Sam Stein (2:02)

Bashing.

Will Salatin (2:03)

Yeah, Sam, I counted, just my own count, 10 times that he, like, talked about Joe Biden. Dumb, bad, you know, ignorant. Asleep at the auto pen. He brought up the auto fan.

Sam Stein (2:14)

He did bring up the auto pen.

Will Salatin (2:15)

How do you do that? At a hearing about the Defense Department about a war, how do you do that?

Sam Stein (2:21)

Hey, you just got to be crafty. You can basically bring in the auto pin for anything, if you really try hard enough. And he. And you know, he tried hard. Top line takeaways were. He said this was. First of all, it's for a request for $1.5 trillion for $1.5 trillion defense budget. He did say that up to date, they believe they spend $25 billion on the war in Iran. There are some skepticism on the bulwark slack channels about this one, to say the least. At a very. At one point in time, we were spending one to two billion dollars a day in Iran. Now, that might not be the case anymore because we're not firing as much ammunition, but we've been in the war for almost 60 days now.

Will Salatin (3:00)

Okay, Sam, here's like a test. Parent test, right? Your kid says to you, dad, I need. I spent 25 bucks. Okay. Okay. Well, I don't like that you spent that much. But like, dad, I need 200 bucks to make up what I spend. Something's wrong there, right? Give me an appropriation. Give me an appropriation to cover. That's like eight times the amount of money I'm telling you I spent. So.

Sam Stein (3:24)

Good point. I would. I just normally hand over the money to my kid, and he's only nine. You want 200 bucks? Sure.

Will Salatin (3:30)

I trust your kid more than I trust Pete Egg said.

Sam Stein (3:33)

Fair enough. Now, okay, so let's go through a couple of things on the patriotism attacks, because this was sort of the. The real kind of, I don't know, the messaging that he. It seemed like he very much was going to rely on. And it came even, like, from the opening statement. So can we play the opening statement where he talks a little bit about President Trump and President Trump's courage?

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (3:59)

President Trump, unlike other presidents, has had the courage to ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. And he's ironclad in that we have the best negotiator in the world driving that deal. The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless, and defeatist words of Congressional Democrats and some Republicans.

Sam Stein (4:23)

I would have gone with opening the Strait of Hormuz as one of the greatest challenges they have, but maybe that's like number two on his list and it's the Democrats who are upset at him as number one.

Will Salatin (4:35)

Just to be clear, this is his opening statement. This is not in response to some provocation from the other party. It's not like some, you know, he's not like, reacting to something he decided that he was going to say before this hearing started that the biggest adversary was not Iran. Our nominal enemy here.

Congressional Representative (4:53)

Right.

Will Salatin (4:53)

The people with the. Remember, Sam, the big nukes that we're afraid of, which is why we had to start a war. The nuclear threat. No, no, no, no. The biggest adversary is congressional Democrats, which kind of tells you where this whole administration is at. And remember, Hegseth is there performing for the audience of one Trump. So this is what Trump wants to see is attacks on the Democrats, not the actual enemy.

Sam Stein (5:17)

Yeah, definitely. The case where Trump is watching Hegseth is trying to perform for him. It did feel a little hollow, honestly, but it was persistent. I mean, he kept going after Democrats. As you noted, the Biden stuff was constant. Going after Democrats, accusing them of lying, of hoping for defeat, so on and so forth. It was. It was the persistent subplot of the whole series.

Will Salatin (5:38)

Can I just flag that? That line about reckless, feckless, defeatist Pete Hagseth, you know what he really loves is words, right? Okay. I know he was like a soldier and everything, but, like, he loves his words. He loved that phrase so much, Sam, he repeated it later, gratuitously. He just brought it up again like, you're. That's why I said at the beginning of the hearing, reckless, feckless, and defeatist.

Sam Stein (6:00)

He definitely rehearsed it in the mirror.

Will Salatin (6:02)

Yeah, he looks like a speechwriter masquerading as a secretary of defense. Sorry, go ahead.

Sam Stein (6:06)

Well, you could take the guy out of Fox News, but you can't take Fox News out of the guy.

Will Salatin (6:10)

Bingo. Bingo.

Sam Stein (6:11)

There you go. All right, let's get to some other ones. Seth Moulton, I thought had some interesting. I mean, I don't want. This is not a. Like a gotcha question, but it has that kind of value of like, can you just say straight up, like, are, you know, are we winning? And so Moulton basically does this kind of boom, boom question to Hegseth. Just say, hey, are we winning?

Congressional Representative (6:33)

How is this war going? Do you think we're winning militarily?

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (6:36)

On the battlefield, it's been an astounding military success.

Congressional Representative (6:39)

But are we winning the war?

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (6:41)

Absolutely.

Congressional Representative (6:41)

Okay, so do you call Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz winning?

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (6:45)

Well, I would say the blockade that we hold that doesn't allow anything to come in or out of Iranian ports.

Congressional Representative (6:51)

Okay.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (6:51)

So always.

Congressional Representative (6:52)

So we've blockaded their blockades. They blockaded us, and then we blockaded their blockade. That's like saying, tag, Garret. Or, you know, if President Madison has said, well, the British just burned down Washington, but don't worry, we're going to burn it down as well, they.

Sam Stein (7:08)

Yeah, the whole Bernie down Washington was kind of funny because of King Charles being here yesterday. So I wonder if that was improvised. But anyways, I thought that was fun. I actually thought that was kind of effective from Moulton basically just sort of saying, hey, explain this.

Will Salatin (7:22)

Yeah. I mean, look, Pete Hegseth is a former military officer who is now put in charge of defense. It's a different job. You're a soldier. You're a sailor, a marine. You're fighting a war. You, you're. As secretary of war, secretary of defense. Really, your job is to think big picture.

Sam Stein (7:40)

Right.

Will Salatin (7:40)

And that's what Moulton's asking about. He's noticed that Hegseth keeps saying, militarily on the battlefield, we're winning. Moulton's asking, no, no, no. Strategically, like, what are we actually accomplishing besides blowing stuff up?

Sam Stein (7:52)

Right.

Will Salatin (7:52)

And the answer is we haven't. We haven't gotten rid of the nukes. We. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Our response is, you can't hold. You Iran can't hold.

Sam Stein (8:00)

The regime is the same, if not even more hardlined. I mean. Yeah, that's the issue. Right.

Will Salatin (8:04)

Totally. Literally. Khamenei Jun is the new guy. And Hicksit's position with the blockade is no, you. Iran can't hold the world hostage. We will hold the world hostage. We'll choke off the strait. So just as a strategic thing, it's a failure. And that's what Dan Kane and others were trying to raise from the beginning, that it wouldn't lead where we wanted it to go.

Sam Stein (8:26)

So I've always thought about, as these hearings happen with Trump cabinet members, what would a non Trump cabinet member have answered?

Congressional Representative (8:37)

What, what.

Sam Stein (8:38)

What would there have answered have been to something like that? Let's just assume that we're in the same situation of like that. Like, what would have, you know, what would Lloyd Austin have said or another defense secretary have said? You know, Chuck Hagel. Right. Like, I would like to think they would have said something akin to, you know, we've. We've been making progress. There's more to be done. We are exploring various avenues for opening the trade of Hormuz. We continue to persist on getting the nuclear nuc. Nuclear weapons program under control, if not eliminated. Like, they would have been a little bit more open to the idea that progress is needed, not that they've been unequivocally successful. Right. Like that's. That would have been the normal answer. Right, Right.

Will Salatin (9:19)

I mean, that's. So that's what a lot of the Democrats were trying to ask in their questions what they were trying to say going forward for the future, like, where are we going with this? What's going to. And Hexith keeps giving the Trumpian answer, which is, you know, we're beating the hell out of those guys. Look at all the stuff we blew up. They're Air Force. Then why do we need more money? Yeah, right. And they don't have an answer. And Sam, when he was asked any questions about where this is going, like what's the timetable? He would always, he kept saying, well, why would I tell you that? Then the enemy will know. Then the American people, basically the administration's position, Hagset's position is we're not going to tell our own people anything about what we're doing or where this is going because that would give things away to the enemy.

Sam Stein (10:00)

No, it's worse than that because it's saying we've accomplished everything we sought out to accomplish. It's been a smashing success, but I can't tell you how much longer it's going to be. And also I need a. Basically a blank check.

Will Salatin (10:10)

Yes, exactly. It is. It's unaccountability. They're defying accountability in the name of hiding stuff from the enemy. But it's not Iran that they're asking for the supplemental appropriation from. It's us, it's our people.

Sam Stein (10:24)

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Will Salatin (12:08)

Yeah. Killed to 200.

Sam Stein (12:10)

Yeah. At the time, right afterwards, the DOD said they were going to investigate it. In the process of investigating this, it's been almost two months and they have. They're still on that talking point. So this came up when Ro Khanna was asking Hegseth the battle, how much

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (12:29)

did it cost American taxpayers in terms of the strike to the Iranian school where kids were killed? Do you have that number in terms of the missiles we used? As I've said, that unfortunate situation remains under investigation. You don't know how it takes investigation, but I wouldn't tie a cost to that to anything.

Sam Stein (12:47)

All right, so that was one time that this came up. It did come up another time where Representative Takuda was asked about the DoD's elimination of the civilian harm reduction staff. Let's play that as well.

Congressional Representative (13:00)

Yet, Mr. Secretary, you eliminated the department's civilian harm reduction staff. You eliminated. For a country that does. Takes great efforts, makes great efforts to make sure human casualties are reduced or eliminated. Don't you think that that goes actually counter to what you just said? Would these children not still be alive if you had not eliminated all of these staff working within centcom?

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (13:25)

We didn't eliminate them. We made sure that those things that they normally accomplish are at the field level, which they are. And all of these processes are in place at every level.

Congressional Representative (13:34)

Something clearly has failed, whether it's our implementation of AI, whether it's understanding our human dependence on AI. Would you not agree? Something failed because almost 200 children died in Iran as a result of our bombing.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (13:49)

You're insinuating something where an investigation is not complete.

Sam Stein (13:51)

Now I get really angry about this because it's bullshit. The investigation could easily be complete by now, and they're just going to never release the findings. They're just going to say it's continuously under investigation and that's horrifying to me. I mean, we have to, we should own up to a fuck up if we did something like that and we're not going to. I was a little bit surprised that didn't come up more often, but I guess there's a lot going on. That's just an unsatisfactory answer for me.

Will Salatin (14:18)

Oh, totally, Totally. I mean, Sam, think about this, okay? That happened far away. We don't have video of that. We, we've in, in Minneapolis. We have video of agents shooting Americans killing American citizens. Those investigations we're not getting results of. Right. I mean, so this one they're totally going to bury. They're not going to. And, and their message, Hegset's message is all that concern about civilian harm that's woke garbage from, you know, Obama and Biden. We don't do that. And there's Sam, there's another point in the hearing where one of the rep, one of the congressmen asks him about the no quarter order. You know, we hex no quarter. Right. And no quarter means basically we don't if the enemy surrenders, screw you, we'll kill you or whatever. And that's another war crime. And Hegseth's answer is basically, my job is to make sure our guys come home. I'm not worried about their guys. So the, this whole thing is a bet by Pete Hexith and Trump and this administration that Americans do not care about murdering people in other countries.

Sam Stein (15:18)

And the other. So I mentioned there's two main flashpoints in the war that have really like stood out. One was the attack on the Iranian girl school. The other one was the Iranian attack on Camp Bering in Kuwait which resulted in six service members killed. And this became a point of contention when Representative Duo was taught was questioning Pete Heth because there was a lot of back and forth over whether the Pentagon essentially was trying to kind of wash over what actually transpired and whether or not those members, those service members were put in harm's way or could have been better protected. I should say we all just heard

Congressional Representative (15:57)

pretty powerful reporting courtesy of Mr. Ryan from many of our wounded troops who were injured in the attack in Kuwait. Mr. Secretary, you heard direct quotes from some of them via CBS's reporting. They were willing to talk to the press. Things like they were unprepared, providing defense

Will Salatin (16:15)

for themselves in the unit.

Congressional Representative (16:17)

Things like we were moved closer to Iran to a deeply unsafe area that was a known target. Your spokesperson, Sean Parnell, in response to that reporting, said it was not true.

Will Salatin (16:31)

Do you Agree with that.

Congressional Representative (16:32)

He's calling these guys liars.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (16:34)

I'm not calling our troops liars. And I don't know if what you're representing is correct or not. I'll take you at your word on that. But all I know is that we took every effort possible at the commencement of this campaign to ensure the defense of our troops to include moving them off of known bases to places that were not known. And we had intelligence.

Congressional Representative (16:53)

Understood, Secretary.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (16:54)

And then those were fortified with bunkers, other fortifications with theater air defenses was our concern.

Congressional Representative (17:00)

I'm going to pause you there. I'm going to.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (17:02)

Absolutely disparaging me that I don't care.

Congressional Representative (17:05)

I'm asking you whether you think they're liars or not.

Will Salatin (17:07)

That's what I asked.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (17:07)

You are disparaging me that I don't care about the passing of our troops.

Congressional Representative (17:10)

Nope. I ask your thought they're liar. Terry.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (17:12)

That's disparaging and smearing in every way. Nobody cares more about the fate of our troops. Nobody cares about the health of our troops. Nobody wants to bring them all hope.

Sam Stein (17:21)

I understand, but he controls the time.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (17:24)

He controls the time. You could control your answer, Sam.

Will Salatin (17:28)

You said your kid's like nine. Pete Hexith is like 12. Maybe, maybe. Okay.

Sam Stein (17:31)

This is like, he's, this is a,

Will Salatin (17:33)

this is an adolescent losing his cool. Like, you're disparaging me. You're despair. You heard at the end that the Republican Chairman of the Committee, Mike Rogers, has to calm you down like you would your kid. Right. You know, says, okay, now, now it's okay. He controls the time. You control your answer. You control it. Just calm down, little boy. He's, he's not. And it's a factual question. He will not address it. He gets so upset. This is a guy who has no self control and it shows. And Sam, can you think of a worse job to have someone with these kinds of emotional management issues than Secretary of Defense?

Sam Stein (18:09)

Thank you. Because this is sort of the big takeaway, which is here you have a guy who, there's not real stability there. He seems totally, easily rattled. He clearly has a vendetta against Democrats. He avoids accountability, and he's braggadocious in a way that I think is counterproductive. And yet Trump loves it, apparently, because he's sticking with him. Even though, and I will say he never once, a lot of the time the Democrats were talking to him, he was, they were like, you convinced Trump to do this. You convinced Trump to go to Iran. You were the one who told him it would be easy And Hexis never said no. Like, he. He never. He never was like that. You know, it was a group thing. He's owned this. And Trump's in a quagmire here, and yet Trump seems to be totally fine with it, and I'm just not sure why. I mean, I guess I have my reasons and my suspicions, but I'm curious what you think.

Will Salatin (19:01)

Well, they don't. The motto in the Trump administration is never apologize, never admit a mistake.

Sam Stein (19:05)

Right.

Will Salatin (19:05)

And that's. Yeah, we. We. Okay.

Sam Stein (19:07)

We.

Will Salatin (19:07)

We kill 175 girls in a school. We're not gonna.

Sam Stein (19:10)

You know.

Will Salatin (19:10)

Oh, it's unfortunate. We're not gonna tell you what really happened. I would encourage people. Nobody wants to sit through a long hearing like this. People are clear. It's not a part thing.

Sam Stein (19:21)

Okay.

Will Salatin (19:22)

I'll tell you the thing that interested me about the temper thing, though. You have two people testifying. One is Hegseth, and right next to him is Dan Cain, the chairman of the.

Sam Stein (19:31)

Who just sits there and he's like, ah, I get to coast.

Will Salatin (19:34)

And remember, this is a guy whose nickname is Raisin Cain. Right. And Trump bills him as like, oh, this cowboy. No, no, no. Dan Cain, who is a military man, a career military man, sits there, doesn't get rattled, doesn't let anybody get his goat, doesn't say anything more than he needs to, doesn't start fights. He's an adult, and he's sitting next to a child. And the contrast could not be more clear.

Sam Stein (19:56)

Yeah, I noticed that Kane was just sort of chilling, and I think Kane's just loving it because he can just hit there. He'll take a question every now and then, but mostly just sort of Biden his time. He's like, I got a couple more hours to go. No one's asked me anything. So that's that. Anyways. Yeah. Any other takeaways? I think we exhausted it, but I don't know, maybe.

Will Salatin (20:16)

Yeah, No, I just. When I look at those two guys, I think, I am not. I do not have military experience. But if you're promoting people within the military, if you understand the military ethos and the seriousness of it, a guy like Dan Cain should, under military good order, be promoted gradually to a position similar to where he is now, if not quite. Pete Hexseth, if this were a military decision, wouldn't be nowhere near leadership, because they would recognize what a loose cannon he is.

Sam Stein (20:42)

Yeah, I guess I just. Yeah. And I'll just end this. There's something wrong about saying that Democrats are the obstacle to peace in Iran. They're not. They've done nothing. I mean, they have no power that they're criticizing the war. But you're spending the money that you want to spend. You're doing what you want to do. You have very little oversight. And they're asking you fundamentally basic questions. The idea that they're screwing this up and it's not your fault that all this shit's gone wrong is silly. But they need a scapegoat, so they're going to do that. All right. Well, thanks for doing this, man. I know you say, who wants to sit through these hearings? But like I said, you want to do it. You love doing it. You're a sicko. You have a disease and you need help.

Will Salatin (21:21)

And if people need.

Sam Stein (21:22)

If people want to help you. We should have a subsection for the Bulwark subscribers to donate to Will's therapist fund. Okay, can we make sure that we get that up on the website? Other than that, there is one other thing I do need to plug. We got some shows. I've been talking about these ads non stop. I'll shut up about them when we sell more tickets and when we get closer to the date. San Diego, La. Coming up in May. May 20th, May 21st, get your tickets. The bulwark.com events again. We're going to San Diego. We're going to LA. May 20th, May 21, get your tickets and subscribe to the Bulwark and to Bulwark takes.

SpinQuest Disclaimer Announcer (22:03)

Will.

Sam Stein (22:04)

Thanks a bunch, man. Talk to you.

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Will Salatin (22:31)

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