Part One: Pete Hegseth's Fascist Book 'American Crusade'

Summary

Behind the Bastards: Part One - Pete Hegseth's Fascist Book 'American Crusade'

Release Date: August 5, 2025

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of Behind the Bastards, hosted by Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts, Robert and Jamie delve deep into the life and ideologies of Pete Hegseth, the controversial Secretary of Defense. The episode, aptly titled "Part One: Pete Hegseth's Fascist Book 'American Crusade'," dissected Hegseth's manifesto and explored the disturbing realities behind his rise to power.

Hosts' Banter and Episode Kickoff (00:00 - 08:07)

The episode begins with Robert and Jamie engaging in light-hearted banter about a dying squirrel named Elizabeth, setting a casual tone before transitioning into the serious subject matter. This segment serves to humanize the hosts and provide a relatable entry point for listeners.

Background on Pete Hegseth (08:08 - 19:50)

Robert introduces Pete Hegseth, outlining his journey from a Fox News commentator to the Secretary of Defense. Hegseth's early life in Minneapolis, his education at Princeton, and his involvement with the conservative campus newspaper are highlighted. The hosts depict Hegseth as someone deeply ingrained in extreme conservatism from a young age, noting his early adoption of anti-diversity ideologies.

Robert (09:00): "Pete Hegseth is not the most reliable in a position of power. Right from his days at Princeton, he was already pushing extreme conservative agendas."

Overview of 'American Crusade' (08:13 - 43:02)

The centerpiece of the episode is a thorough examination of Hegseth's 2020 book, American Crusade. Robert describes the book as a "fascist Christian nationalist manifesto," emphasizing Hegseth's vision for America's future—a society devoid of diversity and underpinned by extreme nationalist values.

Robert (41:06): "He declares, 'There's not room in the country for any 50, 50American, nor can there be but one loyalty to the Stars and Stripes.'"

Critical Analysis of the Book's Content (43:03 - 51:32)

The hosts critique Hegseth's historical inaccuracies, particularly his misrepresentation of the First Crusade and its relevance to modern American politics. They reference expert opinions from historians like Matthew Gabriel, who debunk Hegseth's claims about the Crusaders' motivations and actions.

Jamie (46:53): "This isn't sounding right. Crusades weren't about an existential threat from Islam."

Robert further dissects Hegseth's rhetoric, highlighting his portrayal of the political landscape as a clear-cut battle between "America" and "the left," leaving no room for moderate or diverse perspectives.

Jamie (44:15): "Best of luck with that project because it feels like mainstream Democrats aren't going to take these direct threats seriously."

Hegseth's Military Career and Controversies (51:33 - 73:17)

A significant portion of the episode delves into Hegseth's military background and the ensuing controversies. From his aggressive leadership style in Iraq to allegations of war crimes and misuse of funds in veterans' organizations, the hosts present a damning picture of Hegseth's character and competence.

Robert (63:22): "Charlie Company was nicknamed Kill Company... They maintained a whiteboard listing confirmed kill civilians that each platoon had notched."

Jamie's frustration is palpable as they discuss Hegseth's questionable actions, including an incident where he accidentally injured a drummer during an axe-throwing event.

Jamie (34:42): "If you give an addict an axe, you know, it's so funny."

The Book’s Rhetoric and Its Implications (73:18 - 70:59)

The hosts explore how Hegseth's American Crusade promotes a dangerous ideology that dehumanizes political opponents and justifies extreme measures against them. They analyze his call for a "holy war" against the left and the implications of such rhetoric in contemporary politics.

Robert (72:27): "He ends the introduction with a call to arms—Chapter one, baby."

Historical Accuracy and Misrepresentations (51:32 - 57:11)

Robert and Jamie emphasize the flawed historical claims made by Hegseth, particularly his depiction of the Crusades. They reference scholarly rebuttals that undermine Hegseth's narrative, highlighting his attempt to co-opt historical events to serve his extremist agenda.

Robert (51:32): "The Guardian interviewed Matthew Gabriel, who's a professor of medieval studies at Virginia Tech, and he pointed out there were absolutely no incursions to mainland Europe."

Conclusion and Hosts' Final Remarks (73:17 - End)

As the episode concludes, Robert and Jamie reflect on the broader implications of Hegseth's rise and the ideological threats he poses. They caution listeners about the persistence of such extremist views and the dangers of their normalization in mainstream politics.

Jamie (74:37): "Those are my plugs. Plugs done. Go to hell, everyone. I love you."

The hosts sign off by encouraging listeners to stay informed and vigilant against the spread of fascist ideologies.

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Notable Quotes

• Robert (09:00): "Pete Hegseth is not the most reliable in a position of power. Right from his days at Princeton, he was already pushing extreme conservative agendas."

• Robert (41:06): "He declares, 'There's not room in the country for any 50, 50American, nor can there be but one loyalty to the Stars and Stripes.'"

• Robert (63:22): "Charlie Company was nicknamed Kill Company... They maintained a whiteboard listing confirmed kill civilians that each platoon had notched."

• Robert (72:27): "He ends the introduction with a call to arms—Chapter one, baby."

• Robert (51:32): "The Guardian interviewed Matthew Gabriel, who's a professor of medieval studies at Virginia Tech, and he pointed out there were absolutely no incursions to mainland Europe."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Behind the Bastards offers a comprehensive and critical examination of Pete Hegseth's American Crusade, peeling back the layers of his extremist ideology and uncovering the troubling facets of his rise to power. Through meticulous analysis and sharp commentary, Robert and Jamie provide listeners with a clear understanding of why Hegseth represents a significant threat to American democracy and ethical governance.

Listeners who haven't tuned in will find this summary both informative and engaging, capturing the essence of the episode while shedding light on the complexities surrounding one of the most controversial figures in recent American politics.

Transcript

[Robert]

Call Zone Media. Thanks for coming in with me on that one, Jamie. That was really helpful. I think we really. I think we knocked it out of the park. Yeah, that wouldn't have worked without you. You know, just one person kind of atonally going, ah, nothing.

[Jamie]

Yeah, one of you was great, Jamie.

[Robert]

One of us is great. And you know what's not great? Sophie has a dying squirrel on her property.

[Jamie]

We're gonna not. This has, like, ru my entire day. No, it's canon.

[Robert]

I know. I know it's canon now, Sophie, it's canon.

[Jamie]

Do you want to give it a name so it feels worse?

[Robert]

Jamie.

[Jamie]

No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[Robert]

How about Elizabeth? Elizabeth the squirrel? Oh, no. Elizabeth the terminally ill squirrel. But here's the thing.

[Jamie]

I'm not 100% sure he's dying, but he's definitely not moving very much.

[Robert]

Yeah, that's usually not a good sign for something like a squirrel.

[Jamie]

Elizabeth has a lot of unfinished business. This is really sad.

[Robert]

Yeah. She didn't get her will prepared.

[Jamie]

Robert, I just need you to come. I do. I just need you to come over here and do the humane thing, because I'm a wolf.

[Robert]

You mean kill it with a rock?

[Jamie]

Allegedly.

[Robert]

Yeah. I mean, I don't know what else to do with suffering little animals, but, yeah. When I lived in the middle of nowhere, there would be lots of dead animals or dying animals by the side of the road when I was on my runs. So I would have to be like, usually if I was doing a long enough run, I'd have to do at least one euthanasia on the way. It's like, oh, God. Fucking rabbit with its back legs crushed. Should probably take care of this.

[Jamie]

God. Okay. Yeah. That's an important part of her daily exerc regime. Take a life.

[Robert]

Yeah. Euthanasia.

[Jamie]

When I was little, I had an outdoor cat, which we shouldn't have had, and here's why. There was one day I was like, something smelled weird in my yard, and I found that my cat had, like, a massive, like, corpse pile like, he had assembled. It was really powerful.

[Robert]

He was making his own bone temple, like in the new 28 Years later movie.

[Jamie]

I didn't understand at the time, but I was like, wow, he just did that. Cause he loved me so much.

[Robert]

Yeah, he loves you so much. He wanted you to have all of the corpses you need, you know, and that's not, you know, how many guys will do that for you. Right. You know, that's why we have pets.

[Jamie]

That's the main problem. I Haven't seen the movie yet. Is it like. All I've seen is like clickbait about it being like zombies with their cocks out. Is that accurate?

[Robert]

There's a lot of dicks. You know, when I heard that, I was like, we're probably gonna get one brief glimpse of a huge fucking monster hog. But no, they really. There's a lot of. In. In the new 28 movie.

[Jamie]

I appreciate that they didn't undersell it. Okay.

[Robert]

No, no, no. There's. There's a. There's more. More dick than you're expecting. You know, maybe less dick than I would have preferred, but more than you were expecting. For sure.

[Jamie]

Okay, Okay, I will, I will go. I haven't seen the first two, but I love coming in at movie three or four.

[Robert]

It's okay. You're not gonna. You know what a zombie movie is? It's set after a zombie apocalypse in England. That's all you need to know, right? It's like there's.

[Jamie]

There's enough, like, a need for context in our day to day work. I'm like, I'm not trying to learn lore for fun.

[Robert]

No, I'm just. Other than that, I guess in the 28 movies, the zombies aren't dead. They're just like people who have like a weird bloodborne illness. So they're still alive.

[Jamie]

So they're people with their cocks out.

[Robert]

Yeah, they're people with their cocks out. But it's okay. They had a child on set. So all the dicks are fake. They're photorealistic, but they're fake.

[Jamie]

I don't know.

[Robert]

But that's the way movie law works, apparently. I was reading it because they were like, yeah, because we had. The main character's a kid, so there's always a kid on set. So we can't have any real dicks hanging out, but we can't have everyone wearing full time photorealistic penises that are fake.

[Jamie]

That's why child stardom should be illegal. That is weird. Ever heard. Look, they're like, no, you can't. You can't actually. That, that can't have been a traumatizing thing for you. The dicks weren't real.

[Robert]

Kid. The dicks weren't real. Didn't you guess that they were fake? Like, it's so funny.

[Jamie]

It's just so like an actor trying to like comfort a child actor to be like, no, no, no, it's not real. And then pulling the fake dick off of your body. Like, how is it?

[Robert]

It's so funny.

[Jamie]

How did we get here? I know I'm distracted by the dying squirrel, but what is happening, people?

[Robert]

We're just talking about movies, Sophie, because we really don't want to talk about the subject of today's episode.

[Jamie]

That's awful. Oh, no.

[Robert]

Okay, Peter Hegseth.

[Jamie]

Okay, that could have taken a worse turn.

[Robert]

Could have taken a worse turn. Yeah. I'd rather talk about zombie dicks than Pete Hegseth.

[Jamie]

That's true. I mean, Pete Hegseth is bad. I was worried that we were heading teal, but.

[Robert]

No, no, we've done teal. We've done teal.

[Jamie]

Yeah. I was like, is there more? Am I too.

[Robert]

No, you're good. You're good.

[Jamie]

I'm not at the Peter Thiel. Okay.

[Robert]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

Okay.

[Robert]

Yeah. So, yeah, let's get into it. I guess that's the cold open. Done. You're welcome for all the dick talk.

[Jamie]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Robert]

We'Re back.

[Jamie]

Okay, well, now I'm nice and warm to be made less horny than I've ever been in my entire life.

[Robert]

Right?

[Jamie]

A guy committing war crimes in real time. What a thrill.

[Robert]

I'm going to give you a mea culpa here. I had initially planned for this to just be a book episode reading Pete Hegseth terrible fascist book American Crusade, which unfortunately people do need to be aware of because he's the Secretary of Defense now. But then I wound up needing to give extra context. And so there is my initial thing was like he's not really interesting enough for two episodes on the Motherfucker. Just as a person, he's not that interesting. But anyway, I wound up it's kind of a hybrid book BTB episode. So you know, there's research here. There's also just a lot of chunks of his book that we'll be talking about. Cause they matter. It's just a little bit of a weird episode, but I did it.

[Jamie]

Okay. When did the book come out?

[Robert]

2020.

[Jamie]

Okay.

[Robert]

Interesting. Well, nothing's changed. For him, American Crusade was his like election tie in book. So one of the funny things that you repeatedly come across is his dire warnings that like if the Republicans don't win in 2020. The whole country's over. Which, like. Yeah, some of this is, like, not aged well, but it also. It's also a very, like, fascist Christian nationalist book that makes it very clear what kind of country Pete Hegseth wants to use his powers to. His Secretary of Defense to further. Right.

[Jamie]

Cause that's published, like, about midway through his run on Fox News. Right?

[Robert]

Yeah. He starts in 2014, but he's just initially kind of a commentator. We'll talk about all that. So Pete Hegseth, our current Secretary of Defense, is, you know, embarrassing.

[Jamie]

First of all.

[Robert]

Thank you. Yeah. And he writes in 2020, a manifesto book called American Crusade, which is one of those both, like, tie in. I'm trying to get more into politics. This is back when he was really fishing in the first Trump admin to be made SecDef. And there were still too many adults in the room at that point for him to get made Secretary of Defense. Because as his backstory that I'm gonna give briefly will make clear, this is not a man who's ever been reliable in a position of power. Right. Yeah.

[Jamie]

I guess it never occurred to me that he could be.

[Robert]

No.

[Jamie]

I guess he's held down a job. Technically.

[Robert]

Not even really. No, not even really, actually. Unless you count Fox News as a job. But even that. Not really. Okay. So Peter Hegseth was born on June 6, 1980, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His dad was a. Yes. Yeah.

[Jamie]

He's in Minneapolis already. Like all fascists, he's aging terribly.

[Robert]

Oh, yeah. No, he looks like shit. Yes.

[Jamie]

Wow.

[Robert]

That's kind of what happens when you drink the way Pete Hegseth drinks.

[Jamie]

Yeah. Fair enough. Wow. I would have guessed he's at least 10 years older. I was like, is Jamie shocked at the Minneapolis of it all? The age? Yeah.

[Robert]

No. I mean, he doesn't. He's not like, the most obvious Minneapolis guy, but I'm not shocked to hear that he's from Minneapolis. Right.

[Jamie]

That was not the shock. It was that he's under 50.

[Robert]

Yeah, he's under 50. Much younger than you'd expect. His dad was a basketball coach for high school, which, you know, he's got son of a fucking high school coach energy for sure.

[Jamie]

Yeah. How many crimes could be prevented if daddy didn't bench you?

[Robert]

If daddy didn't bench you. Well, and here's the other thing. What's the only thing that a parent could be that's worse than a high school sports coach? And it's. His mom was an executive business coach. Even worse. Somehow they found a worse kind of coach to be.

[Jamie]

What does that even mean? That's like a made up thing.

[Robert]

That means that you get paid like a mid six figure income for sitting in a room and going, oh, that's a good idea.

[Jamie]

That is, that is boss who is.

[Robert]

Currently maybe laid some people off. I don't know. Yeah, it's a consultant. That's what she does.

[Jamie]

Yeah, I love. Yeah, it's like the job where at like at the turn of the century you'd be like, hey, have you considered firing people and replacing.

[Robert]

What if we fire some more people? What if we outsourced? And now they're all saying what if? AI right. Like it's, it's just, it's just people who come from good families that have connections but don't have any skills. That's the executive business coach community.

[Jamie]

Okay.

[Robert]

Barely literate position and the consultant community. Right. So his family, they have money and they have very strong conservative bona fides. Right. Like his mom and dad are both very strong Republicans and politically involved. Pete graduates from the Forest Lake area high school in 1999 as valedictorian. He is good at something at one point in his life as an adult, he goes to Princeton where he helps to run and again, family money where he helps to run the school's conservative newspaper. He becomes editor eventually of the right wing paper on campus. As editor, he publishes a promise that he will defend Western civilization from the distractions of diversity.

[Jamie]

It's so I know that they're everywhere. I'm aware that they're everywhere, but I'm still so disturbed by like just the idea of a young, like a teenage Republican is such a bizarre image to me. It's like seeing a twin at age 60. Yeah, you don't want to imagine them that young.

[Robert]

Yeah, you don't, you don't want to, but you have to because they're there.

[Jamie]

There they are.

[Robert]

And it's what Pete's going to. He's going to try a couple of things in later in life. Like he's initially kind of more on the Republican mainstream side of things that gets. Gets eaten up by Trump. So he has to. A big part of this book we're going to read is him like giving his mea culpa of like, oh, you know, I was a rhino, I was lost. And then I realized, you know, Donald Trump really was our brilliant savior and stuff. And one of the points that I think his backstory makes is that he was always pretty extreme conservative. Like the whole reason why he wouldn't have gotten behind Trump is that he didn't believe Trump was really a conservative until it became clear that Trump was going to win. But like, the weird right wing stuff, the hatred of diversity, that's been there his whole life. Like, he talks about himself as if he'd been apolitical as a young man, but he never really was. Well, no.

[Jamie]

Yeah, if he's the editor of the conservative Princeton paper, he sure is.

[Robert]

And yeah, that's just a bad group of people to exist under his guidance. The paper attacked Halle Berry for accepting an Oscar over her performance in Monsters Ball because it was racist.

[Jamie]

Oh.

[Robert]

Against white people, I think. I don't know. I didn't feel the need to go and read that article. But yeah, that's the kind of conservative paper this is. It's like it's time to go to war with Halle Berry for her Oscar.

[Jamie]

Yeah. I imagine conservative papers like that are just like 90% vaguely racist editorials.

[Robert]

Yes, yes.

[Jamie]

Yeah.

[Robert]

During his time as editor, Hegseth published another student's commentary mocking the school's policy that said sex with an unconscious partner should count as rape. An article for the New Yorker cites Judd Legum's newsletter, Popular Information when he summarized the article in Hegsest paper this way. The commentary claimed that rape required both a failure to consent and duress, which a passed out woman couldn't experience. So. Great guy, Pete. Yeah. Put a pin in that because we'll talk about some sex crimes. He's.

[Jamie]

Yeah, no, I mean, he really. He really walks the walk in that regard.

[Robert]

It's always so sad, allegedly. Yeah, sure.

[Jamie]

It's so like. I don't know, the fact that you're thinking about doing that so much that you publish, like, essentially intent is just like. It's mind blowing.

[Robert]

Yeah. The whole, like. Yeah, well, they can't be sad if they're unconscious. It's just like the darkest, evilest way to make that argument. It's somehow worse than, like, arguing like, oh, no, they wanted it secretly. It's just like, oh, because they're unconscious. It doesn't. What the fuck, man? How do you write that and not burst into flames?

[Jamie]

I mean.

[Robert]

Yeah, so I can like, tattoo you if you pass out drunk. And that's legal, Right. Because you're not aware of it.

[Jamie]

Because you're not. Right. That's just like. Well, if you're quote unquote asleep, anything that happens, it's like the international waters of consent. Like, it's fucking crazy.

[Robert]

Insane. Yeah. If you try to extend that anywhere else, it just becomes increasing. It's just nuts.

[Jamie]

Well, yeah. And of course that rule wouldn't apply to him.

[Robert]

No, no, no, no. If you drew a dick on Pete Hegseth's face when he's passed out drunk in a Pentagon closet, you would get in trouble.

[Jamie]

He'd drone strike you. He'd drone strike your house.

[Robert]

He would try to. So Pete is, in short, exactly the kind of right wing dipshit you'd expect him to be as a kid based on his current trajectory. He goes on to work in finance. He works for Bear Stearns. That's his first job out of college is fucking Bear Stearns slay. Great stuff. And he volunteers for the National Guard because 9, 11. And he winds up. Well, he gets into ROTC first when he's in college, but then he joins the National Guard as he's starting his fintech career. And after a year or so, I think his fintech career is interrupted when he deploys to Iraq. So he does a tour there, which we will talk about later. This comes up in the book, so I'll talk more about Hegseth's military career in that portion. But after doing his tour, he winds up back in New York where he's just kind of like, then this is not an uncommon thing. He does seek combat. A lot of combat vets, when they come back, things really get bad for them. Not when they're over there, not when they're in the ship. When you wind up just kind of locking yourself alone in an apartment. And yeah, he starts drinking very heavily. Again, not an uncommon story. He feels aimless and eventually solves this by taking a job. Initially he's like volunteering as an assistant director at Vets for Freedom, which is a 501C4 group that he ultimately comes to lead as the paid director of the organization.

[Jamie]

It's too bad. Cause while he was in New York, he could have just like gone to see Rent on Broadway.

[Robert]

Could have gone to see Rent. He could have developed a fatal addiction to heroin, you know.

[Jamie]

You know, like you could have seen.

[Robert]

A lot of nod off at Broadway, you know, just quietly slip away, you know.

[Jamie]

Yeah, Pete, just go see Billy Elliot, have a wine spritzer, call it a day.

[Robert]

Yeah, I mean, yours is nicer than mine, but sure. So this is like a very political 501c4 in like a shitty way. They spend millions of dollars doing a PR campaign to support the surge in Iraq. They spend another several million attacking Barack Obama's candidacy. So this is like a right wing vets or. And despite the fact that he winds up running it. He is awful at this job. It is a disaster for the vff. He runs up massive debts. He like, takes them into the red. By what? Well, part of it is, you know, they're carrying out these massive PR campaigns. But part of it is that he treats the organization's bank account allegedly like a personal party fund. Right. Like he's spending it, he's traveling, he's doing a lot of drinking and partying. A lot of people are. There's allegations and we'll hear more allegations about the next org that he's involved in. But yeah, this does not go well. And he's kind of. His tenure is Disastrous for the VFF.

[Jamie]

Okay, so this is all in the mid 2000s.

[Robert]

Yeah, the mid aughts. 2008 is when he got married in 2004. And in 2008, his first wife files for divorce after he admits to cheating on her repeatedly once with a journalist he'd introduced to her.

[Jamie]

No.

[Robert]

Yeah. So he gets left a couple years later or forced out of vff. You'll hear both things. Either that he left or that he's forced out. Anyway, he's gone from VF 2011 or.

[Jamie]

So sad.

[Robert]

Yeah. And he attempts to run for Senate in Minnesota, which we will talk about later. It doesn't work. Right. He's bad at this. So since he's failed at everything else, he volunteers for another tour in Afghanistan. He does another tour in Afghanistan. He's promoted to major. He comes back to the US and in 2012, he forms a pact to help like minded conservative candidates. Per the New Yorker, According to a report by American Public Media, a third of the funds in Hegseth's pack were spent on parties for his friends and family, and less than half was spent on candidates. So he has a. It sucks. Cause it's.

[Jamie]

It was like, like, I'm not against this money being misused for parties.

[Robert]

It's much better than if it's used appropriately. Right. Because it's a shitty organization. They both are. Right.

[Jamie]

Yeah. Like, it should, you know, it should be spent on fancy food and alcohol. But yeah, yeah, it's also.

[Robert]

It's just extremely funny to me. Like, yeah, he now has a pattern and it's either start or get. You know, promoted to leading a charitable organization and then spend its money getting hammered. Like, cool as hell. Yeah.

[Jamie]

So is he. Like, is he. So 2012, is this like Tea Party era? Like, who is he running with? Who's his crowd?

[Robert]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tea Party has started a couple of years ago at this point.

[Jamie]

Right?

[Robert]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

Gimmel a dot.

[Robert]

Yeah. So this is like, that's all happening at this stage and he's. When he loses his candidacy, it's to like the Ron Paul organization backed candidate because he's like, he's still too much establishment neocon. You know, he's a bush conservative at this point, which we used to see as extreme. But oh, how the turn have taken.

[Jamie]

Now they're just widdle guys.

[Robert]

Yeah, yeah. Now they're just widow guys.

[Jamie]

Yeah, he's got. Look at. I mean, I don't know. I feel like you. Some people not to put him in a box. Oh, but let's do it.

[Robert]

Yeah, fuck it. Fuck him.

[Jamie]

Something about like guys that have like their. It looks like their hair is just like welded to their head.

[Robert]

You're like, I don't trust their on there.

[Jamie]

Like whatever product not. I mean, I know he comes by being a fascist, honestly, but also you have to imagine some chemicals are seeping into the scalp there. What with the hair being welded directly.

[Robert]

Oh yeah. No, no, no, no. They're getting in. That's. That's what happened to Rudy Giuliani. Right. He had the same hair care routine as Pete Hegseth and a lot of it leaked, you know, and when he lost his goo, that's when he started losing all those lawsuits. The goo was what was protecting him from the lawsuits.

[Jamie]

Yeah, the goo is protecting him from being tricked into being in Borat 2 aloe in more ways than one.

[Robert]

Yeah, that was load bearing goo.

[Jamie]

Brutal.

[Robert]

Jesus Christ. I forgot that happened. Fucking Giuliani.

[Danielle Fishel]

Oh my God.

[Jamie]

This bitch will do anything.

[Robert]

We'll need to do an episode on a hymn when it's time for us to like when everyone's morale is even lower and we really need. We need a win. Like a happy episode.

[Jamie]

Yeah. I mean there's just like no failure. Like there's. It's fun. It's fun to do an episode where there's just no shortage of ELs sprinkled between their crimes.

[Robert]

It's nothing but ELs.

[Jamie]

Was he the saddest person we saw at the RNC? Or was it the. Or was it my pillow guy?

[Robert]

He was. My pillow guy was sadder. Cause Giuliani at least, like I had a nice fight with Rudy Giuliani. And like I did enjoy the fact that like unlike every other major figure there that you would like try to engage, they were too PR trained and too smart to really want to get into it with some journalist. But Rudy was gonna be like oh, yeah. Let's fucking brawl.

[Jamie]

Wait, what did you fight with Rudy about?

[Robert]

About Ukraine. We had like. You published an episode. It could happen here about it, but like, yeah, we had like a fucking 10 or 15 minute, like he was.

[Jamie]

Just hanging around the, like Radio Cube.

[Robert]

Because he wasn't welcome in the real convention.

[Jamie]

He wasn't in the middle.

[Robert]

Yeah, but, yeah, I mean. And he was bored as hell.

[Jamie]

God, they should do a sequel to the James Wood Rudy Giuliani movie.

[Robert]

Oh, God, I forgot that existed. Holy shit. Yeah, I know. Back when he was America's mayor. Fuck me.

[Jamie]

Yeah. I mean, it's a very sincere movie.

[Robert]

Yeah. It's sincerely stupid as shit.

[Jamie]

Yeah. Called America's Mayor.

[Robert]

No, I mean, that's what we. I mean, it might be, but that's what we called Rudy growing up as a conservative.

[Jamie]

James woods would be down around too. I like that. City that's got a dog for a mayor.

[Robert]

Yeah. I don't think mayors should be legal or I think we should have some of those cultures that would ritualistically kill their leaders. That's what we should do to. Mayors should be built into the legal system that we have a wicker man after every mayor's term expense.

[Jamie]

That's Santa University rules At the end. Santa University rules, you get one year tenure of Santa and then you're publicly executed.

[Robert]

Yeah. I think that we. That's how we should. That's like when we write our new constitution, that's how our elected leaders should work. Yeah. We're now doing a wicker man for everybody.

[Jamie]

Oh, you care? What are you willing to put on the line?

[Robert]

You were a great alderman. Unfortunately, your year's up at every level. At every level. The fucking school board. Yeah.

[Jamie]

The comptroller. I'm like, sorry, brother.

[Robert]

Look, would it be a good system? No. Would it work better than our current system? Maybe.

[Jamie]

Look, I think it's worth a shot, perhaps. I think it's worth a shot. And it would really bring people together for particular individuals.

[Robert]

Speaking of things that bring people together, Jamie, the products and services that support this podcast.

[Jamie]

I love to gather around a good product or service with my loved ones.

[Robert]

Gather around, be warmed by it. Right? Yeah.

[Jamie]

Just like the corpse of a squirrel.

[Robert]

Like the corpse of a squirrel.

[Jamie]

God damn it. Guys.

[Danielle Fishel]

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[Robert]

Hey, it's us. The guys from Stuff they don't want you to know. Here at our show, we celebrate curiosity. And that's why we're always talking about Hendrik's Chicken. Opening a bottle of Hendrix Gin is more than the beginning of a cocktail. It's about being open to the extraordinary, the unusual. Hendrix Gin is the refreshingly curious choice for marvelous summer cocktails. Yeah, this summer you can try the delectable Hendrix Cucumber Lemonade. It's a simple cocktail, but check it out. It's perfect for any occasion because Hendrix tastes like no other gin. You know why? Because it's made like no other gin. And check out Hendrix Gin limited release variants because they take you on a flavor journey and each bottle tells a unique story and every sip invites the unexpected. To learn more about Hendrix and to find more cocktail recipes, visit hendricksgin.com US Drink Responsibly Hendrix Gin 44% alcohol by volume 2025 imported by William Grant & Sons Incorporated, New York, NY.

[Jamie]

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[Robert]

Don't let them down.

[Jamie]

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[Robert]

With Intel Core Ultra processors That's the power of Lenovo. With intel inside, maximize your edge by [e-mail] during their back to school sale. That's Lenovo. We're back. Sophie is still not happy.

[Jamie]

No. Can you see it from your window? No, not from. Not from where I am, but. Okay. That's probably for the best, but I can see it in here. Elizabeth. Yeah, I forgot you named the squirrel.

[Robert]

Yeah. She was a Fulbright scholar, Sophie.

[Jamie]

Jesus. She had a huge future ahead of her.

[Robert]

This is really sad. It's very tragic. Yeah. Speaking of things that are tragic, the fact that Pete Hegseth exists.

[Jamie]

The fact that Pete Hegseth. End of sentence.

[Robert]

In 2014, Hegseth started making appearances on Fox News. And he was initially, he was like a pinch hitter. Right. He didn't have a show. He would come and he'd be a talking head on segments. Right. He's a veteran. He leads a veterans organization. He's the podcast. Bring him in to talk about this too. Right. He's doing that for a while off and on. And you know, he's got whatever Fox likes. Right. He's enough like of a. Okay. This guy is what our audience considers like a straight laced looking military man. So, yeah, we'll throw him in whenever we need somebody.

[Jamie]

The helmet hair.

[Robert]

Right.

[Jamie]

I feel like everyone at Fox News has the same lukewarm soup they bring to lunch.

[Robert]

Yes.

[Jamie]

Lukewarm soup and brown alcohol.

[Robert]

Yes. Yeah, that's precisely right. And for Hegseth, it's basically all brown liquor. So he helps to lead. He also in this time, he gets hired to lead another veterans organization, cva or the Concerned Veterans for America. So here he exhibits the same kind of incompetence and corruption that had seen him pushed out of the vff. He was, in fact, parties so bad. Oh, Jamie. Not just parties. If there's so much about how bad he is at this job, there is an internal whistleblower report that's commissioned about his three year tenure leading the organization. I'm going to read a summary from an article in the New Yorker of like what this report reveals. The detailed seven page report, which was compiled by multiple former CVA employees and sent to the organization's senior management in February 2015, states that at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club where he had brought his team. The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization's female staffers who they divided into two groups, the party girls and the not party girls. In addition, the report asserts that under Hegseth's leadership, the organization became a hostile workplace that ignored serious accusations of impropriety, including an allegation made by a female employee that another employee on Hegseth staff had attempted to sexually assault her at the Louisiana strip club. In a separate letter of complaint, which was sent to the organization in late 2015, a different employee described Hegseth being at a bar in the early morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting, kill a Muslim. Oh, cool guy.

[Jamie]

Wow.

[Robert]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

It's shocking he found time for all of that. First of all, I do.

[Robert]

Most of that's not enjoyable, but it is funny to me how often the words Louisiana strip club show up in this article on beatnikset.

[Jamie]

God, you didn't learn so much. I mean. And did he tip? That's something. Anything.

[Robert]

There's no way. There's no single way. Sophie or Jamie. Sorry. We are one.

[Jamie]

It's an honor. It's an honor. We are one. Thank you. We are one. It's. That's miserable. I mean, there. This is the way that a person acts when they can't live with themselves, if nothing else. But there. I mean, there's just so many levels there because it's like, in one way, he's engaging in this very. I don't know, like this very fraternity, but also sorority behavior, like the party girls versus non party girls. Sounds like some Regina George shit. Like, that's just bizarre.

[Robert]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it's. It's just gross dude stuff. Right? Like, we got the party girls that we hire because, you know, you hire him because you want to fuck them. Right? Like, that's. That's what's going on in this group.

[Jamie]

Right?

[Robert]

That's his management style.

[Jamie]

And it's. And it's rich that he thinks he could, like, you know, weed out a competent employee from a non competent one, given the fact that he seems, like, unable to do a single job that he has.

[Robert]

No, no, no. Cause again, it's all about just getting drunk and partying. Right. And sexually harassing, assaulting your colleagues and racism.

[Jamie]

Right, so he's a racist molester.

[Robert]

Yeah. Okay, so he gets. He gets. Allegedly, he gets kicked out in 2016. There are. We have in the record a bunch of celebratory emails from his former colleagues being like, thank God that guy's out. Right. One of these messages includes the claim that he Quote, treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account for partying, drinking, and using CVA events as little more than to hook up with women on the road. Cool guy. So that's his third job, his third organization that he's been shitcanned from for massive corruption. Right. Allegedly.

[Jamie]

Through them. Yeah.

[Robert]

He's tearing through these fucking things. I guess he doesn't get kicked out of the second because he starts it.

[Jamie]

Are these mostly like lateral moves? Is he like moving his way up the ranks in any way or are these mostly just lateral?

[Robert]

He's moving his way up at five. He's getting more prominent within the conservative sphere. Cause again, there's never any accountability to these guys. But like, his former colleagues at these veterans organizations, even though they're all a lot conservative, are like, this guy absolutely should never have any job with any responsibility. He's the worst.

[Jamie]

Well, Fox, in 2016, it's all but required that you have some priors at being a sex boss.

[Robert]

You have the literal devil in your blood. Yes.

[Jamie]

Yeah.

[Robert]

In 2017, during a flag Day event hosted by Fox, Hegseth threw an ax and accidentally hit and injured a US Military Academy drummer, causing serious injuries. There's a lawsuit over this. He claims long term damage.

[Jamie]

Sorry, why was he throwing an axe?

[Robert]

It's like. There's like axe throwing going on. You know, it's like the kind of hobby thing and he's just shit at it. Cause he sucks at everything. And he hits this drummer.

[Jamie]

Boy, if you give an addict an axe, you know, it's so funny.

[Robert]

It's so funny.

[Jamie]

God. Did the drummer at least get a book deal?

[Robert]

No. No. I think there's a settlement probably, but no, he doesn't get shit. Because we don't as Americans. Look, you celebrate the person who throws axes, not the person who's dumb enough to get hit by an ax because they happen to be doing their job. And don't expect that the future Secretary of Defense will hurl an axe at them.

[Jamie]

Wow. Victim blaming our nation's great percussionists.

[Robert]

How could you? Yeah, I'm always. Look, you know, this is the only time I'll be on Hegseth's side. But if the other thing is a band kid, I gotta.

[Jamie]

Okay. Jealous, jealous.

[Robert]

Anti band kid action.

[Jamie]

I pull out my oboe. K Search. Shaking it.

[Robert]

Yeah, of course it was an obo.

[Jamie]

Okay, okay, first of all. First of all, no, he's. Sophie. Unfortunately, he's right. I need to take that. I need to take.

[Robert]

I don't care.

[Jamie]

He's not allowed to do. I'm on your side. No, you're right. You're right. I have to. Oboes are. Are a pig. Bisexual indicator. Historically, it's just true. Historic. That's just. That's history. Sound off in the chat.

[Robert]

There we go. There we go. The oboe nation is gonna sound off.

[Jamie]

It's literally, I think it's like playing the oboe and like getting really into A Series of Unfortunate Events or major Millennial. Yeah, yeah. Bisexual indicators. Who can say why?

[Robert]

Who can say why?

[Jamie]

Just saying that because those were your only hobby.

[Robert]

Some Jamie Lorde. Yeah, there's gonna be a whole thread in the subreddit with like 900 replies about this.

[Jamie]

Yeah, they're unionizing as we speak.

[Robert]

Everybody who felt weird reading the Series of Unfortunate Event novels and yet played an oboe or some kind of reed instrument.

[Jamie]

So many crush options.

[Robert]

Wow. So his career at Fox goes a lot better than his career leading these organizations. He becomes an official co host in January of 2017, just as Trump begins his term. And he is able to get this job because he starts having sex with. Initially, I think it's. I'm not sure. No, he would have been divorced by now. Anyway, he winds up marrying the Fox producer, Jennifer Rocher, who keeps putting him on the air and I think she's his third wife, maybe his second. He has three. He's been divorced like three times, so. Great guy. Anyway, he hooks up with this Fox producer who keeps putting him on the air and so he bounces around a few different shows he's on regularly. And he kind of makes a point of just taking whatever is the most radical take that will earn him Trump's attention. It just kind of like I'm going to be a shameless bootlicker on Fox. Cuz he watches Fox habitually and so I want him to see me repeatedly being nice to him. Right. And he's doing this to campaign to become the Secretary of Defense, which he can't manage during Trump's first term because Trump is still listening to a couple of adults a little too much who are like, I don't know, the guy who can't even run a fucking, like, NGO without spending all of the money on hookers and blow. Probably shouldn't be running the army. We have a lot more money. There's a lot better, sir.

[Jamie]

There's far better sex criminals to run that department.

[Robert]

We can find you a sex criminal. Don't worry.

[Jamie]

We're aware of what needs to happen.

[Robert]

Right? Yeah. So as part of his ongoing attempt to both identify himself with the ascendant Christian nationalist movement. And to force Trump to take note of him, in 2020, he published the book American Crusade. Right. Which is what kind of the core of our episodes this week are going to be about. So let's get into that wonderful book, American Crusade, A nice, innocuous title. So I suppose first off, it's not surprising that this book starts off with a dedication to his family and his kids primarily. And his kids have basically.

[Jamie]

Do his wives really want to hear from him?

[Robert]

They have the names you'd expect. Expect. You get a guess. Guess one of the names.

[Jamie]

I mean, before we start, should we show Jamie the fucking cover?

[Robert]

Yeah, we can show Jamie the COVID Why not? Why not? Jamie? You want to describe that to our listeners on who are listening because it's a podcast and you shouldn't watch it on video. Hello, video listeners. We love you.

[Jamie]

We love you so much. Stop looking at us.

[Robert]

Stop looking at us, you freaks.

[Jamie]

I'm guessing. Okay, let me guess.

[Robert]

Chase?

[Jamie]

Griffin? Nathaniel.

[Robert]

Damn, Jamie. No, no, that's a bunch of big Ls. Yeah, no, first one, which you should have gotten Gunner.

[Jamie]

Okay? You should have gotten for it. Oh, Gunner Obama. And.

[Robert]

Gunner Jackson. Peter Boone. And that's the one he gives two names for. So I'm guessing his first name is Peter Bo, Kinsey, Luke, Rex and Gwyndolin.

[Jamie]

And Lil Nuke.

[Robert]

Lil Nuke. Gunner and Rex are really sending me.

[Jamie]

Wow. Gunner coming in hot.

[Robert]

Good stuff, man. Surprised there's not a Hunter in there.

[Jamie]

That's. Yeah, Hunter. That's okay. I might have gotten to Hunter. This cover is nuts. That can't be his body. That's not his body.

[Robert]

I mean, if he's on an off tested trend, sure. I'm sure he's taking steroids.

[Jamie]

You know, I'm really struggling with like the neck to head ratio, if that is.

[Robert]

There's some photoshopping going down there. You can see a big we the People tattoo on his forearm. He's like waving a flag. It's just like the dip shittiest cover.

[Jamie]

The angle of the we the People tattoo only makes sense in the context of this picture. Like, if that was normally the angle it was at, it would be crooked. But that's what.

[Robert]

But.

[Jamie]

But this is clearly AI. This is. I. This is. This is not. This is. This is clearly not. This is not his body. No, but there's. There's things that were done here. But I appreciate the. I would love to see him actually try to do this. At the top of it, it says and quote Pete pulls no punches with this book.

[Robert]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

Sean Hannity.

[Robert]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

Nice, nice. It's always, it's always fun with this stuff because you're like, there's no way Sean Hannity wrote this book. But then in some ways, there's no way that Pete, he, Seth, wrote this book. Do you think it was ghostwritten or do you think he wrote it? Let's let Robert read some and then we'll give our opinion.

[Robert]

I think he does write, you know, he's got this editorial position. He definitely writes some of it. I suspect it's a thing where it gets like, you know, massaged by a real writer, but there's a lot of it that seems very Pete. Right. In fact, the opening, after he lists his kids names, he gives a quote from Theodore Roosevelt. Right. Every chapter opens with a quote from a great American, usually Donald Trump, but this was. This one's Theodore Roosevelt. There is not room in the country for any 50, 50American, nor can there be but one loyalty to the Stars and Stripes. Right? Which, you know, I might say that. Well, if your loyalty is to your weird interpretation of Christianity over the Constitution, you know, maybe you're not 100. Anyway, whatever. That's not how he sees it. So here's how the chapter opens our American crusade. Chapter one. Take a moment to consider your part in the miracle of the 2016 election. The history we made as sons and daughters of freedom. For the left, that humiliating defeat strengthened their resolve to achieve their ultimate goal, erasing America's soul, culture and institutions. We are the ones standing in their way and have been targeted for annihilation.

[Jamie]

Wow, I like that. He adds in a little. He's like, on top of being a motherfucking piece of shit, he's also kind of bitchy. He's like, I'm praying for my haters. I'm praying for all my haters on the left.

[Robert]

Oh, no, he's not praying for him. This is a book about how we need to kill the left. Left, right, that is, that is his. And like every allegation here is an admission, right, that like, because he's constantly talking, the left wants to kill us all. They want to wipe us all out. That's why we have to have total victory against them. Right? It's like, it's, it's this, you know, they're as bad as we are, so we have to do to them what we wanted to do to them anyway. But we can pretend we're defending ourselves, right?

[Jamie]

Right. Yeah, they're, they're, they're even Worse, we got to get them first.

[Robert]

Yeah. He goes on to claim that we, the people, we all feel that, quote, the other side, the left is not our friend. We are not esteemed colleagues, nor mere political opponents. And I think this part is valuable. I think there's some of this that I really would like to shove in the hands of, like, especially a lot of elected Democrats. Because Hegseth very neatly sweeps away the claims that are made by guys like Biden that, like, well, there's good Republicans. We gotta work with them. You know, we need a strong Republican Party. It's just, you know, some of this MAGA stuff, we gotta dust off it. But, like, it's good to have strong conservatives in the government with us. And Hegseth is making the point that, no, there's no conservatives that you can trust. Because the left, we are not esteemed colleagues and we're not political opponents. We want to destroy you. You can't work with us. Right. And that is the truth about modern conservatism, about the Republican Party. You can't work with them. Right. They've made it clear. It should be obvious, but a lot of mainstream Democrats refuse to fucking believe it.

[Jamie]

No, they're just. Yeah, I mean, well, best of luck with that project because it feels like if there's one thing mainstream Democrats aren't gonna do, it's read a direct threat against them and take it seriously.

[Robert]

Right, right. And there are direct threats in here. Hegseth goes on to say, we are foes. Either we win or they win. We agree on nothing else. Okay, Maybe treat them like that guys. You know, that's what they're saying.

[Jamie]

No, no, no. They just. We need to empathize.

[Robert]

We need empathy with these guys. Yeah, I'm done with that. I was raised these guys. I don't have empathy for me when I was this kind of person. Like, I suck. So Pete goes on to brag that the US has the top economy and military, but that our cultural and educational institutions, America's soul, have succumbed to leftist rot. And even a once in a generation electoral miracle like 2016 won't be enough to save us. Which is funny considering how 2024 went down. A lot of this book is, like, darkly funny in light of the fact that they won in 2024 and 2020. So Pete says that our future existence as sons and daughters of freedom can only happen if after the, quote, categorical defeat of the left. Thus, this time in our history calls for an all caps American crusade. Yes, A holy war for the righteous cause. Of human freedom.

[Jamie]

Wow. Title dropped, Title mentioned.

[Robert]

Title mentioned. Good stuff.

[Jamie]

I like that he put it in caps, just in case it wasn't clear.

[Robert]

You gotta put. You gotta put it in caps. You gotta put it in caps.

[Jamie]

I mean, the rhetoric is like, I guess, kind of what I would expect. Does he get specific? Is the book about the plan?

[Robert]

I mean, kind of. Pete's not a great planning guy. He's not a great knowing how to. He's, you know, not gonna be a great war leader guy for that reason.

[Jamie]

Step one, allocate 1/3 of the budget to parties.

[Robert]

For me, there's some of that, but it's mainly about getting. It's mainly about, like, getting everybody, like, riled up for an existential battle that he believes 2020 was going to be. Right. Like this crusade of, you know, it's trying to get people on the side of extermination. Right. Hegseth then directly cites the First Crusade as his example of what we need to return to. He describes the first Crusade as happening a thousand years ago. After years of Christians or Europeans ceding land to Muslim horde, the Pope finally got around to declaring a crusade in order to save Europe. And his knights marched to war under the cry Deus vult, or God wills it. Now, I should interject here because Pete has a Deus volt tattoo and this is a meaningful term on the far right. And the neo Nazi. Right. Right. Now, to interject here, first off, all of the history here is nonsense, right? Like his history of the Crusades is not accurate. The Guardian interviewed him.

[Jamie]

That was my question. I was like, this isn't sounding right.

[Robert]

Yeah, we're gonna talk about that for first.

[Jamie]

Okay.

[Robert]

The Guardian interviewed Matthew Gabriel, who's a professor of medieval studies at Virginia Tech, and he pointed out there were absolutely no incursions to mainland Europe. If anything, Islam was kind of on the retreat in Iberia and other places as well. So there was no large geopolitical shift or any kind of immediate threat of Islam taking over Europe. Right. Like they were not, in fact, on the defensive when the crusade started.

[Jamie]

Well, that doesn't sound good. And it doesn't serve his point. This is just another reminder that in mainstream publishing, fact checking is not an allocated part of the budget.

[Robert]

No, it's not. You gotta do that as a kid.

[Jamie]

You never. Not crazy to me.

[Robert]

They don't give a shit anymore.

[Jamie]

You gotta pay out of pocket if you want that shit.

[Robert]

Yeah, yeah. No. Cause there's no money in being accurate.

[Jamie]

Right? Yeah. Books wouldn't sell as well so Pete.

[Robert]

Is not at all alone in taking Deus Volt on as a rallying cry. White supremacists have used it as a catchphrase for years now, and he's mainly noteworthy for being the most prominent political figure in the country to do so. So after the first Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which is the first time many reporters and regular Americans saw the phrase in use by Nazis and other white supremacist marchers, outlets like NPR published interviews with experts like Medieval Academy of America head Lisa Davis, who pointed out that Europe during the Crusade period was not white. And that far right marchers at Charlottesville adorned themselves with symbols like that of St Maurice, who was regularly featured on crusader livery and was himself an Egyptian man. Right. That like even a lot of these things that, like we were all white, like this, this beautiful saint that the crusaders marched under, Motherfucker was born in Egypt. Like that. That is simply an African man, like, insane.

[Jamie]

I mean, I'm like, is this just like a group of people? I mean, obviously just brain dead people, but like, I think about how many older movies and then also movies I grew up on that essentially portray Egyptian people as white or at best Italian looking.

[Robert]

It's in part because, like, they're in. Yeah. I mean, one. One reality of it is that everyone in the Mediter basin looks more Mediterranean than like they do anything else. Right. Once you get right up to the like. Cause there's a lot of interchange between those cultures. Right. And the other thing is that at this period of time, whiteness doesn't exist as a concept. Right. If you were to go back, like, think of it, go back to the Roman Empire and tell them, like, this guy's not as much of a person to you because of their skin color, they'd be like, what are you talking about? This guy's less of a person because he's not a Roman. Like, that's what matters.

[Jamie]

You're like, make no mistake, Skin man is not a person to me. But not for the reasons you think.

[Robert]

Not for that reason. No. He's less human than me because he was born in a different place.

[Jamie]

It is fascinating watching. Yeah. Just like how everything needs to serve his thesis. And it really doesn't matter.

[Robert]

It just doesn't. None of it works out. And none of these people actually know anything about the Crusades. Right.

[Jamie]

Well, and the problem is, yeah, I'm glad that there were medieval scholars that corrected the record, but his followers don't care.

[Robert]

No. And it doesn't matter. I'm doing this in part because. Yeah, that's the kind of episode that this is, right. Where you go through this and you're like, all right, what's accurate, what's not? But like, this doesn't. No one listening to this was coming in as a Pete Hegseth fan because of the Crusade stuff and is going to be like, my God, he was wrong. That's just not the way anything else.

[Jamie]

It changes everything for me. I wonder if there's one person.

[Robert]

Yeah. Now, I should also note here that. Cause he uses Deus Volt, he's got it tattooed on his body. Cause he believes it was the rallying cry that Crusaders marched to war under during the First Crusade. This is very likely to be untrue. True. Right. This is actually the result of propaganda that came later. Marburg historian George Strack has pointed out to the Catholic News Agency that Pope Urban ii, who declared the First Crusade, never used the phrase Deus Volt himself. And quote only one chronicle, that of Robert the Monk, which was written around 10 years after the Popes called a crusade at a synod in Clermont, France, quotes the exclamation at all. Strack explained the author was aware from another chronicle that the northern French Crusaders used Deus vault as a war cry or a sign of recognition among themselves. Robert's aim was to present the Crusade as a buying and papilli led project, which is why he claimed that Urban II had heard the war cry Deus Vult and Claremont and approved of it. From the historian's point of view, however, this is implausible. Even Robert's medieval contemporaries would have placed little trust in the chronicler. It was only under the humanists of the 15th century that the monk's rhetoric received favorable attention. Again, they found Robert's chronicle plausible, and so the war cry Deusvolt was quoted very frequently from then on. And soon the other reports about Urban's call from Claremont were forgotten, says Strack. So this is probably propaganda from the beginning that there's not much evidence of at the time that no one would have taken very seriously at the time. That 500 years later, like, you know, chuds adopt 1500s chuds, right.

[Jamie]

Never trust a Robert.

[Robert]

That's what I never trust a robber. That's the core of history of historiography. Speaking of things that spew only lies, just one of our sponsors sponsors the other sponsors. Completely trustworthy. One of our sponsors tells nothing but lies. And we won't tell you which you know who you are, you know who you are.

[Jamie]

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[Robert]

Yeah. No, the sports betting people are honest, right? You'll go broke, but they're honest.

[Jamie]

They're like. But you'll have a great time doing it.

[Robert]

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[Jamie]

Jesus, Robert.

[Robert]

What?

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[Lauren Vogelbaum]

This is Danielle Fishel from Pod Meats World. Parents, let's talk snacks. If your mornings look anything like mine, one kid's trying to pile drive a pillow and the other is trying to zip themselves into a backpack. Meanwhile, I'm trying to sign a permission slip with an eyeliner pencil because that's all I could find. That's why Mott's no Sugar added applesauce pouches are perfect to have nearby. These things are clutch and are perfect for moments of stress. Made with real apples, no sugar added and the pouch? Genius. It's mess free and perfect for the car, the lunchbox or after school activities. This is a snack you can feel good about about. And a good source of vitamin C too. Just tasty applesauce your kids will actually want to eat. The other day I handed one to my son mid meltdown. He took a deep breath, squeezed the pouch and suddenly he was calm. He had a tiny apple powered moment of Zen. Trust me, your future self will thank you Motts. Real apples make real good applesauce. Learn [e-mail] come.

[Robert]

We'Re back so for the sake of morale, it might be good for us to recall here that the Crusades were not successes in the traditional military sense of the word. The First Crusade did have some initial victories and resulted in temporary Christian control of parts of the Holy Land. But this did not last long. By 1187, less than 100 years, the great General Saladin had surrounded Jerusalem. Jerusalem, right. The long train of disasters for organized Christian militaries during the Crusades led to a surge in support from maniac cult leaders like Peter the Hermit, who gathered an army of starving hermits to march on the Holy Land. Andrew Curry writes, quote, peter's success was cited over and over again in the years to come. The defeat suffered by better organized Crusades led many to believe that it was the humble who were destined to succeed, not the proud, rich military classes. In the end, these people's Crusades ended in disaster too. None ever reached the Holy Land, and most of the peasant Crusaders were either slaughtered as they plundered their way across Europe or disbanded before ever reaching a port. Without the resources to reach the Holy Land, most turned on more conventional targets, namely Europe's Jewish communities. Why are we going to seek out our profanity and to take vengeance on the Ishmaelites for our Messiah when here are the Jews who murdered and crucified him, was the rationale as recorded by a Jewish eyewitness. Again, most of the real crusaders, a large chunk of the real Crusaders, didn't even crusade. They just went and murdered Jews in Europe.

[Jamie]

Yeah, yeah. Well, okay. Do we think Pete Hegseth knows any of this?

[Robert]

No, I don't think he really reads Much.

[Jamie]

I am genuinely curious.

[Robert]

I don't think it would matter. He just wouldn't trust any account you told him if it's different from what he already believes.

[Jamie]

Right? I mean, I don't know this about the Crusades, I gotta say. I'm not a Crusade's head.

[Robert]

Well, the gist of it, and this is a quote from Medieval Studies professor Matthew Gabriel. The Crusaders lost. They lost everything.

[Jamie]

Well, maybe an American Crusade. Not too bad an idea.

[Robert]

Watch the documentary Kingdom of Heaven for more. Still holds up. Banger of a film. So again, none of this stuff works as a gotcha, right? You're not gonna convince anyone to change their politics by being like, actually the Crusade sucked. Right. But I do think it's valuable to look at this history for our own, like, edification as a reminder that this too shall pass and that these kinds of people never manage to win the way they think they will in the long run because they suck at shit. But also the mere fact that they've doomed themselves doesn't mean that they won't cause even more suffering in their failures. Right? Those people's Crusades were all disasters, but a lot of Jewish communities suffered as a result. Right?

[Jamie]

Right.

[Robert]

Anyway, let's continue with Pete. He goes from the Crusades to the American Revolution, probably the only periods in history that he's taken a passing interest in. He notes that like crusaders and patriots past, the red MAGA hat is a symbol for the need for violent action to secure liberty. Only by going on offense against a left that surrounds them can conservatives survive. Now, the fact that this is written in the run up to 2020, and the fact that that election went against them should say a few things to you. Right? We know now this was not the decisive or the last battle, but Hegseth writes as if it was, and that the left would cause total annihi if they won in 2020. He notes that while there are millions of patriots, the country also houses hordes of people who don't share their allegiance and that their ignorance and ideologies threaten national survival. Okay, so, yeah, again, like, the language here is very unsparing and this is how most of them think. You can't. Again, it's just important that Democrats understand you can't talk it out with someone like. Like this. They're not willing to talk to you.

[Jamie]

Right. And I mean, that's like their. That's their whole thing. It is interesting anytime you hear. I mean, I guess you hear it basically every day now, but. But over time, I think in the last 10 years where you just hear the us versus them in an increasingly upward line to the point where he's just like straightforwardly saying they're like, the people who agree with me are Americans. Yeah. And the people who don't. Yeah, yeah. Which is like, I mean, continued in that direction.

[Robert]

Yep. So the next section of his book is about the two Americas, which he describes as America and the left. And in order to highlight this, he gives us the story of two different immigrants, both named Omar Samara Omar, who is an Iraqi who fought with Hegseth. He was an interpreter after the US invasion and later immigrated to the US Leaving the other Omar is of course Ilhan Omar, who he calls the Somali Omar.

[Jamie]

Oh, leave her out of it.

[Robert]

Oh, no. I mean, this is like peak ill and Omar brain worms, period. 2020. Not that it's much less now.

[Jamie]

I feel like it still got worse.

[Robert]

It's still pretty bad. It's still bad. Like, it's just there's. It's more of a topic of discussion, I guess.

[Jamie]

Yeah.

[Robert]

Okay. Maybe just two Omars could less Lord nuts. His attitude is the common one. You'll see on the right that Ilan was graciously let into this country and has done nothing but spit in its face. I don't think we really need to deal with this point, save to note that even in the America of 2025, even someone like Pete's, you know, interpreter Omar, who fought alongside US Soldiers aren't qualified to stay here. Earlier this year, the United States revoked special status to Afghan people who helped the United States in its war against the Taliban. Per msnbc, the Trump administration told them, quote, that they've got to self deport by May 20 back to a Taliban controlled Afghanistan if America can't honor its word to those who bled for it. A retired US Colonel told me, why would anyone trust us? Again, this isn't just immigration policy. It's a test of our moral credibility and we're failing now. Jamie. Yes, I've seen the US in enough war zones and talked to enough people who believed in our promises to them when they fought alongside us that I can say there's no point in my lifetime or the lifetime of anyone listening to this show in which we had moral credibility or were truly trustworthy friends. Right.

[Jamie]

It's like we're also recording this at a time.

[Robert]

What period of time are you talking about?

[Jamie]

We're also recording this at a time where, again, like both of his examples are people who could just get plucked off of the street and kidnapped by ICE like it does. The citizenship has nothing to do with it.

[Robert]

Well, again, that's part of what's interesting about the timing this comes in is that in 2020, as. Even as, like, a Pete Hegseth Republican, you still had to pretend that you were, like, okay with multiculturalism as long as they were pro American. Right? That long. No, this Iraqi interpreter of mine is a great American. He's fully integrated. Right. He gets to stay here because he did all the right things. And as soon as they got into power, like, oh, actually, no, we don't give a shit. All that matters is your skin color. Right? And that's the reality, right? Under the regime that has given Pete Hegseth power. But he spends a lot of his book talking about the Omar who fought with him, who he calls Texas Omar now because he successfully immigrated to the and integrated into the Houston state suburbs. So we should talk a little bit here about Pete Hegseth's wartime experiences in Samarra, which is less than about a hundred. I think it's like, 80 miles or something northwest of Baghdad. At age 26, Pete was a lieutenant in the army and National Guard when he joined the 101st 3rd Brigade Combat Team. He was deployed in 2005. Prior to this, Hegseth had experienced what you might call an atypical global war on terror career again. He graduated from Princeton. He started working at Bear Stern, and the same time he'd gotten a position with the doomed finance company, he enlisted in the National Guard, and he was first deployed after 911 to Guantanamo Bay before coming back and working in finance for a while and then volunteering to fight in Iraq, where he became a platoon leader. He seems to have served functionally, did the job reasonably well. There's not shocking, shocking reports or anything on it. He was kept away from liquor, probably.

[Jamie]

I was about to say. I was like, why did he do that job competently?

[Robert]

Although he hadn't really kept drinking it, started drinking it heavily at this point.

[Jamie]

Oh, right. Because that was after he got back.

[Robert]

And there's an interesting Washington Post article that quotes one of his fellow officers who was active duty who was like, I was actually surprised to see a National Guard guy doing the things Hegseth was doing. And I just assumed that it was because he was planning for a political career and thought a combat tour would help. Right, Interesting.

[Jamie]

Okay.

[Robert]

Yeah. And you run into, if you've known people who were in, like, if you know enough military guys, they all have stories of like, yeah, this. This guy was definitely doing it because he Was trying to set up a career later down the line and wanted a combat action badge or something.

[Jamie]

It's like seeing an influencer at a volunteer event.

[Robert]

Right, Right.

[Jamie]

Sure. Interesting.

[Robert]

So I'm gonna quote from the Post's article here. Charlie company, numbering about 140 men, was considered the brigade's most aggressive unit, engaging threats with a bravado that would later draw scrutiny from senior leaders, said people familiar with the deployment. As recounted by the New Yorker in 2009, Charlie Company was nicknamed Kill Company and maintained a whiteboard listing confirmed kill civilians that each platoon had notched. The former officer who served in another company within the battalion said the behavior exhibited by Hegseth's infantry company was viewed as a little bit strange by those on the outside. We joked sometimes that they were on their own crusade down there. Great stuff.

[Jamie]

Okay.

[Robert]

Great stuff.

[Jamie]

Good Lord. Okay.

[Robert]

Now what's interesting is when the New Yorker reports on this. Initially, Hegseth would claim that I actually complained about how aggressive we were to our company commission commander, and specifically that he complained about how they were ordered to have their weapons ready when they were entering targeted buildings because he believed that basically having fingers on the trigger would lead to higher civilian casualties and that after making these complaints, he was reassigned. I don't know how true this is. Right. I don't know if that's something he made up when he thought it would sound better. Yeah, right.

[Jamie]

When was that interview conducted?

[Robert]

It was like 2009. That New York interview.

[Jamie]

I wonder how I feel. He wouldn't today.

[Robert]

So do I. He wouldn't claim it at least. Right?

[Jamie]

Yeah.

[Robert]

But his old unit remained in the field after he got transferred. And as the insurgency hit a new peak of violence, they wound up as part of a raid on an island believed to be a training center for Abu Musabil's Al Qawis aqi, or Al Qaeda in Iraq. This is like the precursor organization to isis. A number of civilians are massacred during this attack. The soldiers who kill them claim initially that they're all military aged males, which is a term for we shot some fucking teenager. But like, look, he's pretty big. Big. An army investigation revealed that civilians had been detained and executed while detained and that the killings had been covered up. Two soldiers ultimately pled guilty to murder and related charges and received 18 year sentences. One soldier who testified was sentenced to nine months, and another who didn't was convicted of negligent homicide, which was overturned on appeal. Now, there is speculation that Hegseth has since seized upon the issue of US Troops being tried for war crimes. As a result of. Of this and for the entirety of his time in the political spotlight, he has since backed prosecuted soldiers, including war criminal Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, claiming the rules of war unfairly tie the hands of men in the field. That Washington Post article, which interviewed a number of his colleagues, ends on this note. The former army officer who served with Hegseth in Iraq said he believes he has latched onto populous scenarios in a quest for personal gain. When news of Hegseth's potential nomination emerged, old acquaintances from those days got back in touch with one another. The former officer said one text he received especially stood out. All it said was, wtf question mark. Yeah, great stuff.

[Jamie]

All right.

[Robert]

Great stuff.

[Jamie]

All right.

[Robert]

Cool.

[Jamie]

It's just. It's everything that, like, leads to horrific war crimes in the modern age are deeply embarrassing. Like, just really, really lazy texting. And also the fact that in. In between his. His stints in the service that he found time to work at Bear Stearns. He found a little bit of time to work in the American economy. Like, it's just. It's, you know, what a. What a multi hyphenate, really.

[Robert]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

I mean, this. In your view. I mean, this just seems like he's slowly working behind the scenes to justify civilian deaths so that he can. Can ideally escalate to the job. He is now killing civilians with no consequences for anyone.

[Robert]

Yeah. Yep. So the next chapter of this book he compares. Spends several pages comparing different statements by Ilan Omar and his buddy Texas Omar, in order to talk about how much Ilan hates the United States. One of his points is that his friend describes US Helicopters as looking like angels because at one point, he was under fire and he got rescued by a helicopter. And Iland describes them as looking like the devil because she was a civilian in Somalia and saw U.S. helicopters kill civilians. Oh, Hegseth is like, no civilians were killed by Americans in the battle of Mogadishu in 1993. Right. Which he describes as a heroic defensive action by U.S. forces. And the reality is uglier. While we don't have perfect accounts for how many civilians died in the fighting, it was between 300 and 700 people who died total, and at least 2 to 300 of those were civilians. Right. And I'll personally note I have watched an Apache helicopter destroy, like, basically murder an apartment building. And, yeah, it looks like the devil. Have you ever seen one of those things empty its entire payload? It's a fucking nightmare. It's very scary. Yes.

[Jamie]

Objectively, I mean, it's like, not only is it obviously racist to have this, like, weird chart of two people with the same last name, but, like, to. To just present it with a total void of context. He just, like, doesn't even understand how works that you'd be terrified of the.

[Robert]

People about you not on your side. That is very deadly. Yeah, yeah.

[Jamie]

Who are killing people around you. Okay, okay.

[Robert]

It's one of those things, like. Yeah, man. If you're like, I get it. If you're completely surrounded by the enemy and then a chopper comes in and blows them all away, you'd be like, that thing ripped. That thing's cool. But people have different experiences with helicopters, you know, like, depending on whether or not they're being shot at by them.

[Jamie]

Not to come down too hard on the other Omar. But, like, weird to call a helicopter an angel as it is.

[Robert]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, and I don't know, again, we don't actually ever get to talk with that Omar. I haven't found any articles interviewing him. He does it like. I've googled around trying to find anyone who talked to this guy. We only have Pete's recollection of him.

[Jamie]

How much do we want to bet he made up a guy?

[Robert]

I don't. No. He certainly. If he's real, there's no way he's gonna talk out and, like, correct the record if Pete Jij. Cause then he'll get deported, right?

[Jamie]

Yeah. Stay as far away from him as possible.

[Robert]

So I don't know. And the important part is that Pete does not bring in this Omar as a real person with a real story. He brings him in as a foil to his created image of a social justice warrior who never had to fight for anything. Right. Such people, he argues, take Advantage of. Of 50. 50Americans who lack grittiness and historical perspective. He describes these people. So you've got the evil leftists, and they take advantage of these kind of, like, milquetoast. 50. 50Americans who he calls squishies. Right. For their lack of willingness to.

[Jamie]

Why does he call them Squishies?

[Robert]

Cause they're not willing to fight. Cause they're not racist and violent. Right. Like, they're too squishy. They're not willing to kill the left. Right. They think we can coexist.

[Jamie]

I really don't like that.

[Robert]

It's him talking about, like, conservatives who are not, like, outright fascists. Right. Those are the squishies. So it's cool. It's good stuff.

[Jamie]

Okay.

[Lauren Vogelbaum]

Sorry.

[Jamie]

Apologies to the Squishies. I love you guys.

[Robert]

Sorry, Squishies. Yeah, great stuff. And it's interesting, you know, the thing he's trying to do here because he has a whole bit in this about how, like, these people don't like to see themselves as political. And that's a problem because, like, we're in a political war. His whole thing is he's trying, he has to convince these people that like, you need to become political in order to embrace a politics of defensive annihilation against the left. Right. And the left is everything but Trump, you know, like, that's what he's trying to convince these, these, like moderate Republicans to do. Quote. For me, awakening has been a progression over many years, informed by multiple iterations of learning and mostly failure. First, I had to get informed. Then I denied the magnitude of the leftist problem. Next, being idealistic, naive, and new to the political arena, I played within the confines of the status quo quo. Now, as I have some worldly success in a large family, protecting my nest is tempting. I understand what is required of 100% American. The sacrifice, the struggle, the uncertainty. Like the uncertainty of stealing from two different veterans organizations to get drunk. Yes. The uncertainty of playing grab ass with all your secretaries. Yes. Sacrifice.

[Jamie]

Yeah. Separating your employees by party and not party. There, look. These are the things ultimately that are going to protect Gunner Hegseth.

[Robert]

Yeah.

[Jamie]

These are who.

[Robert]

Who's Finally. Finally. Yes.

[Jamie]

Okay.

[Robert]

We end the introduction, the first chapter, with a call to arms.

[Jamie]

This is the first chapter.

[Robert]

That's chapter one, baby. And we follow it with two more quotes. These are both from Donald Trump. And I find them funnier than I should. QUOTE 1, you're a sleaze candidate Donald Trump to a reporter from ABC News 2016. You're a warrior, Pete. A fucking warrior. President Donald Trump, November 29. Why are those together? Why are you just contrasting him shit talking ABC to him, saying nice things to him.

[Jamie]

He's telling a story. It's just so cool. So cool.

[Robert]

It's like, wow. Okay, Pete, we're all very impressed.

[Jamie]

Bad is to reporter as warrior is to me a smiley face.

[Robert]

It's so funny. You're a. Yeah, yeah. It's good stuff. So, yeah, we'll talk about the next chapter, but I think it's probably time to end part one. Gentleman Jamie Loftus.

[Jamie]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert]

Do you wanna plug anything?

[Jamie]

Yeah. My book, Raw, the Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, just came out in paperback and I just released a. I just did an audiobook for the one and only Chuck Tingle.

[Robert]

Hell yeah.

[Jamie]

We're donating all of the proceeds to The LA Street Vendors Fund. Because in LA they're kidnapping ice is kidnapping people on the streets. So we're raising money to, you know, help street vendors stay in while maintaining their living. The name of the audiobook is this Lesbian Hot Dog Gets me Off. Also, she is a doctor. Also she's vegan.

[Robert]

Wow, that's a title that's so much better than American Crusade.

[Jamie]

And it's a story, is a tale. So if you want to listen to that, donate five bucks to the Street Pack Vendors Fund. If you don't want to listen to that, if you don't want to listen to me, read Chuck Tingle Hot Dog Smut. You're wrong. But you should donate.

[Robert]

You are wrong. You're wrong and a bad person. Let's just say it, Jamie, let's just say it. You're a bad person. And God will not recognize you on the day of judgment. He won't know your face.

[Jamie]

To not listen to this lesbian hot dog gets me off. Also, she's a doctor. Also she's vegan. Is not just homophobic, it's anti woman women in stem.

[Robert]

It's very.

[Jamie]

Think about that.

[Robert]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is good.

[Jamie]

That's my. Those are my plugs.

[Robert]

Yeah. Plugs done. Go to hell, everyone. I love you. Love you too.

[Jamie]

Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube.com behindthebastards.

[Danielle Fishel]

There's nothing like sinking into luxury. At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Annabe sofa which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price. And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom. Starting at only $699, the stain resistant performance fabric slipcovers and cloud like frame duvet can go straight into your wash. Perfect for anyone with kids, pets or anyone who loves an easy to clean spotless sofa. With a modular design and changeable slipcovers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style with. Whether you need a single chair, loveseat or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now you can shop up to 60% off store wide with a 30 day money back guarantee. Shop [e-mail] Add a little to your life Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply.

[Robert]

Honestly, honestly, honestly.

[Hes Yu Jo]

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[Jamie]

Brought to you by Hendrix Gin. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, host of the podcast Brainstuff, where we are serious about curiosity, and so is Hendrix. Their signature gin is infused with rose and cucumber, and their master distiller is always crafting limited releases that riff on those flavors so that you can create something new. Hendrix is the refreshingly curious choice for marvelous summer cocktails. To learn more about Hendrix and to find more cocktail recipes, visit hendrix gin.com US Drink responsibly Hendrix Gin 44 alcohol by volume 2025 imported by William Gretton Sons Incorporated, New York, NY this podcast is supported by BetterHelp, offering licensed therapists.

[Danielle Fishel]

You can connect with via video phone or chat. Here's BetterHelp head of clinical operations Hes Yu Jo discussing who can benefit from therapy.

[Jamie]

I think a lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that, you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationship relationships, that could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody. There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody. Find out if therapy is right for you.

[Danielle Fishel]

Visit betterhelp.com today.

[Jamie]

That's betterhelp.com this is an I Heart podcast.