally,
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  Speaker 2: we've crossed that barrier already. most notably the drug strikes,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: the strikes on the boats in the Caribbean Pacific. Most
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  Speaker 2: legal authorities agree that this is our extrajudicial killings. You
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: can make arguments, I think, either way about some of
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  Speaker 2: the other things they've been asked to do. What concerns
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  Speaker 2: me most is the upcoming election and what our military
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  Speaker 2: may be asked to do in the context of the election.
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  Speaker 2: And I was basically trying to express my concern that
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  Speaker 2: you can't separate out pure military advice from overall advice
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  Speaker 2: about what the president should and should not do and
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  Speaker 2: what orders you're willing to follow. This is tough, but
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  Speaker 2: somebody who's given that responsibility of a combatant commander, a
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  Speaker 2: four-star general, or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs has
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  Speaker 2: got to be willing to do the right thing despite
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  Speaker 2: the difficulties.
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  Speaker 4: That they face.
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  Speaker 1: The Atlantic is reporting that Driscoll warned Trump that the
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  Speaker 1: loss of all these top generals makes it almost impossible
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  Speaker 1: to reform the Pentagon.
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  Speaker 5: Do you agree with that?
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  Speaker 2: I'm not sure I'd put it exactly that way, but
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  Speaker 2: one thing it makes impossible to do is to get
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  Speaker 2: good advice. People are so frightened. Everybody I talk to
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  Speaker 2: from the Pentagon is nervous about losing their job. They're
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  Speaker 2: nervous about being fired. They're nervous about something happening in
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  Speaker 2: the record, whatever. There's a climate of fear like I've
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  Speaker 2: never seen before. I've been through a number of transitions.
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  Speaker 2: Political parties come and go. Leadership comes and goes. priorities change,
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  Speaker 2: and generally you just follow whatever the current leadership is directing.
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  Speaker 2: And people support that, and they do it with good faith.
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  Speaker 2: Much more is being asked of people in this case.
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  Speaker 2: And the purges, if you will, I think that's the
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: right term. They're based on culture wars ideology to some degree.
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  Speaker 2: Hankseth is doing something I've never, ever seen before, which
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  Speaker 2: is a Secretary of Defense remove people from posts. I've
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  Speaker 2: had a couple of cases when I was Secretary of
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  Speaker 2: the Air Force where an individual was challenged where he
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  Speaker 2: had something adverse in his record, and I had to
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  Speaker 2: go explain to the secretary why I wanted to still
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  Speaker 2: promote that person. That's as far as any secretary I've
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  Speaker 2: ever worked with has gone. So this is extraordinary. And
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  Speaker 2: the reasons they're being pulled off of these lists seem
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  Speaker 2: to be basically about politics and loyalty and aversion to
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  Speaker 2: anybody who might be a, quote, DEI candidate who is
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  Speaker 2: a minority or a woman.
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  Speaker 5: I want to also get your Just perspective, because there
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  Speaker 5: is another vacancy in Army leadership now that we've obviously
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  Speaker 5: been covering, the Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigning. And in
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  Speaker 5: light of this, there's new CNN reporting from multiple sources, Admiral,
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  Speaker 5: that are raising alarm about the focus and priorities of
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  Speaker 5: the defense secretary. They are saying that he's focused more
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  Speaker 5: on culture wars and pushing his image of the American
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  Speaker 5: warfighter than adapting to the realities of the modern battlefield.
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  Speaker 5: And senior U.S. military officials according to the CNN reporting,
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  Speaker 5: have privately acknowledged they have felt that they've come under
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  Speaker 5: what could be described as political pressure under Hegseth and
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  Speaker 5: voiced concern about his efforts to push out so many
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  Speaker 5: uniformed and civilian leaders. What does this inside turmoil like
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  Speaker 5: this do to the U.S. fighting force?
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  Speaker 3: It's a massive distraction at the very top of the
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  Speaker 3: chain of command, Kate. And think about the Army as
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  Speaker 3: though it were a corporation like Walmart. It's got 1.2
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  Speaker 3: million people in it, a budget of $ 200 billion. And
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  Speaker 3: over the last... four or five months, it's lost the
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  Speaker 3: entire C-suite. The secretary of the army, the chief of
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  Speaker 3: staff of the army, the vice number two chief of
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  Speaker 3: staff of the army, the head of training and innovation,
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  Speaker 3: and the head of all U.S. Army warfighters in Europe.
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  Speaker 3: That's a huge sudden gap at the top of the corporation. Now,
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  Speaker 3: the individual foot soldiers sort of hear that as distant thunder.
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  Speaker 3: But at the top, where the chain of command runs
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  Speaker 3: from the president to the secretary of defense and down
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  Speaker 3: to those combatant commanders, this creates a great deal of turmoil.
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  Speaker 3: And it's a department of the army that feels like
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  Speaker 3: it's drifting right now.
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  Speaker 5: It has not been described to me in that way
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  Speaker 5: as extremely helpful in trying to understand what this means
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  Speaker 5: from the outside looking in. Admiral, it's always good to
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  Speaker 5: see you. Thank you so much.
• 6:46
  Speaker 6: Avoid an Army leadership is fueling new concerns amid Defense
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  Speaker 6: Secretary Pete Hegseth's focus on culture wars. Multiple sources tell
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  Speaker 6: CNN they believe Hegseth is damaging the Army's efforts to modernize.
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  Speaker 6: Let's get some perspective now from retired U.S. Army Colonel
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  Speaker 6: Peter Mansoor. Colonel, thanks so much for being with us. First,
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  Speaker 6: on Army leadership, what's your reaction to these reports that
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  Speaker 6: Dan Driscoll, who resigned, cited the generals that Hegseth fired
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  Speaker 6: as preventing the Army's modernization?
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  Speaker 4: This is going to be a real blow to Army transformation.
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  Speaker 4: The Army needs to transform. It needs to up its
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  Speaker 4: drone game. It needs to learn the lessons from Ukraine.
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  Speaker 4: And the opposite appears to be what's happening under Hegs' leadership.
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  Speaker 4: He's firing the generals who wanted to take the army
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  Speaker 4: into a radically different direction, embracing drones. And he also
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  Speaker 4: disbanded a unit that was in Ukraine learning about the
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  Speaker 4: Ukrainian use of drones and And so the result is
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  Speaker 4: the army is going to take a step backward under
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  Speaker 4: a different leadership, and it's not going to be for
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  Speaker 4: the better or for the combat effectiveness of the force.
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  Speaker 6: So right now, the army doesn't have a top civilian leader,
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  Speaker 6: nor a Senate confirmed top general, nor a confirmed general
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  Speaker 6: in charge of operations, nor a confirmed commander of army
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  Speaker 6: troops in Europe. What does that mean for the branch
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  Speaker 6: and U.S.
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  Speaker 2: Readiness?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and he also, Hegs also fired the head of
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  Speaker 4: Army Transformation and Training Command, which is another key command. So,
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  Speaker 4: you know, without the transformational leadership at the top, the
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  Speaker 4: Army is going to mark time. And this is not
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  Speaker 4: an era in which marking time is going to result
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  Speaker 4: in anything good. We can see, based on the results
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  Speaker 4: of the war with Iran, the ongoing war in Ukraine,
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  Speaker 4: that that the Army cannot go about business as usual.
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  Speaker 4: It has to transform, and it has to be able
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  Speaker 4: to operate in an era where drones control the skies.
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  Speaker 4: And if it can't do that, then it's going to
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  Speaker 4: become irrelevant.
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  Speaker 6: As President Trump nominated Hung Kao to run the Navy,
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  Speaker 6: I wonder how you see him fitting into this effort
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  Speaker 6: to modernize because a lot of what we've heard from
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  Speaker 6: him is really in line with Hegseth's view on culture
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  Speaker 6: war issues and recruiting and the so-called warrior ethos.
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  Speaker 4: So far, you know, a good example of this is
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  Speaker 4: the French army before World War I put a lot
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  Speaker 4: of emphasis on all the morale in the world is
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  Speaker 4: not going to win you any wars.
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  Speaker 6: And finally, on these latest