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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast. Make sure

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Speaker 1: you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or

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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us on this episode,

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Speaker 1: Gabrielle Kuccia is with us. She is the Pentagon correspondent

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Speaker 1: for One American News. He's out of DC paying attention

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Speaker 1: to all things D O D Gary. Congratulations on the gig.

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Speaker 1: By the way, I've been seeing the clips from One

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Speaker 1: America News.

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Speaker 2: Let's start with this.

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Speaker 1: So we got Pete heg Seth, who's an old buddy

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Speaker 1: of mine from Media World. Sean Parnell, buddy of mine

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Speaker 1: from Media World. These are the hex at the Secretary

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Speaker 1: of Defense, Parnell's under secretary for Public Affairs or communications.

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Speaker 1: What are some of the top things. What are some

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Speaker 1: of the initiatives underway right now in the Pentagon and

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Speaker 1: for the military, because it's not getting as much attention

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Speaker 1: this week as some of the other big Trump initiatives.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, Well, Buck, thanks for having me again.

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Speaker 3: It feels really good to be at the Pentagon, especially

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Speaker 3: just before I even get into the specifics.

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Speaker 2: You know you have.

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Speaker 3: I know this isn't news for you, but you have

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Speaker 3: public affairs officers from every single brand to the military,

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Speaker 3: and then by the Calm Center, of which they're strategically

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Speaker 3: located to evaluate and to connect with the press on

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Speaker 3: all arenas, whether it's Paycom, indocom or you know, down

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Speaker 3: in South America wherever it may be. So when we

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Speaker 3: talk about the White House as it stands right now,

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Speaker 3: of course, the media is just so worked up when

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Speaker 3: there's directives or executive orders coming out at the Oval Office.

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Speaker 3: But a lot of what Trump has done in that

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Speaker 3: first term and certainly to be seen in the second

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Speaker 3: term when you talk about Ukraine or the Gaza Strip

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Speaker 3: or whatever it may be, or the Southern border right now,

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Speaker 3: that that's under a DoD directive more so than it

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Speaker 3: ever has been in our history. A lot of that

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Speaker 3: stuff comes and boils up at the surface level of

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Speaker 3: the Oval Office, but it's all happening at the Pentagon.

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Speaker 3: So this is an insanely transparent administration. You have those

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Speaker 3: public affairs officers, they're at the ready to answer any

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Speaker 3: and all questions. I'll even tell you just on being

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Speaker 3: purely honest, being in that arena and seeing all the press,

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Speaker 3: whether it's mainstream, left right, independent media, they're all talking

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Speaker 3: in person. There's no closed door to any of these

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Speaker 3: public affairs officers. So when you see the changes at

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Speaker 3: the DoD that are incredibly positive, which I'll get into,

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Speaker 3: it's wild that, you know, the military tries, you know,

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Speaker 3: their best right to stay out of politics and focus

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Speaker 3: solely on operations. And then you see some of these

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Speaker 3: news networks of which you know, one of the ones

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Speaker 3: that we kind of absolved their suite that the Pentagon

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Speaker 3: had given them, and they're kind of just taking that

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Speaker 3: information and then you know, course correcting it and within

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Speaker 3: their eyes what they deem to be undeployable measures or

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Speaker 3: bad takes by the Department of Defense, which is wild.

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Speaker 3: I'd say the positive thing right now that some people

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Speaker 3: are just missing all in all is outside of going

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Speaker 3: through just the operations, it's just how the military operates.

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Speaker 3: We saw that President Trump put out in executive order

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Speaker 3: in which transgender militants cannot be deployable, and we already

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Speaker 3: knew this, which is really interesting that historically, back in

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, transgender soul quote unquote allowed or permissible

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Speaker 3: in the Department of Defense, but they were never deployable

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Speaker 3: for a few reasons, right like they couldn't have access

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Speaker 3: in specific arenas to their medications.

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Speaker 2: Especially with covecom.

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Speaker 3: You cannot have those weekly mandated or monthly mandated conversations

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Speaker 3: with your mental health professional when you're going through quote

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Speaker 3: unquote transition. So they were never being utilized in ways

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Speaker 3: that warfighters are typically used.

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Speaker 2: So this is more of just course correcting.

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Speaker 3: Hey, we have all these bodies that aren't even able

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Speaker 3: bodied in the sense of war fighting. So that's a

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Speaker 3: huge positive that came out of this administration. But there's

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Speaker 3: been a lot of media and conversations that I've had

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Speaker 3: with other outlets in which they are so hyper focused

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Speaker 3: on asking the DoD to prove and show elements or

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Speaker 3: studies of which it shows that transgenders aren't able to

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Speaker 3: serve in the military in a certain capacity. But I

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Speaker 3: would just say, purely on an operational level and access

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Speaker 3: to medicine and whatever it may be, you can only

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Speaker 3: put so much in your path depending on.

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Speaker 2: What deployable you're entering.

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Speaker 3: So that was a great That was a first great

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Speaker 3: dodge at you know, re re sending what the Biden

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Speaker 3: administration had already done in inflating the DoD.

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Speaker 1: Israeli citizens look for the return of normalcy in their country.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to do when there are Ceaspire negotiations happening,

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Speaker 1: when there's increased tensions between Hamas and the IDF forces.

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Speaker 1: Nearly eighteen months after the Hamas invasion and brutal attack,

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Speaker 1: life is not normal for everyone in Israel. As israelis

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Speaker 1: work hard to return to a life of normalcy, The

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Speaker 1: International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has continued to support

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Speaker 1: those in the Holy Land facing the lingering horrors of

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Speaker 1: war and those who are in desperate need. Your ongoing

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Speaker 1: monthly gift of forty five dollars will provide critically needed

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Speaker 1: aid to communities in the North and South parts of

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Speaker 1: Israel devastated by the ongoing war. Your generous donation each

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Speaker 1: month will help deliver to those in need. You can

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Speaker 1: provide hope during a time of great uncertainty with your gift.

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Speaker 1: Bless Israel and her people by visiting SUPPORTIFCJ dot org.

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Speaker 1: That's one word support, IFCJ dot org. We'll call eighty

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Speaker 1: eight four eight eight. IFCJ that's eight eight eight four

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Speaker 1: eight eight IFCJ. I've seen some reporting about senior level

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Speaker 1: military brass getting shown the door by Secretary Defense heg

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Speaker 1: Seth because of their dei obsession or some of the

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Speaker 1: ideological stuff that they were pushing. Has that happened, Is

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Speaker 1: that still underway? What's the status of that?

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Speaker 2: Oh?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's absolutely still underway. I mean a lot of

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Speaker 3: people have been blowing smoke saying that this is very

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Speaker 3: a traditional from how an administration works, but not so much.

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Speaker 3: There are these top officials within the DoD that are

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Speaker 3: being evaluated and rightfully so. I mean, even not to

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Speaker 3: jump too far ahead, but you talk about the Afghan withdrawal,

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Speaker 3: there's a lot of whispers in the hallways on what's

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Speaker 3: going on with the Afghan withdrawal, whether this is going

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Speaker 3: to be a full on investigation or is this a review.

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Speaker 3: You can see in public source open source that there

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Speaker 3: was a review in which intelligence information was given and

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Speaker 3: gathered appropriately. But the Biden administration and say Milli to

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Speaker 3: be specific, looked at that and made the calls that

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Speaker 3: they still did, which resulted in that terrible withdrawal and cobble.

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Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, people still need

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Speaker 3: to answer to that this administration is not taking that lightly,

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Speaker 3: and I know that they're at least I think they're

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Speaker 3: going towards a direction of a pure investigation because people

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Speaker 3: do need to be physically.

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Speaker 2: Removed after that terrible withdrawal.

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Speaker 3: But outside of that too, when you talk about the

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Speaker 3: DEI programs, I mean these top officials were implementing and

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Speaker 3: rolling out and saying it's okay. Even though the Biden

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Speaker 3: administration said these things are acceptable. It trickles down. It's

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Speaker 3: top down, right, So even if the Biden administration like

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Speaker 3: what they did. They rolled out a memo in which

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Speaker 3: they allowed the military to grow out their hair or

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Speaker 3: have their beards, do hair dye or highlights, or even

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Speaker 3: nail polished, which sounds incredibly silly, but they said that

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Speaker 3: those things are allowed.

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Speaker 2: But on an operational level, it's absolutely not allowed.

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Speaker 3: In particular places where it's more of covert operations where

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Speaker 3: you don't want to just signal out yourself to an adversary.

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Speaker 3: Those questions need to be answered. And at this point

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Speaker 3: it's really interesting because a lot of the times, with

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Speaker 3: a chain of command in the military, it could be

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Speaker 3: an easy answer of well, it was directed by the

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Speaker 3: president that this was allowed, But then you have to

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Speaker 3: go under all of that and look at, well, operationally

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Speaker 3: was this cohesive with the.

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Speaker 2: Mission, and it's not.

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Speaker 3: And a lot of times people are forgetting in this

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Speaker 3: culture war that we're in, the individuality is not celebrated.

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Speaker 3: In the military, Individuality in ability is and recognized and

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Speaker 3: those people are placed in physicians pertinent to what they

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Speaker 3: can and can't do. But as far as the aesthetics,

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Speaker 3: I mean, in what world does that ever actually work

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Speaker 3: in the military. Who's stopping for a quick second on

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Speaker 3: the battlefront and going I like those uniforms.

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Speaker 2: I want to check those out. I'm not going to

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Speaker 2: shoot you. Just doesn't happen.

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Speaker 3: So there's a lot more turnover that's going to be

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Speaker 3: placed at the Pentagon. I mean, the first first week

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Speaker 3: or two of Hegseth being on in there, the top

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Speaker 3: commanders were removed. So there's also another element though too

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Speaker 3: for some commanders. There was one specific in the Navy

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Speaker 3: where there was a ship crash, and for things like that,

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Speaker 3: a chain of commit they're going to be removed. A

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Speaker 3: lot of mainstream media was sounding the alarm again saying

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Speaker 3: that this was part of the DOGE effort. But that's

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Speaker 3: just traditional DoD operations. As something goes.

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Speaker 1: Around, are there already signs that there'll be specific DoD

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Speaker 1: and DOGE collaboration on things like the Pentagon audit that

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Speaker 1: apparently can never be passed. I mean, what can you

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Speaker 1: tell us about cutting or trimming the fat within the

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Speaker 1: military industrial complex as part of all this, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Fair question.

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Speaker 3: Well, the DOGE team came into the Pentagon and they

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Speaker 3: conducted an initial audit and they're still conducting more now.

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Speaker 2: In that initial audit they focused on mostly like.

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Speaker 3: As you know, typical those DEI initiatives to and then

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Speaker 3: you know, kind of on that same level, the climate

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Speaker 3: change initiatives, in which there was a lot of pushback

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Speaker 3: to where it was, well, the DoD needs to know

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Speaker 3: about the climate to be able to react, going back

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Speaker 3: into their logistics of planning and posturing themselves all across

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Speaker 3: the country now I mean considering the southern border, but

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Speaker 3: certainly globally.

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Speaker 2: But this is more of a point.

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Speaker 3: Of you cut out the fat, which is what DOG

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Speaker 3: has done with the DEI initiatives at the Pentagon specifically.

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Speaker 3: Now you're parsing out these other elements of which we

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Speaker 3: still have other government agencies and entities that do cross

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Speaker 3: sharing with DoD liaisons that can give them that said,

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Speaker 3: you know, precious climate information to relay back when it's missionmpertinent.

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Speaker 3: So I expect after the DEI, after the climate change acxing,

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Speaker 3: it's going to be more on the sense of what

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Speaker 3: else is already actually being conducted, especially because you know, BUCK,

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Speaker 3: the DoD and the IC integrate tremendously, so that's not

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Speaker 3: necessarily going to change, but it's reallocating those efforts that

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Speaker 3: are already established. Looking at something like Department of Energy,

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Speaker 3: Department of Agriculture, there's plenty of organizations and government agencies

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Speaker 3: that already fulfilled these these asks or the need for

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Speaker 3: intel that are already being provided. You don't need to

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Speaker 3: just completely blow the system and have I guess your

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Speaker 3: desk officers there and doing the same reinventing of the

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Speaker 3: wheel that's already been created. So I think those are

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Speaker 3: the things that they're still going to be focusing on.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot more clean house to do on that front,

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Speaker 3: but again it's kind of been a little bit more

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Speaker 3: less emphasized considering you know, Ukraine, Gaza, Southern.

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Speaker 2: Border, all the like.

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Speaker 1: Earlier this week, on Wednesday morning, a conversation came out

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Speaker 1: on video between my father and me. He shared his

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Speaker 1: most recent prediction on what's next in the stock markets.

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Speaker 1: This is in my dad's wheelhouse. He made his life's

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Speaker 1: work predicting the markets with a lot of success. My

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Speaker 1: dad made his living researching and predicting the stock markets.

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Speaker 1: And now you can see his latest prediction and the

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Speaker 1: thinking behind that online. It's at a website setup for

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Speaker 1: It's video and it's super easy for you to register

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Speaker 1: a name for himself on Wall Street with his big

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Speaker 1: prediction back in nineteen eighty seven that the stock market

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Speaker 1: was going to crash, and it did. His predictions since

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Speaker 1: then are too numerous to mention, but needless to say,

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Speaker 1: paid for by Paradigm Press. How's morale would you say

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Speaker 1: from inside the Pentagon given all these changes? And I'm

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Speaker 1: sure the the uh you know, the gray hairs who

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Speaker 1: got the boot by secondary Hegseth are not happy. But

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Speaker 1: I just mean from the as much as you can

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Speaker 1: pick it up from the rank and file. Do a

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Speaker 1: lot of them feel like, hey, a focus on war

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Speaker 1: fighting and cleaning up some of the bureaucratic mess here

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Speaker 1: is a good thing, or because in other place is

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Speaker 1: not right, like USAID does not want the mess cleaned up.

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Speaker 3: But is the.

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Speaker 1: Pentagon pretty is there? Is the rank and file pretty

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Speaker 1: positive about this stuff?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it absolutely is no question about it.

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Speaker 3: That's like the one you know, that's there's so many

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Speaker 3: reasons why I love focusing on DoD and icy operations

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Speaker 3: and then being there in person just takes.

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Speaker 2: It to a whole other level.

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Speaker 3: But it's because these are people that genuinely do not

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Speaker 3: to sound so cliche, but they genuinely do love their country.

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Speaker 2: They're still holding on too.

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Speaker 3: I was in the hallway last week and I was

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Speaker 3: talking to some senior military officials on the army side,

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Speaker 3: and they were all just recounting the very first you know,

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Speaker 3: propaganda esque, you know, join the Army, first commercial they

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Speaker 3: ever saw as kids, and then being there for so long,

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Speaker 3: some of these ten twenty thirty years some of them,

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Speaker 3: and seeing the complete culture shift change, being bloated with

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Speaker 3: people that are just again we talk about even military standards,

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Speaker 3: that's going to be a huge thing that's changing, and

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Speaker 3: the physical fitness side, and these standards were being lowered,

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Speaker 3: and the floodgates had opened that it wasn't this war

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Speaker 3: fighting complex that these guys signed up for. I'll tell

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Speaker 3: you they're incredibly eager and want to be a part

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Speaker 3: of the efforts at the Southern border. I know Northcom

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Speaker 3: and Southcom announced that they're bothstering more joint efforts, especially

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Speaker 3: on the drone side, and I only think that's going

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Speaker 3: to continue. It is a direct conduit into the results

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Speaker 3: that we've seen at the Southern border. Being far less

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Speaker 3: aggressive by the cartel because they just don't.

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Speaker 2: Have the defense spending.

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Speaker 3: They're super lucrative, right, but the DoD has a nine

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Speaker 3: hundred billion defense budget and that just doesn't compare. You

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Speaker 3: look at China, they're sitting at you know, three hundred billion.

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Speaker 3: So we're far surpassing them at this moment, and we're

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Speaker 3: far more capable and have the right resources. Again, it's

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Speaker 3: just cutting the fat and redirecting where the mission set is.

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Speaker 3: So the sentiments in the morale within the building is

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Speaker 3: an absolute yes. I think the other the only heartburn

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Speaker 3: that people would see when it comes to these DOGE

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Speaker 3: audits or say the Afghan withdrawal, from what I've heard

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Speaker 3: was we're you know again, DoD follows a chain of command.

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Speaker 3: So when there is intel being presented and it's not

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Speaker 3: being acknowledged or chosen to be factored or digested in

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Speaker 3: a different way to make poor operational decisions, it's really

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Speaker 3: tough for those people that are kind of, you know,

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Speaker 3: a level or two below that higher call to defend

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Speaker 3: themselves other than saying I listened to my most senior

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Speaker 3: officer and that's what I decided to do.

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Speaker 2: So I think that's the bigger picture.

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Speaker 3: All this cultural shift, all the mandates that are being dropped,

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Speaker 3: all good, everyone's happy with it.

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Speaker 2: But now it's.

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Speaker 3: People having to answer to direct orders that they you know,

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Speaker 3: buy the signature on the contract that they put down

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Speaker 3: to join the military, how to follow through with So

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Speaker 3: it would be really interesting to see how heg Seth

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Speaker 3: and his team kind of course course correct and make

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Speaker 3: right from things like the Afghan withdrawal, considering that they

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Speaker 3: also understand the chain of command is what made everyone's

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Speaker 3: hands tied to a degree. O.

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Speaker 1: A and Pentagon correspondent Gabriell Kuccia. Great to see you.

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Speaker 1: We'll talk to you again soon about all things Do D.

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Speaker 2: Sounds great. Thanks Buck for having me