Speaker 1: We are live, and I'm thrilled to be joined by
Speaker 1: my friend Ken Harbaugh. Ken is a former naval aviator.
Speaker 1: He is the president of Valor Media. He is the
Speaker 1: producer of the number one rated Apple documentary Against All Enemies.
Speaker 1: You can find that, download it, watch it on Apple TV.
Speaker 1: Ken is a veteran's activist and advocate, a democracy advocate,
Speaker 1: and a democracy activist. Ken is part of the great
Speaker 1: fabric of America's civil society, where he has stood up
Speaker 1: for the country, taken the oath, flown off the deck
Speaker 1: of aircraft carriers, flown into harm's way, and has come
Speaker 1: home and has entered into another type of harm, which
Speaker 1: is as a leading voice in a great battle that's
Speaker 1: taking place as we speak, all across the country between
Speaker 1: two forces that have long been in opposition in the
Speaker 1: United States, forces that oppose liberty and those that wish
Speaker 1: to expand it. And all through our history there have
Speaker 1: been attempts and attacks against the against the Constitution of
Speaker 1: the United States. There have been no gentle periods in
Speaker 1: the American story, and so today we live in a
Speaker 1: consequential time, and so it's a great privilege to be
Speaker 1: joined by We're going to talk about some of the
Speaker 1: activities that are taking place, the large veterans protests taking
Speaker 1: place on the sixth of June in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that. We're going to talk about all
Speaker 1: of the things that are happening, but we're going to
Speaker 1: start by talking about the Valor network. And we're going
Speaker 1: to start by talking about a subject that's of real importance,
Speaker 1: something that has gone off the rails, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that. I think it's in the last seven or
Speaker 1: so years, but it could be a little bit before that.
Speaker 1: But as we begin the conversation with Ken, we're coming
Speaker 1: up on a Memorial Day, and when we think about
Speaker 1: Memorial Day, we have to think about the generation of
Speaker 1: Americans that were sent to war in the twenty first century.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the generation that we remember as the Greatest Generation. And
Speaker 1: I've never liked the name because I'll tell you what,
Speaker 1: and I think it's clear in this moment that we're
Speaker 1: going to have to have another great generation of Americans.
Speaker 1: And I think truly the greatest generation will be the
Speaker 1: one that makes it to the mountaintop that Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King saw right that completes the building of the city
Speaker 1: on a hill. The World War two generation stood up,
Speaker 1: They were measured, they were counted, They did incredible they
Speaker 1: did incredible things. You grew up when we grew up
Speaker 1: as a as a young man I was born in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, there was an arc type of masculinity.
Speaker 1: And in that arc type of masculinity has been utterly
Speaker 1: shattered in the last seven years by people who would
Speaker 1: have been roukeenly regarded by those guys as there's a word.
Speaker 1: It starts with key, right. It's the key word right,
Speaker 1: which I can't say, which is too bad, because it's
Speaker 1: an important concept right in society, and it was something
Speaker 1: as a young man you were raised not to be.
Speaker 1: And so when you look at an Andrew Tate, he's
Speaker 1: a let's call him a pussy cat, right when you
Speaker 1: when you when you look at it, Joe Rogan, right,
Speaker 1: another pussy cat. Right. So, if you're sitting there and
Speaker 1: and you're a person who has an audience of many
Speaker 1: tens of millions, and you're sitting there and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, Hitler and Kanye West may have a point
Speaker 1: here about the Jews controlling everything or you tolerate the
Speaker 1: Nazi apologist, or you wink and nod at the racist
Speaker 1: or the misogynist or whatever. Indecency doesn't make you tough.
Speaker 1: It generally it makes either a racist and an imbecile.
Speaker 1: And those two things typically matched together like round square,
Speaker 1: round peg. And so those guys, by and large would
Speaker 1: have been repulsed by the Andrew Caates, by the Joe Rogans,
Speaker 1: by all of these dishonest snake oil salespeople telling this
Speaker 1: fake gospel of machismo, because the real thing is collapsed.
Speaker 1: And so real men, right, are not cruel Right, real
Speaker 1: men are fierce against cruelty. That toughness is not meanness,
Speaker 1: and that there's nothing wrong if you're a man in
Speaker 1: standing up for the little guy, and so so what
Speaker 1: these people are are classical bullies who've said to be
Speaker 1: a man is to be a bully, and that's not true.
Speaker 1: But traditional masculinity has been casket castigated, run down, kicked
Speaker 1: into the gutter, been politicized, called toxic in the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter is is we need to raise our
Speaker 1: young men to be fierce and their patriotism and their
Speaker 1: respect for other people, for dissent for America's values, and
Speaker 1: we've done a terrible job as a generation of doing that,
Speaker 1: and so we've created a vacuum where some of the
Speaker 1: worst people you can conceivably imagine now hold themselves up
Speaker 1: as totems of manliness, when in fact they're epic cowards,
Speaker 1: all of them. They're moral cowards, their physical cowards, and
Speaker 1: their political cowards. And you have a remedy for that,
Speaker 1: and that's Valor Media. And i'd love for you to
Speaker 1: talk about Valor Media. I think this is a great idea,
Speaker 1: a great network, and I think it's going to be
Speaker 1: something that really reaches tens of millions of young men
Speaker 1: in this country with a competing vision about what it
Speaker 1: means to be a man, and what it means to
Speaker 1: be a man at the end of the day is
Speaker 1: to stand up with some integrity. And integrity and manliness
Speaker 1: are deeply connected, and people who have no integrity, who
Speaker 1: are bullies and liars, have no claim to masculinity. And
Speaker 1: so I just want to get you to talk about
Speaker 1: Valor Media and your vision for it. And thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being with us today.
Speaker 2: Well thanks for having me, Steve. It's great to talk
Speaker 2: to you. Your intro was overly generous. I'm a little embarrassed,
Speaker 2: but I think you hit the nail on the head
Speaker 2: when you described these influencers of the so called manisphere
Speaker 2: as cowards, because at the end of the day, every
Speaker 2: bully is a coward, right they are, They're projecting, they're
Speaker 2: compensating for something. And it really gets to me, especially
Speaker 2: as we're leading up to Memorial Day, when these guys
Speaker 2: in heroism, when they do the tough guy act, right,
Speaker 2: when they talk about the need to be strong on
Speaker 2: the world stage, and somehow every single one of them,
Speaker 2: the ones we're talking about, the Andrew Tates, the Joe Rogan's,
Speaker 2: somehow managed to miss out on the longest wars in
Speaker 2: America's history, right Iraq and Afghanistan. That shows you that
Speaker 2: they're they're all talk. On the other hand, at Valor Media,
Speaker 2: we've got a lineup of hosts that I think can
Speaker 2: reach into this toxic manisphere, this hostile information ecosystem. We've
Speaker 2: got three seals who are hosts on the network. We've
Speaker 2: got rangers, We've got an ex Delta Forces guy. We've
Speaker 2: got two Navy pilots. One of them was a top
Speaker 2: gun guy. One of them was pilot of the year
Speaker 2: in PACAPP Pacific Air Force. These are actual.
Speaker 1: Dudes, right they.
Speaker 2: I would love to put any one of them squared
Speaker 2: off with Joe Rogan or Andrew Tap and let people
Speaker 2: decide what real masculine it is looking at those examples,
Speaker 2: and it's what you laid out. Strength is actually found
Speaker 2: in compassion. Masculinity is found in taking care of the
Speaker 2: least among us. Being a man is not what you
Speaker 2: do for yourself, which is what is being sold, which
Speaker 2: is what Rogan and Tate and the others preach. Being
Speaker 2: a man is what you do for others. And I
Speaker 2: think there is a political component to this as well,
Speaker 2: because in failing to address this, we are seating territory
Speaker 2: that we should rightly occupy. We gave up an entire
Speaker 2: demo of votes to Donald Trump because we didn't play
Speaker 2: in that information space. We didn't talk to them, We
Speaker 2: didn't give them a vision of what a well run
Speaker 2: country can look like and what's in it for them.
Speaker 2: Valor media is about uplifting the real men in our
Speaker 2: communities who we think can break into those information silos
Speaker 2: and save some one of these young men who are
Speaker 2: being sucked into the to the Rogan and Andrew tape
Speaker 2: Pit of toxic masculinity.
Speaker 1: You know, I was listening to a podcast and it
Speaker 1: was Scott Galloway, Professor Galloway and Anthony Scaramucci, and they
Speaker 1: were talking about masculinity. And I think Scott Galloway is
Speaker 1: a brilliant guy, makes a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: great points. And one of the things he's talking about
Speaker 1: is that you really have a generation of young men
Speaker 1: that are terrified to talk to a young woman. They
Speaker 1: just can't do it right face to face. Have never
Speaker 1: asked anyone out. You know, Anthony Scaramucci starts talking about,
Speaker 1: you know this right of passage that you know, I
Speaker 1: remember well, which is this moment of terror, right when
Speaker 1: you were trying to call a girl up on the
Speaker 1: phone and her dad might answer right, and you're trying
Speaker 1: to sneak around the house tethered to the cord. You're
Speaker 1: fighting with your sister when it was me right, it
Speaker 1: was right at the adventity age of call waiting right,
Speaker 1: and you're you're going through these rituals, and we have
Speaker 1: young men in this country who were through COVID not
Speaker 1: in school, miss out on this period of life. And
Speaker 1: then in the politics of the moment our young men
Speaker 1: are told that you're dangerous, you're unworthy, you're somehow bad,
Speaker 1: that in any type of interaction with with a woman,
Speaker 1: you'll you're the you're on the wrong side of that.
Speaker 1: Women don't lie. Uh, young men are bad. And so
Speaker 1: in that space, right, in this gospel of toxic masculinity,
Speaker 1: people talk about, you know, the excesses of the of
Speaker 1: the woke era, right people, young men, Right, there's really
Speaker 1: no more boy scouts. Uh, there is a you know,
Speaker 1: absence of school. So we see the sports right fall
Speaker 1: fall apart. And in that vacuum, it's the old saying
Speaker 1: goes right nature or pores a vacuum. Right, there's fraud
Speaker 1: steers who rise up and say hey to the dispossessed, right,
Speaker 1: to the lonely, Hey follow me. And so this kid, right,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're talking about here, kid, right, is
Speaker 1: not sitting in a group right of one hundred other
Speaker 1: kids watching Andrew Kate. Right. This is not a group activity, right,
Speaker 1: This is a lonely activity. You're sitting in your room. Right.
Speaker 1: There is no girlfriend to talk to, right, there is
Speaker 1: no friends. Right, So you have isolated, lonely boys sitting
Speaker 1: in their rooms right, sitting in their basements, who are
Speaker 1: being stoked, being provoked, being fed a bunch of lies
Speaker 1: by these people. And it's metastasizing now in that you
Speaker 1: have a lot of these fighting clubs, a lot of
Speaker 1: these mixed martial lates arts facilities have urged with white
Speaker 1: nationalists politics and have become forums and venues for the
Speaker 1: spread all of it connected through this manosphere, which is
Speaker 1: a fundamentally dangerous mix of extremists peddling a message that says, hey,
Speaker 1: young man, Winston Churchill's the bad guy in Adolf Hitler. Well,
Speaker 1: he's misunderstood. And so the remedy to this, right is
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, which is that in the end,
Speaker 1: that the meaning of life, of manhood is the acceptance
Speaker 1: of this idea that there are some causes, some things
Speaker 1: that are bigger than yourself. And to me, for most
Speaker 1: amongst all of those things that transcend everything is the
Speaker 1: United States. And so the United States is a project.
Speaker 1: It's two hundred and fifty years old. We're in our
Speaker 1: two hundred and fiftieth anniversary year. Some great anniversaries. This
Speaker 1: year we had the anniversary of the United States Army,
Speaker 1: of the United States Navy, the United States Marine Corps.
Speaker 1: All this all this year, and the Republic turns two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty next year, the birth of its independence.
Speaker 1: Thomas Payne talked about liberty, so use some things you
Speaker 1: can't put a price on them. He's also the first
Speaker 1: person to come up with the name the United States
Speaker 1: of America, to write it down on a piece of paper,
Speaker 1: should be the name of the country. Against all enemies
Speaker 1: is a important phrase in the Constitution, in the oath
Speaker 1: that anybody takes to the cost institution a lot of
Speaker 1: ways to serve the country, not just in the in
Speaker 1: the military. A lot of people have taken that oath
Speaker 1: ready to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.
Speaker 1: Talk about your documentary on Apple that's number one, Why
Speaker 1: you think it got to number one, And about and
Speaker 1: about specifically your use of that phrase.
Speaker 2: Thanks Steve Well. I think it speaks to a lot
Speaker 2: of what you just laid out, which is a disinformation
Speaker 2: ecosystem that is so effective at reaching disaffected men, young
Speaker 2: men in particular. And our focus was on military veterans.
Speaker 2: I alluded to the longest wars in America's history, right,
Speaker 2: those had repercussions off the battlefield, and we welcomed home,
Speaker 2: actually two generations of soldiers back to the country, many
Speaker 2: of home, and we're looking to recapture that sense of
Speaker 2: camaraderie and purpose that they felt downrange. The vast majority,
Speaker 2: it has to be said, do reintegrate successfully into civilian life.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't take many.
Speaker 2: It doesn't take a small subset of that, a small
Speaker 2: percentage who find that sense of purpose and mission through
Speaker 2: the Oathkeepers or the Proud Boys, or the three percenters.
Speaker 2: It doesn't take many of those to wreak absolute havoc.
Speaker 2: And the impetus for the film was me sitting in
Speaker 2: my driveway on January sixth, twenty twenty one, just in
Speaker 2: disbelief at what was happening in looking when I finally
Speaker 2: got my phone out. I first was listening to it
Speaker 2: on the radio, but I was watching the coverage and
Speaker 2: seeing the organized stacks, the tactical stacks or lines of
Speaker 2: people working their way through the crowds, and realizing that's
Speaker 2: Vets right. And it turned out that a disproportionate number
Speaker 2: of the people there on January sixth, and certainly of
Speaker 2: the leaders behind it, the Stuart Rhodeses of this movement
Speaker 2: had military backgrounds, and we wanted to understand how the
Speaker 2: heck we got to this point, and so much of
Speaker 2: it is because of this disinformation ecosystem that pumps lies
Speaker 2: into people twenty four to seven. And if what you're
Speaker 2: hearing again and again and again, especially from the mouth
Speaker 2: of the commander in chief, is that an election was stolen,
Speaker 2: for example, and we have one hundred examples of lies
Speaker 2: just as nefarious since then, but let's just focus on
Speaker 2: that one. You hear the election was stolen. At first,
Speaker 2: you don't believe it. You hear it again and again
Speaker 2: and again. You see Fox News playing on the wardroom,
Speaker 2: in the wardroom TV on your base right, you hear
Speaker 2: the commander in chief or the former commander in chief
Speaker 2: saying it, and it twists your mind and you begin
Speaker 2: to tell yourself, especially if you're surrounded by people who
Speaker 2: are reinforcing this, that you know what, my oath compels
Speaker 2: me to do something about it. And that, to me
Speaker 2: is one of the greatest tragedies of how we lost
Speaker 2: so many veterans to this disinformation campaign. So many of
Speaker 2: them thought they were doing the right thing. And one
Speaker 2: of the things we try to get at in the
Speaker 2: film is the real onus of moral accountability. Sure, those
Speaker 2: who broke windows, those who broke into the Capitol deserve
Speaker 2: to be held accountable. I think the pardons are an outrage,
Speaker 2: but the real onus should lie with those who provoked,
Speaker 2: who knew better the Josh Hawley's that Ted Cruzes and
Speaker 2: we just wanted to plan a flag to set a
Speaker 2: marker for history that this is something we're not going
Speaker 2: to ignore, We're not going to turn away from. And
Speaker 2: I think that message is what resonated. It's what catapulted
Speaker 2: it to the top of the charts on Apple TV.
Speaker 2: It's now on Amazon, pretty much anywhere you get your streaming,
Speaker 2: you're streaming films. But I think that's what the film
Speaker 2: was speaking to that struck a chord with so many Americans.
Speaker 1: We have a generation of Americans that were sent to
Speaker 1: fight in wars. That one was started under a false
Speaker 1: pretense by the administration that I worked in. I played
Speaker 1: a senior role in the Bush administration. I was a
Speaker 1: deputy assistant to the President. Against All Enemies is the
Speaker 1: name of the film, everybody. I just saw that question
Speaker 1: Against All Enemies number one on Apple I was a
Speaker 1: deputy assistant to the President. I was counselor to the
Speaker 1: Vice president. Again, the name of the film is Against
Speaker 1: All Enemies, Against All Enemies on Apple Television. And as
Speaker 1: a political staffer, I spent time in Iraq. Was was
Speaker 1: sent there on an assignment, you know, for a for
Speaker 1: a month or so, and got a case of the
Speaker 1: flavor of what it is like to see the American
Speaker 1: military deployed fully alongside the British military and our coalition partners.
Speaker 1: You've either witnessed that, seen it, or have or have not.
Speaker 1: I'm convinced you could be in the military for twenty
Speaker 1: years and have not seen it and not understand what
Speaker 1: that is. An It's an incredible thing too. It's an
Speaker 1: incredible thing to see the power of the country. But
Speaker 1: what do you think about the political leadership that lost
Speaker 1: to wars that your friends were sent to That this
Speaker 1: is what politics is, and there is a reality that
Speaker 1: Trump rose in a Republican primary so many years ago
Speaker 1: as the truth teller right about these wars in that
Speaker 1: hey this was crazy, we lost these wars, and hey,
Speaker 1: it's your fault politically, And so I understand at a
Speaker 1: psychological level that if you send the army to war,
Speaker 1: in the Navy and the Marine Corps, in the Air Force,
Speaker 1: and in all of the contractors for twenty years, and
Speaker 1: you lose those wars, and you lose those wars with
Speaker 1: the images for example, at the end that come out
Speaker 1: of Afghanistan after twenty years. Right, that there's a moral
Speaker 1: injury done. Right, that's profound, And I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: you just talk about that moral injury, that grievance, that
Speaker 1: resentment that takes an American soldier, airman, marine, from defender
Speaker 1: of the Constitution to the tip of the spear waging
Speaker 1: a war against it, prodded on by the exact type
Speaker 1: of person that at one point in their life they
Speaker 1: would have understood is exactly what the country's against.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up the term moral injury.
Speaker 2: Most people aren't familiar with it. It is distinct from
Speaker 2: PTSD or post traumatic stress, with which most people do understand.
Speaker 2: But moral injury is an injury to the soul, and
Speaker 2: it's being increasingly researched and discovered that it can be
Speaker 2: every bit as devastating as PTSD, and it just leaves
Speaker 2: a hole in you when, for example, you are sent
Speaker 2: down range, you're told that you're defending the country, say
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan, for example, you lose buddies based on this promise,
Speaker 2: and then you come home and you don't get the
Speaker 2: support that your country promised you. This isn't a hypothetical.
Speaker 2: It's happening right now. Look at the Packed Act, which
Speaker 2: was passed to take care of all of those soldiers
Speaker 2: down range who are exposed to burn pits. It actually
Speaker 2: goes all the way back to the Vietnam War and
Speaker 2: those exposed to Agent Orange who were never taken care of.
Speaker 2: My dad was exposed to Agent Orange. We lost them
Speaker 2: a month ago. I'm actually wearing his jacket today. I
Speaker 2: took my patches off and put them on his jacket.
Speaker 2: But the first word in the Packed Act is promise.
Speaker 2: It's a promise to America's veterans, and it has been
Speaker 2: ripped away because the Republicans, at Donald Trump's encouragement, have
Speaker 2: taken away the seventeen billion dollars that was committed to
Speaker 2: take care of those veterans who shouldered the burden that
Speaker 2: Americans asked them to shoulder. On top of that, you
Speaker 2: have this talk of sending back afghan refugees, many of
Speaker 2: whom stood alongside US in Afghanistan risked their own lives,
Speaker 2: lost family members, interpreted translated for US, fought alongside US.
Speaker 2: In many cases, those on TPS status in the US
Speaker 2: are in danger of losing it and being sent back
Speaker 2: to Afghanistan because Marco Rubio State Department has assessed that
Speaker 2: it's now stable. Do you know what happens to an
Speaker 2: Afghan interpreter for the Americans when he goes back to
Speaker 2: Taliban controlled Afghanistan? Take a wild guess that leaves an
Speaker 2: injury on the soul of the American troop who's life
Speaker 2: dependent on that Afghan interpreter. That is what moral injury is.
Speaker 2: And this administration seems to have no regard for what
Speaker 2: it is doing to the American veteran.
Speaker 1: I want everybody to understand what Ken is talking about.
Speaker 1: This is literally the plot of season six of The
Speaker 1: Handmaid's Tail. Right, it is, it is, it is, It
Speaker 1: is remarkable, and that decision, it's a bureaucratic evil that's
Speaker 1: that's being done. But I want to laser focus on
Speaker 1: something that that Ken is talking about, which is that
Speaker 1: this is not Marco Rubio who is doing this, Right,
Speaker 1: this is this is not Chris know who is who
Speaker 1: is doing this right, It's the American people who are
Speaker 1: doing this. When Marco Rubio issues an order, when Christy
Speaker 1: No issues an order, right, that the burden of that
Speaker 1: is carried by us, because we are a government of
Speaker 1: the people, by the people, for the people. And this
Speaker 1: is what instills in this moment, right, the fierce moral
Speaker 1: urgency right to stop it, right and to say no.
Speaker 1: And so what I want everybody on here to appreciate
Speaker 1: is that Elon Musk is back in Texas, self pitying, crying,
Speaker 1: right saying no Moss. And the truth of the matter
Speaker 1: is is that one hundred whatever days into this you know,
Speaker 1: to today is you know four months in a day,
Speaker 1: is that you have a lifetime of accountability ahead for
Speaker 1: a lot of people who have engaged in an assault,
Speaker 1: in an arson and attack against the United States, against
Speaker 1: the law across the board, in this administration. And it's
Speaker 1: going to take a very very very long time for
Speaker 1: that for that to play out. You know, it's easier
Speaker 1: to light something on fire than to rebuild it, and
Speaker 1: that's just the reality of things. But what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here, the moral injury sustained over twenty years time.
Speaker 1: As we come into now a period where we're going
Speaker 1: to see something on June the fourteenth, which is which
Speaker 1: is I think a desecration on the anniversary of the
Speaker 1: birth of the US Army. We'll see a brigade strand
Speaker 1: about six thousand American soldiers marching in a review. Kim
Speaker 1: John unstyle passed our maximum leader, our furer, the American
Speaker 1: fueror there Donald Trump tanks, fighter jets, helicopters deeply on
Speaker 1: American type parade. The United States Army is the greatest
Speaker 1: force for liberation in world history. You go to the
Speaker 1: American cemeteries in Europe, what you appreciate there is what
Speaker 1: Colin Powell talked about, which is that the only territory
Speaker 1: the United States ever asked for was enough to bury
Speaker 1: our war dead on And you can see that in France,
Speaker 1: you can see that in Belgium, these beautiful cemeteries. But
Speaker 1: how do you think about this June fourteenth parade? How
Speaker 1: should a veteran look at this? I think you have
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the country will look for
Speaker 1: the first time in their lives at a military review review,
Speaker 1: not not with pride as an American citizen with regard
Speaker 1: to the American military, but with some fear of the
Speaker 1: of the power of it. So talk about that where we're,
Speaker 1: where we're going to be seeing, and how you're going
Speaker 1: to feel about it as a as a naval officer
Speaker 1: watching this, watching this play out.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's absolutely shameful, and we know what
Speaker 2: it really is. It's not a celebration of the Army's birthday.
Speaker 2: The Army doesn't want this. Nobody marching in that parade.
Speaker 2: I guarantee you wants to do that. That's not what
Speaker 2: we're trained to do. We don't do passing in reviews
Speaker 2: in front of a deer leader like they do in
Speaker 2: North Korea. This is about Donald Trump puffing himself up.
Speaker 2: It happens to be on his birthday, right. I don't
Speaker 2: think that's a coincidence. He is seeing this as a
Speaker 2: birthday party for himself. The kid who sat alone at
Speaker 2: the lunch table now right has control of the most
Speaker 2: powerful military in the world, and he's going to make
Speaker 2: them bend the knee in full public view of the
Speaker 2: entire country. Steve, I loved what you said about accountability
Speaker 2: because I think we need to be talking about that
Speaker 2: now for a couple reasons. The first is that it's
Speaker 2: just the right thing to do to record all of
Speaker 2: these outrages. Look, the parade isn't illegal, but plenty of
Speaker 2: other things this administration is doing. Plenty of other things
Speaker 2: are illegal. The renditions al Salvador right, the threats to
Speaker 2: end habeas Corpus, the list goes on and on. I
Speaker 2: think we are lulled into complacency sometimes just because of
Speaker 2: how quickly these actions come, and we just move on
Speaker 2: to the next one. By talking about accountability, we do
Speaker 2: a couple things. We show that we're paying attention, we
Speaker 2: are watching what the administration is doing. We're not going
Speaker 2: to forget. And it might actually serve as a deterrent.
Speaker 2: Not to President Trump himself. I think he thinks he's
Speaker 2: going to be in power forever, or at least people
Speaker 2: who will protect him will be in power forever. But
Speaker 2: maybe the slightly less diluted mid level functionaries will wonder
Speaker 2: if Democrats start running on an accountability agenda, maybe what
Speaker 2: they're doing isn't going to serve them in the long run.
Speaker 2: Maybe bending the need to Donald Trump, pleasing the alpha
Speaker 2: in the White House, though it might feel good in
Speaker 2: the moment, and it might elevate one's stature in the moment.
Speaker 2: If there's accountability, if we're talking about actually holding people
Speaker 2: accountable for breaking the law, then I think it might
Speaker 2: be one of the safeguards we've never had to rely
Speaker 2: on before. But I think it's a Madisonian observation. Right,
Speaker 2: liberty the end of the day resides in the virtue
Speaker 2: of men not help us. But I think we're at
Speaker 2: that point we might actually have to depend on people
Speaker 2: and their character standing up to the president instead of
Speaker 2: the actual system safeguards, uh and and guard rails built
Speaker 2: into our democracy that he is demolishing with every new
Speaker 2: executive order.
Speaker 1: So when you think about the US military as it
Speaker 1: as an institution, and you think about Donald Trump's abuse
Speaker 1: of it, and you think about him potentially turning it
Speaker 1: loose on the American people in some type of domestic
Speaker 1: domestic capacity, do you where where do you look at
Speaker 1: the fault line being in the in the military, the
Speaker 1: trip wire that says, yeah, we're not We're we're not
Speaker 1: going to do this. A lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: military officers say to me, well, what makes the military
Speaker 1: unique is the NCO core and the nco core of
Speaker 1: the US military is not going to is not going
Speaker 1: to allow the US military too to be turned loose
Speaker 1: against the American against the American people within the United
Speaker 1: within the United States.
Speaker 2: And well, look, we came closer than most people realize
Speaker 2: during Trump's first term. We came much closer than most
Speaker 2: people realized to seeing the eighty second arm Airborne deployed
Speaker 2: in Washington, DC with fixed banets pointed at American protesters.
Speaker 2: The only thing that stopped that was one man in uniform,
Speaker 2: Mark Milly, saying I'm not going to transmit the order
Speaker 2: to invoke the Insurrection Act. That to me is a
Speaker 2: is a signal of a systemic failure. It should not
Speaker 2: come down to a single military person in uniform as
Speaker 2: the final safeguard against a constitutional crisis like that. What
Speaker 2: scares me is that Donald Trump and the people around
Speaker 2: him have learned their lesson. They know not to have
Speaker 2: someone like Mark Milly in the way this time. And
Speaker 2: if you look at the people that they are putting
Speaker 2: in those positions of power that would act as a safeguard,
Speaker 2: that would act as a check in balance, I'm not
Speaker 2: convinced they would. The reason that Donald Trump chose the
Speaker 2: new chairman. Whether the chairman actually said this, Donald Trump
Speaker 2: says he said it, and it is counting on it.
Speaker 2: General Kin said, I will kill for you, sir, according
Speaker 2: to Donald Trump, right, that's what Donald Trump thinks. The
Speaker 2: military's job is to kill for him. I'm not making
Speaker 2: that up. Go look it up. That's what Donald Trump said.
Speaker 2: General Caine said to him wearing a maga hat. Incidentally,
Speaker 2: that part has not disputed him wearing a Maga hat.
Speaker 2: So if we don't have that layer of defense anymore,
Speaker 2: do the NCOs or that mid grade or junior officer,
Speaker 2: do they have the ability to act as the final safeguard.
Speaker 2: It would take an enormous amount of courage. I think
Speaker 2: it might be coming to this, but imagine the courage
Speaker 2: it would take to choose between you're out to the
Speaker 2: constitution and an order from the commander in chief. That
Speaker 2: has rarely been tested in American military history, and more
Speaker 2: often than not, because we have such a bias towards
Speaker 2: following orders, the decision has gone the other way. In
Speaker 2: the military, you're conditioned to follow orders, and I worry
Speaker 2: that that conditioning will will not be conducive to disobeying
Speaker 2: the President.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's play this out just a just a bit,
Speaker 1: which is that if the eighty second Airborne had been
Speaker 1: deployed a fixed bayonets to Washington, DC, how long do
Speaker 1: you think that they would have stayed there.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. But it wouldn't take long for
Speaker 2: there to be an instigating event, right, It wouldn't take
Speaker 2: long like at Kent State. I don't know how long
Speaker 2: those guardsmen were there, but it wasn't days. It was
Speaker 2: an afternoon and the day ended with four college kids dead.
Speaker 1: Let's so the eighty second Airborne is not National Guardsmen,
Speaker 1: not a bio campus in nineteen seventy, right, So you
Speaker 1: have the United States Armies Premiere Light Infantry Division, ready
Speaker 1: to go anywhere in the world, comes to Washington, DC
Speaker 1: and full combat kit as what occupying force.
Speaker 2: I think if you look at the executive orders, if
Speaker 2: you look at the way they are testing, militarizing the
Speaker 2: border and these other acts walking right up to the
Speaker 2: line of the inst direction Act, I think the goal
Speaker 2: is to come up with a legal rationale for martial law.
Speaker 2: Should the country rise up, should people say enough is enough?
Speaker 2: I don't know what the triggering event is going to be,
Speaker 2: but there are going to be mass protests against this administration.
Speaker 2: We're barely one hundred days in and you're already seeing
Speaker 2: the kind of thing that took years for other administrations
Speaker 2: to provoke. I think there's going to be something like that,
Speaker 2: and I think it is the Trump administration's hedge to
Speaker 2: go to martial law and deploy the eighty second Airborne
Speaker 2: as a show of force against the resistance of you will,
Speaker 2: the protest movement that is inevitably going to rise up
Speaker 2: in response to the illegalities and unconstitutional acts of the
Speaker 2: Trump administration.
Speaker 1: So there's an active force of about a million, and
Speaker 1: there's a reserve component of about a million on a
Speaker 1: continental country of three hundred and fifty two million million people.
Speaker 1: So the second Airborne full division, right is going to
Speaker 1: be about ten thousand, ten thousand all in. And the
Speaker 1: eighty second Airborne doesn't have enough men to occupy Washington, DC, right,
Speaker 1: let alone the eastern seaboard of the United States. So
Speaker 1: what does that when you think about right? The military
Speaker 1: and the American military right until this moment, has not
Speaker 1: been conceived of right as a martial force to be
Speaker 1: used as the president to constrain the descent of the
Speaker 1: American people. But the American military, which is the deterned
Speaker 1: force to aggression all over all over the world. Right,
Speaker 1: if it was all brought home, right, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: enough members right to be able to occupy the country.
Speaker 1: And we can we can see how you know, the
Speaker 1: United States did is a counter insurgent force in Iraq.
Speaker 1: But but right where there were a lot less guns
Speaker 1: and a lot less people with proficiency with weapons. But
Speaker 1: what my my, my question about this is that when
Speaker 1: you think about the avalanche like coming down that slippery
Speaker 1: slope on this right, and I think this is what's
Speaker 1: going to happen, right, It's that he's looking for pretexts.
Speaker 1: You see this with James Comy. The protests will rise
Speaker 1: over the summer. Uh, there will be some violent ignition somewhere,
Speaker 1: and there will be an unprecedented type of crackdown uh
Speaker 1: somewhere in the country that is deeply that is deeply militarized.
Speaker 1: And I just at that point, where where does the
Speaker 1: veterans community line up shake out? Where do the people
Speaker 1: who are the valor network, Where do the mid grade
Speaker 1: the senior military officers speak out? Because you know, for instance,
Speaker 1: the one the one the most silent and competulant group
Speaker 1: of people in this country in this moment, or the
Speaker 1: retired four star officer cop right in the United States military.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're all on hedge funds, right, They're all right,
Speaker 1: it's appalling, right, but where where? So? Just how how
Speaker 1: would something like that break? Like, how do you envision
Speaker 1: the dialogue that goes on in the country.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I agree with you one hundred
Speaker 2: percent that the US military can't occupy the US, but
Speaker 2: I don't think that would be the goal. The goal
Speaker 2: would be the kind of show a force to intimidate
Speaker 2: the opposition. You're already seeing that willing their willingness to
Speaker 2: do that with their attempts to intimidate people who speak
Speaker 2: out against them, grabbing people at the airport for having
Speaker 2: anti Trump content on their cell phones, for example, threatening
Speaker 2: I think it was Tulci Gabbert, the Director of National Intelligence,
Speaker 2: said Jim Comey should be in jail. Cash Battel and
Speaker 2: Dan Bongino are threatening to investigate them for threatening the president.
Speaker 2: I mean that is using the levers of government power
Speaker 2: to intimidate and threaten the opposition. The military is the
Speaker 2: ultimate lever of government power, and I think what they
Speaker 2: are looking to do, They're laying the groundwork now is
Speaker 2: use the military not to occupy the country, but to
Speaker 2: provoke the kind of demonstration of force that will cow
Speaker 2: the opposition. I think between now and then, we have
Speaker 2: to figure out an infrastructure communications policy thresholds. We have
Speaker 2: to decide which red lines are triggers for us, and
Speaker 2: then be able to communicate to the people in the
Speaker 2: military that we have their backs. Should they make that
Speaker 2: horrible decision to have to abide their oaths in opposition
Speaker 2: to an unlawful order. That's happened very few times in
Speaker 2: military history, and I think we can anticipate it, and
Speaker 2: we need to tell those that NCO if you will,
Speaker 2: that we have his back.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's important for there to be an
Speaker 1: advertising campaign that reaches the enlisted soldier outside of Fort Bragg,
Speaker 1: outside of Fort Benning, outside of Fort Campbell, outside of
Speaker 1: Fort Hood, right, that speaks to them, as you took
Speaker 1: an oath to the Constitution, not a man. Is that
Speaker 1: illegal orders are illegal orders, and like following orders does
Speaker 1: not excuse you from accountability from an illegal order. And
Speaker 1: to start telling that telling that story is that something
Speaker 1: that's necessary. I think we have to be finding done.
Speaker 2: Yes, because in all of my training, and granted I
Speaker 2: was OCS guy, that's officer candidate school, I didn't go
Speaker 2: through the academy, but never once did I take a
Speaker 2: course on what to do in the event of an
Speaker 2: illegal order. I wasn't even asked to read the document
Speaker 2: that I swore allegiance to the Constitution. Now they do
Speaker 2: read it at the academy. They do read the Constitution
Speaker 2: in ROTC, but most illsted programs don't make you understand
Speaker 2: the Constitution that you are pledging your life to. I
Speaker 2: think we need to We need to have some kind
Speaker 2: of refresher on the obligation to disobey an illegal order.
Speaker 2: I don't think most people realize that it's not just
Speaker 2: you're not just given the right to disobey an illegal order.
Speaker 2: You are bound to disobey illegal orders. But the UCMJ
Speaker 2: talks almost exclusively about obeying orders and the consequences for
Speaker 2: not obeying orders. There is very little attention paid in
Speaker 2: military training in the UMJAY, in military law to disobey
Speaker 2: illegal orders. And we have to address that because I
Speaker 2: think that moment is coming. Do you.
Speaker 1: Do you have faith in the military at a rank
Speaker 1: and file at a dangerous moment as they receive an
Speaker 1: illegal order from this president.
Speaker 2: I do, but I don't think our country should depend
Speaker 2: on gestures of faith, right It is a roll of
Speaker 2: the dice At this point, I am fifty one percent
Speaker 2: confident that our military will do the right thing in
Speaker 2: a moment of crisis. Would you bet the democracy on that?
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm not prepared to do that. And would you bet
Speaker 2: the democracy on the generals that Trump has now surrounded
Speaker 2: himself with telling him no, I'm not willing to do
Speaker 2: that for now. I'll give the military the benefit of
Speaker 2: the doubt. But I do think we need to prepare
Speaker 2: for the worst, to prepare for the inevitability that Donald
Speaker 2: Trump is going to ask the military to do something unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: Do you have a sense of the chaos and the
Speaker 1: pentagon right now around the Secretary's office? How bad is it?
Speaker 1: It's bad?
Speaker 2: It's bad. I mean the very fact that his own
Speaker 2: senior advisors are either fleeing or being fired. Look, I
Speaker 2: think the best anecdote is this separate signal group he
Speaker 2: had that wasn't exposed by adding an Atlantic reporter to it.
Speaker 2: I think it had twelve people on it, including his
Speaker 2: brother and his wife. He was sharing the same highly
Speaker 2: highly classified information on that signal chat, and four people
Speaker 2: leaked it. Four people out of twelve leaked the existence
Speaker 2: of that chat to the media. That is the side
Speaker 2: of an ill disciplined senior Pentagon apparatus in absolute disarray,
Speaker 2: with no respect for the secretary. And look, I'm chuckling
Speaker 2: because I think Pete Hegseth deserves every bit of this humiliation.
Speaker 2: But it makes America less safe, and it puts my
Speaker 2: buddies lives in danger.
Speaker 1: So it's not funny. So I think about Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty nine, which is good, the democracy restoration agenda, and
Speaker 1: so I think about fundamental ethics reform, and you think
Speaker 1: about the one hundred thing. I know, the first thing.
Speaker 1: So at some level, I don't think Hamas won the
Speaker 1: billion dollar gift from Qatar is ever going to fly.
Speaker 1: That being said, pretend it did, right, Let's pretend I did.
Speaker 1: And let's pretend I was the chief of staff to
Speaker 1: the next president. Right, I at the moment of the inauguration,
Speaker 1: whatever airbase that landed at to bring Trump home would
Speaker 1: be seized. The plane it would be on a navy
Speaker 1: barge by four pm and it would be dropped by
Speaker 1: a crane off of mar A Lago to become an
Speaker 1: artificial reef. Right where the President's program for low income
Speaker 1: children to learn diving off of mar A Lago, right, Well,
Speaker 1: like would begin the next day on the reef and
Speaker 1: we go from there right to clean up exercise. So, Mike,
Speaker 1: what do you do right in the Pentagon after four
Speaker 1: years of this of this insanity? What what do you
Speaker 1: do that now? And when you think about the military,
Speaker 1: this is this is true. This is I swear to God,
Speaker 1: this is true. There were more generals and animals in
Speaker 1: Baghdad in two thousand and seven then there were in
Speaker 1: Europe on v E Day, the day we want to
Speaker 1: work more two It was with a sixteen million person
Speaker 1: with a sixteen million person army. Right. So when so
Speaker 1: when Pete HEADSA says, right, we gotta we gotta get
Speaker 1: rid of the generals, right, we didna get rid of
Speaker 1: like twenty percent of the generals. Right. This is not
Speaker 1: a bad idea. Right, This is like a bro clock
Speaker 1: being right twice a day. Right, Your average major general
Speaker 1: is is rolling like they're a Persian raj right from
Speaker 1: the from the seventeenth century, and so so all of
Speaker 1: these things are true, what how do you clean this up? Right?
Speaker 1: What is the next Democratic president? So, for example, right,
Speaker 1: I would say, under no circumstances, if I was a
Speaker 1: Democratic senator, would I vote for another retired four star
Speaker 1: officer to be Defense secretary? I would not vote for
Speaker 1: the waiver? Right. Believe in civilian control, right, whether it's
Speaker 1: the passage of a bill in the Congress going back
Speaker 1: to some regular order, right, or restoration of how things
Speaker 1: are supposed to function and work right, and how important
Speaker 1: that is. But where what do you where do you
Speaker 1: even start? Look?
Speaker 2: I I like some of that, right. I certainly like
Speaker 2: not passing another waiver and going back to normal order.
Speaker 2: And I really support the idea of accountability, so that
Speaker 2: we can and have some reckoning for the crimes being
Speaker 2: committed now, and so that we signal to those contemplating
Speaker 2: committing more of them that there will be consequences. What
Speaker 2: worries me most of all, though, is that this administration
Speaker 2: is acting like they'll be in power forever and that
Speaker 2: they don't have to worry about that kind of thing,
Speaker 2: and that if you look at countries that have had
Speaker 2: that democratic backslide into autocracy. That is the flashing red light.
Speaker 2: That is the real warning. To borrow the name of
Speaker 2: your show, Steve, that is what we should really be
Speaker 2: focusing on. Why do they think they're going to get
Speaker 2: away with all this? Well, they think they're going to
Speaker 2: get away with all this because they'll never be held accountable,
Speaker 2: because either Trump or Trump's philosophy of governance will be
Speaker 2: in power forever. And that, to me, is the surest
Speaker 2: signal that something is on the verge of breaking in
Speaker 2: our democracy. I worry about that a ton. Look, we
Speaker 2: can fix the policy screw ups at the VA and
Speaker 2: the d D in good time, but if we lose
Speaker 2: the democracy, all of those debates become moot. And that's
Speaker 2: what Valor Media is focusing on, countering the disinformation that
Speaker 2: is propping up an autocrat.
Speaker 1: It is an amazing aspect of all this. I talked
Speaker 1: about this at length with Jake Auchincloss, who is a
Speaker 1: phenomenal member of Congress, just talked about some of the
Speaker 1: things that Democrats need to do in Time magazine. I
Speaker 1: am Jake auchenclass your run for president, and I think
Speaker 1: he'd be a top tier presidential candidate. But we talked
Speaker 1: about the self evident arrogance of all of these people
Speaker 1: who clearly do not believe that there will ever be
Speaker 1: a day where they don't hold the power that they hold,
Speaker 1: like Christino, and it's incredible. Now, the truth is, they're deluded,
Speaker 1: and none of them appear to be particularly that bright
Speaker 1: to me. And there is an arrogance that they are
Speaker 1: drunk on drunk on power. And there will be a restoration,
Speaker 1: there will be an accounting for the breaking of American law,
Speaker 1: for the assaults on the Constitution, and.
Speaker 2: The the.
Speaker 1: Excesses of this, of this, of this era. I have
Speaker 1: a question. I saw somebody UH had a Navy Seal question.
Speaker 1: You're a Navy officer, you have a couple of Navy
Speaker 1: Seals on the show. If what did the Navy seal
Speaker 1: say about the Navy sealed dipshit caucus that has assembled
Speaker 1: in UH in the United States Congress. Because right if
Speaker 1: you were to judge the Navy Seals in the Congress
Speaker 1: right against against the unit, you'd say, something really broken
Speaker 1: in the Navy Seals. What's what's what's going on? And
Speaker 1: so I think that part of part of the issue Right,
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with is we've had a lot of
Speaker 1: fetishization of the military by a civilian population that's a
Speaker 1: strange from it. Right, it's it's one percent serve. So
Speaker 1: there was a time when, for example, there were a
Speaker 1: lot of television shows like A. McHale's Navy a mash Right,
Speaker 1: because serving in the military was a common experience, and
Speaker 1: people share the absurdities of it, right at some level,
Speaker 1: the comedic aspects of it. And right, I think you know,
Speaker 1: you go to a baseball game, right, you have the
Speaker 1: pro forma veteran brought out on the field. Everyone collapsed,
Speaker 1: Thank you for your service. Right. The first thing that
Speaker 1: I would stop right in a new administration, Right, I
Speaker 1: call the NFL commissioner. N if I was president, I
Speaker 1: say it's over. I say it will not be a
Speaker 1: fucking American service member appearing in one of your fucking
Speaker 1: stadiums in uniform. Ever again during my presidency, there's no flyovers,
Speaker 1: there's no jump ins. Right, that jingoism is not patriotism.
Speaker 1: And these partnerships right have have been a disaster. Right,
Speaker 1: But when you look at the seals, when you look
Speaker 1: at a Ryan Zinki, when you when you look at
Speaker 1: these guys in their in their service, what are the
Speaker 1: seals like on the valor network. There's got to be
Speaker 1: a divide obviously when you look at some of the
Speaker 1: pro Trump, some of the MAGA veterans right that have
Speaker 1: been co opted by all of this, right, and you know,
Speaker 1: all sorts of people that you know have been virtuous
Speaker 1: and physically brave, but have been moral cowards in a
Speaker 1: in a moment where political courage has been required. How
Speaker 1: do you think about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I definitely want to tackle that because I
Speaker 2: have thoughts. But a nod to your old boss. I
Speaker 2: believe it was John McCain who called out the military
Speaker 2: buying these spots at NFL games, Uh, paying the NFL
Speaker 2: to to applaud the veteran on the field, right, That
Speaker 2: wasn't a gesture of patriotism. That was a transaction. And
Speaker 2: I am with you one hundred percent that that is
Speaker 2: not the kind of patriotism I subscribe to when it
Speaker 2: comes to the seal community. Look, I think a lot
Speaker 2: of that is cultivated. First of all, there is division
Speaker 2: even within the teams. I'm not going to speak as
Speaker 2: a seal, but I can speak as a Navy pilot.
Speaker 2: I can speak as a vet. It's a diverse community.
Speaker 2: There are Conservatives and liberals, there are Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker 2: What the Republican Party has done really well is cultivate
Speaker 2: that Seal brand and elevate those guys into positions of
Speaker 2: real leadership within the party. And they know they sometimes
Speaker 2: pick the worst of the worst, but Seals are nothing
Speaker 2: if not ambitious and capable, so they have an ability
Speaker 2: to rise to the top in ways others don't. I
Speaker 2: will tell you the Seals on the Valor Media network
Speaker 2: are embarrassed when these guys claim to speak for the community,
Speaker 2: when they claim to speak for the country, when they
Speaker 2: claim to speak about patriotism, because a lot of them
Speaker 2: are out for themselves. I think your other observation is
Speaker 2: really important here that it turns out there isn't a
Speaker 2: direct correlation between physical courage and moral courage. And in
Speaker 2: this day and age, with the tests that our country
Speaker 2: is now facing, it is the moral variety that we
Speaker 2: are in desperate short supply of, and I think we
Speaker 2: need to elevate those moral leaders like Jake Auchencloss who
Speaker 2: have the ability to speak truth to power and to
Speaker 2: stand up and fight a righteous moral cause that hopefully
Speaker 2: does not require the kind of physical courage they also
Speaker 2: demonstrated at one point in their lives.
Speaker 1: I want to as we come to the end of
Speaker 1: the hour, I want to I want to give it
Speaker 1: to you to close out and talk about this coming
Speaker 1: Memorial Day, which is a difficult day I know for
Speaker 1: this generation of veteranto. It's a it's a day of
Speaker 1: remembered sacrifice, uh not not a not a day where
Speaker 1: we are so far removed from. And before I do that,
Speaker 1: I just want to share this story about a great
Speaker 1: American hero, a Master sergeant named uh Roderick Emmonds Edmunds
Speaker 1: from Knoxville, Tennessee, and he was twenty seven years old
Speaker 1: prisoner of war during the Battle of the Bulge and
Speaker 1: he uh was the ranking American out of seven hundred captures.
Speaker 1: There were no officers, UH and there were about approximately
Speaker 1: three hundred Jews in the in the form of prisoners,
Speaker 1: and the German ss Nazi colonel came out demanded that Edmunds,
Speaker 1: who was at the head of the formation, turnover the
Speaker 1: Jewish prisoners, and he refused to do so. It is
Speaker 1: the situation escalated Sergeant Edmunds made the point that they
Speaker 1: were all Americans and that he could shoot all of them.
Speaker 1: And when they asked for the Jews to identify themselves,
Speaker 1: all the men stepped forward. And so that that story
Speaker 1: on that day is the type of story about loyalty
Speaker 1: and moral courage, and courage in uniform. Courage in life
Speaker 1: does not always manifest itself right in the in the
Speaker 1: taking of a life right or in the battle right
Speaker 1: when when life is at when life is at stake,
Speaker 1: right in that in that kinetic moment. And so these
Speaker 1: moral choices are of of the deepest importance. That everything
Speaker 1: that's happening in the country right now, that is happening
Speaker 1: in our name right is something we have to we
Speaker 1: have to understand. I was joking around. I was joking
Speaker 1: around the other day, and I I truly I don't
Speaker 1: understand why there's not a daily news conference event that
Speaker 1: the Democrats have, UH that is able to communicate to
Speaker 1: the American people, UH, that is able to meet Trump
Speaker 1: where he is and deal with the excess and the
Speaker 1: and the absurdity of it. But but one of the
Speaker 1: things that that if there was a news conference of
Speaker 1: that and and there was someone who was participating, I
Speaker 1: would counsel them to say, you know, for example, after
Speaker 1: playing some videos of Trump, right, I would say, one
Speaker 1: of the things that that that Donald talked about a
Speaker 1: great deal during the campaign was the most important threat
Speaker 1: facing America, which was Hannibal Lecter. And we we caught him.
Speaker 1: We got him, and I would I would have a
Speaker 1: guy wheeled out on a dolly right on the on
Speaker 1: the strap to it, right with the with the straight
Speaker 1: jacket on and the Hannibal Lecter mask, and I'd say
Speaker 1: we got him, and I'd wheel him out, and I'd
Speaker 1: say everybody, I want everyone to understand this concept, because
Speaker 1: we got doctor Lecter, right, and he's the he's the worst.
Speaker 1: And I want you imagine, right, he's having a threesome
Speaker 1: dinner with Corey Lewandowski and Christy Nome, Right, there's all
Speaker 1: three of them together, right, doctor Lecter and Christy Nome
Speaker 1: and Corey Lewandowski, and they're having the dinner doctor Lecter
Speaker 1: before Christy Noman can shoot him like her dog, right
Speaker 1: and appreciate that she may want to. Right, He's got
Speaker 1: to stand in front of a judge, right, because it's
Speaker 1: the United States, right, So he's got to be wheeled
Speaker 1: in front of a judge. And I don't know how
Speaker 1: else to say it to all of you good people. Right,
Speaker 1: But that's just the way it is in America. Right,
Speaker 1: And so these things that we're talking about, right, are
Speaker 1: not up for debate. Right, does Trump have the power
Speaker 1: to suspend heybeas corpus he does not. Right, there is
Speaker 1: no civil war, There is no invasion. Venezuelan gangs are
Speaker 1: not invading the United States. Tappening in the United States
Speaker 1: as prices are going up, costs are going up, taxes
Speaker 1: are going up, things are getting more expensive. Jobs are disappearing.
Speaker 1: There is no investment coming. It's all lies, it's all bullshit,
Speaker 1: it's all nonsense. None of it is true. There is
Speaker 1: no five trillion of investment coming from Saudi Arabia. What
Speaker 1: there's is there's a lot of suffering, a lot of pain,
Speaker 1: a lot of breaches of faith, a lot of breaches
Speaker 1: of agreement. Right. So, the young guy who risked his
Speaker 1: life and his family's wife, the woman in Afghanistan who
Speaker 1: trusted in that American flag, right, it took the side
Speaker 1: of the United States for a better life. They're all
Speaker 1: being betrayed. Right, That sick kid in Africa the least
Speaker 1: of us right on the whole planet, rotting food on
Speaker 1: the shelves. Right, that's caused by Marco Rubio. It's caused
Speaker 1: by Elon Musk. All of that is happening. All of
Speaker 1: it is happening right now. It's all being done in
Speaker 1: our name, every bit of it. And we have a
Speaker 1: moral obligation to stop of it, to stop it. So
Speaker 1: we have a day that we remember the sacrifices of
Speaker 1: a million Americans over the course of the history of
Speaker 1: the country who died in the uniform of the country
Speaker 1: and service to the nation, gave of what Lincoln called
Speaker 1: the last full measure of devotion. There have only ever
Speaker 1: been seven hundred million Americans since the beginning of the country.
Speaker 1: That's less than the population of current day India and China. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's it, Right, Half of all Americans who've ever
Speaker 1: been alive are alive right now in this moment. And
Speaker 1: so we have this day where across the world, in Europe,
Speaker 1: American graves that face west back across the Atlantic that
Speaker 1: they didn't cross, those graves will be decorated with American
Speaker 1: flags and flowers. In American cemeteries that are overgrown in
Speaker 1: places like Vicksburg, Mississippi, that are that are forgotten. The
Speaker 1: Union dead on the hillside there you know that you
Speaker 1: know aren't tended like those places in Europe. Of course,
Speaker 1: in Arlington National Cemetery, Section sixty, you know where this
Speaker 1: generation of America's war dead many are buried, but in
Speaker 1: the small towns across the country. Your friends, how do
Speaker 1: you think about this day, in this moment when everything
Speaker 1: that you raise your hand to defend is being contested
Speaker 1: by a force that seeks to co opt those values
Speaker 1: while desecrating them. How do you process all of that? Well?
Speaker 2: I am processing it differently this year than I ever have,
Speaker 2: because it feels different. Memorial Day this year is going
Speaker 2: to feel different in the past. I usually wake up
Speaker 2: early before the sun's up. I head to the water.
Speaker 2: I sit by the water, and I watched the sun
Speaker 2: come up. Sorry, Steve, And I think about my buddies.
Speaker 2: Memorial Day is about those who didn't come home, right.
Speaker 2: It's different than Veterans Day. Veterans Day is about us.
Speaker 2: Memorial Day is about them, and it is a somber day.
Speaker 2: And then I try to spend the rest of the
Speaker 2: day thinking about the good moments with them.
Speaker 1: And I'm not one of those.
Speaker 2: I don't begrudge this at all, but I'm not one
Speaker 2: of those who bristles it the happy Memorial Day. I
Speaker 2: think most of my buddies would want me to be
Speaker 2: happy on Memorial Day because it's what they fought for, right.
Speaker 2: I don't like when it becomes a day about mattress
Speaker 2: sales and cookouts alone. That's why I spend that time
Speaker 2: in the morning thinking about them. But I do try
Speaker 2: to be happy and with my family on that day
Speaker 2: in honor of them. This Memorial Day, I'm going to
Speaker 2: be in Ukraine. I'm going to be delivering ambulances donated
Speaker 2: not by the American government but by other governments to
Speaker 2: frontline units in Ukraine because democracy is under threat and
Speaker 2: what my buddies fought and in some case has died
Speaker 2: for is under threat, and I think the country as
Speaker 2: a whole is going to increasingly look to veterans to
Speaker 2: set the example for how you defend a democracy when
Speaker 2: the threat is from within, and that is a It
Speaker 2: is a chilling thought.
Speaker 1: But I hope next.
Speaker 2: Memorial Day I am back to just spending it with
Speaker 2: my family thinking about better things.
Speaker 1: Well, Ken, I can't thank you enough Again. Against All
Speaker 1: Enemies is the number one documentary on Apple Against All Enemies.
Speaker 1: That's Ken Harbaugh. Find that Ken is the president of
Speaker 1: Valor Media and Valor Media. Everybody is important, right, It's
Speaker 1: important to connect the young men in your life to it.
Speaker 1: Listen to those guys. Not these guys. These guys are dipshits.
Speaker 1: Those guys aren't right. That's how you got to talk
Speaker 1: to the young men in your life. Keep them away
Speaker 1: from the dip shits, the Joe Rogan's, the Andrew Kates. Right,
Speaker 1: each one of these dipshits has the potential of poison
Speaker 1: a young man who you love and is close to you.
Speaker 1: And they ought to have a Ken Harbaugh on one
Speaker 1: of their shows and see what happens. I doubt it
Speaker 1: will happen, but we ought to see what could happen
Speaker 1: if if that was but watch Ken, watch the documentary.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to Valor Media and remember this memorial Day that
Speaker 1: the sacrifices that have been made are your burden and
Speaker 1: your obligation and your duty to preserve through good citizenship.
Speaker 1: And that's what that day is about. It's about memory,
Speaker 1: it's about gratitude, but it's also a summons and a
Speaker 1: call to the protection of the Republic. And so thank
Speaker 1: you all for taking the time in the middle of
Speaker 1: this Wednesday in May. As we get closer to June,
Speaker 1: four months and a day into the Trump presidency, we'll
Speaker 1: have a lot more to talk about over this historic
Speaker 1: period of time of American crisis. Thank you all, and
Speaker 1: good day to you. Thank you, Steve. I'm Steve Schmidt.
Speaker 1: This is the warning. I invite you to join this
Speaker 1: community where I promise to be honest, blunt and direct
Speaker 1: about what is happening in this country. America is in crisis.
Speaker 1: Follow and subscribe to this channel and on substack. Thank you.