Trump’s Pick to Lead The Navy Is a Walking Red Flag

Summary

---

Bulwark Takes — “Trump’s Pick to Lead the Navy Is a Walking Red Flag”

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Date: April 25, 2026
Host: Sam Stein (Managing Editor at The Bulwark)
Guest: Jared Polin (Bulwark research, video, and archives)
Theme: The controversial appointment of Hung Cao as acting Navy Secretary by Donald Trump

---

Episode Overview

This episode unpacks the whirlwind replacement of the U.S. Navy Secretary by the Trump administration, focusing on the new acting Secretary, Hung Cao. Sam Stein and Jared Polin explore Cao’s background, his rise, and—most importantly—his extensive record of public statements and interviews, many of which the hosts argue display extreme, conspiratorial, or outlandish views. The episode features direct audio clips from Cao, offering listeners a closer look at his ideology and style.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background on the Navy Secretary Shakeup

[02:27–04:20]

• Trump abruptly fired previous Navy Secretary John Phelan, a Trump donor and personal friend, due to dissatisfaction with the speed of Navy shipbuilding.
• Pete Hegseth, a Trump loyalist, pushed for Phelan’s ousting.
• Hung Cao, former Navy officer and unsuccessful political candidate, is named acting Navy Secretary.
• Irony: Trump chose Hegseth’s side over a longtime friend/donor.

2. Hung Cao’s Personal and Professional History

[04:20–06:17]

• Born in South Vietnam (1971), Cao came to the U.S. as a refugee at age 4.
• Benefited from birthright citizenship (his sister born in U.S.—allowed the family to escape Saigon).
• Attended the U.S. Naval Academy; later served in Navy recovery operations (notably JFK Jr. crash).
• Multiple runs for office: U.S. House (2022), Senate (2024); both unsuccessful.

Quote

“He benefited from birthright citizenship, which is the exact thing that Donald Trump currently is writing thousand word bleats... because he believes they will rule against him in his efforts to get rid of birthright citizenship. I believe they call that irony.”
— Sam Stein [05:19]

3. The Greatest Hits: Hung Cao in His Own Words

NOTE: Most source clips are 2022–2024 campaign appearances.

a. Gender & Masculinity Takes

[06:51–07:01]

• Quote:

  “If you pee standing up, you’re a man. If you pee sitting down, you’re a woman. And, you know, it’s just really quite that simple.”
  — Hung Cao (clip) [06:51]

• Commentary: Hosts mock the simplistic, “alpha” framing.

b. The ‘Alpha Male’ Obsession

[07:29–07:57]

• Quote:

  “We need the alpha males and alpha females... the young men and women that are going to rip out their own guts and eat them and ask for seconds. That’s what we need. We need warriors. Look, I don’t care what your pronouns are... Not TikTok influencers or anything else.”
  — Hung Cao (clip) [07:29]

• Discussion: Host notes repeated, cartoonish invocation of “alpha” rhetoric and linking military fitness to masculinity.

c. Extreme Comments on Immigration and Agriculture

[08:48–09:00]

• Quote:

  “If they find an illegal alien sleeping [in] the field, they must burn that entire field because they don’t know if that person brings any communicable diseases.”
  — Hung Cao (clip) [08:48]

• Host & guest: Immediately question the veracity, call it “highly dubious.”

d. Responding to Racism with Racist Rhetoric

[09:37–09:47]

• Quote:

  “I know I’ll be attacked by left and called a white supremacist, but I have one ask for them. When you give me my hood, make sure it’s got the little slits and not the circles so I can see better.”
  — Hung Cao (clip) [09:37]

• Commentary: Host derides the “joke” as tasteless; Bannon’s audience loves it.

e. Conspiratorial Fear of Witches & Wiccans

[10:34–10:55]

• Quote:

  “Monterey is a very dark place now. A lot of witchcraft and... the Wiccan community has really taken over there. And we can’t let that happen in Virginia.”
  — Hung Cao (clip) [10:34]

• Hosts skewer the absurdity of “Wiccan takeover” claims.

f. Vietnam, Communism, and Ukraine

[11:33–11:46]

• Quote:

  “As a Vietnamese refugee, I will kill a communist every day and twice on Sunday. The problem is... what does victory look like in Ukraine?”
  — Hung Cao (clip) [11:33]

• Hosts note he's opposed to U.S. aid to Ukraine, aligning with current administration trends.

g. America vs. NATO

[12:23–12:34]

• Quote:

  “Things like NATO—you know what NATO stands for? It says Needs Americans To Operate. You know, they need us, we don’t need them.”
  — Hung Cao (clip) [12:23]

• Discussion: Rhetoric mirrors Trump’s broader skepticism of alliances.

h. Drag Queens and the Military

[13:16–13:40]

• Quote:

  “We don’t need drag queens... in the Navy because we’re looking for the alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them, and ask for seconds.”
  — Hung Cao (clip) [13:16]

• Sam Stein: “It’s like the platonic ideal of a Republican talking point circa 2024.” [13:40]
• Polin: Jokes about Hung Cao’s “obsession” with gut-eating metaphors.

i. ICE and Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric

[14:54–15:04]

• Quote:

  “Are you better off today than you were four years ago? I mean, if your answer is yes, then you’re probably an illegal alien. And I’m going to call ICE on you.”
  — Hung Cao (clip) [14:54]

• Host comments: “Just cruel.” [15:04]
• Irony again: Cao’s family was saved by US immigration policy.

4. Thematic Takeaways

• Pattern: Cao’s public comments often mix hyper-masculine rhetoric and “anti-woke” politics with conspiracy and prejudice—from gender policing to Wiccan paranoia.
• Political Alignment: His positions mimic and sometimes intensify common Trumpist and Pete Hegseth themes: skepticism of NATO, anti-immigrant posturing, disdain toward inclusivity in the military.
• Irony: Despite personally benefitting from U.S. immigration policies, Cao takes a hardline anti-immigrant stance.

Quote

“I think him and Pete Heath are going to get along great.”
— Jared Polin [15:12]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Nothing says alpha male like being scared to pee sitting down.”
  — Jared Polin [07:01]

• “I don’t know what his obsession is with people who rip their guts out, but he said this on multiple occasions.”
  — Jared Polin [13:45]

• “His family benefited from birthright citizenship... and he ran for office on vehemently anti-immigrant platforms.”
  — Sam Stein [13:59]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------|---------------| | Firing of Phelan & Appointment | 02:27–04:20 | | Cao’s Biography & Ironies | 04:20–06:17 | | Pee Standing Up Rant | 06:51–07:01 | | Alpha Males in the Military | 07:29–07:57 | | Burning Crops for “Illegals” | 08:48–09:00 | | Ku Klux Klan “Joke” | 09:37–09:47 | | Wiccan Conspiracy | 10:34–10:55 | | Anti-Ukraine, Anti-Commie | 11:33–11:46 | | NATO Acronym Explained | 12:23–12:34 | | Drag Queens and “Guts” | 13:16–13:40 | | ICE Threat Against Immigrants | 14:54–15:04 |

---

Final Reflections

The episode paints Hung Cao as a vivid exemplar of Trump-era populism, prone to outlandish, hard-right talking points. Hosts Sam Stein and Jared Polin mix humor with alarm, highlighting both the absurdity and potential dangers of such rhetoric now elevated into a top military appointment. Despite his immigrant success story, Cao’s public stances reflect a deep hostility to the pluralism and policies from which he himself benefited.

High-level takeaway:
Cao’s track record—replete with conspiracy, bigotry, and an aggressive “alpha” persona—raises serious questions about the Trump administration’s priorities for military leadership.

---

Transcript

[SpinQuest Advertiser]

I'm here with spinquest where you can play and win from the comfort of your own home with hundreds of slot games and all of the table games you love with real cash prizes. Right now, $30 coin packs are on sale for $10. For new users, it's [e-mail] that's s p I n q U-E-T.com SpinQuest is

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details

[Energy Trust of Oregon Representative]

at Energy Trust of Oregon we know it isn't easy, the tremendous costs of maintaining a home, living in a house with drafty windows, poorly insulated spaces, or equipment that's running well past its prime. But we also know how to help you upgrade your systems, insulate your spaces and replace what is old with new energy efficient solutions. Find cash [e-mail] Energy Trust of Oregon More power to you.

[Sam Stein]

Hey everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark. We have a special guest appearance today, Jared Polin, who mans all of our research and clipping but also does the weird video task that you see now and then. He shook. How many hands did you shake that day?

[Jared Polin]

It was well over a hundred.

[Sam Stein]

Well over a hundred hands to see if he bruised as easily as Donald Trump, he ate the three dollar a meal. Brook Rollins challenge just for the sake of journal does our weird stuff. And today Jared's going to join us because he's been sifting through the archives of our new acting Naval secretary Hunkao and we found some really disturbing stuff that has not been surfaced yet. Some hilarious stuff. Stuff about how if you're a real man, you pee standing up. And things about alpha males and witches and communists and calling ice on illegals and drag queens. Just the classic weirdo that you would probably not want in your naval secretary. But before we get to that, I have a public service announcement. If you live in San Diego, if you live in Los Angeles, if you live in and around those areas, we got shows coming up, live shows. They're May 20th and 21st. You can get your tickets for them at the bulwark.com events. You're going to want to check them out. The shows are awesome. It's going to be me, Tim, Sarah Longwell. It's going to be a lot of fun. So get your tickets now. I guess I should probably do a little backstory here, right? Like why we ended up with Hungry Out. So basically this week, kind of not

[Jared Polin]

kind of a little bit out of

[Sam Stein]

nowhere, I would say I don't know. Do you agree with that? That this happened out of nowhere?

[Jared Polin]

Yeah, it was out of nowhere. I mean, it was around the Navy ship building stuff, but it was pretty much out of the blue.

[Sam Stein]

Okay. So basically what happened this week is that Trump fired his Navy secretary, a guy named John Phin. Now, what's interesting about this is John Phelan was a Trump friend, a big time Trump donor. So he was put into that place because he was, I guess you will. We could call it sycophantic, we could call it supportive, whatever. He wasn't there because necessarily merit. He was there because Trump liked the guy. But then out of the blue, we get word that Phelan is being sacked by Pete Hegseth. And if I read it correctly, Jared, it was because, as you said, they weren't building the naval fleet fast enough, right?

[Jared Polin]

Yeah. So there's a story in the New York Times yesterday about how Phelan wasn't moving fast enough on constructing the Trump Clash ships. And because of that, he got the boot.

[Sam Stein]

And I just want to take a little aside because this is classic Trump. He, he dismisses this guy and it happens in the kind of like most humiliating fashion. So feeling up talking to people on the Hill, it looks like trying to get through to some lawmakers about Navy shipbuilding. This is according to the Journal. Hegseth basically says, we got to get this guy out. You need to hand in your resignation, so on and so forth. So Phil made a round of calls, including to the President's Executive assistant, saying he needed to speak with Trump. Feeling then headed to the White House. Once the President had a spare minute Wednesday evening, Feeling asked to keep a job, but the Commander in Chief backed Hegseth's decision. The episode is a sign that Hexith retains Trump's support despite recent high level personnel churn at the Pentagon. In signing off on Phelan's dismissal, the President sided with Hegseth over a personal friend and neighbor who raised millions of dollars for his campaign. So tough luck. All right, which brings us to Hankow. So he is now the Navy Secretary or acting Navy Secretary, correct?

[Jared Polin]

Yes.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, a little background on this guy. Born in 1971 in South Vietnam, came to America at the age of four. He was a refugee family of refugees. His dad, I did not know this. They went at some point to Niger and his dad served as an agriculture specialist for USAID. Oh, the irony. Then they returned back to the US at the age of 12. Now you found something really interesting about how he was able to stay in The United States. You want to talk about that?

[Jared Polin]

Yeah. So his father won a Rockefeller Scholarship for graduate work at Cornell University. And while he was here at Cornell, his sister was born in the US Got some birthright citizenship, and as a result of that, they qualified for evacuation from Saigon. And Cal put in his book in 2024 that her American citizenship not only saved our family, but it paved the way for each of us to live our own American dream.

[Sam Stein]

So he benefited from birthright citizenship, which is the exact thing that Donald Trump currently is writing. Thousand word bleats, yelling at the Supreme Court because he believes they will rule against him in his efforts to get rid of birthright citizenship. I believe they call that irony. Cow is has naval experience. He was a member of the US Navy. He was part of the United. He was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy in 1996. And then sort of more infamously, famously, he was a specialist and part of the unit. Now, he led the Navy team that was part of the unit that was tasked with recovering the bodies of John F. Kennedy, Jr. And Carolyn Bessette, which is obviously back in the news, because the show Love Story, but if you lived in the 90s, it was a big deal, for obvious reasons. Okay, so talk to me before we get into the videos.

[Additional Commentator]

How.

[Sam Stein]

Why is there so much video on the guy?

[Jared Polin]

So he's ran for both the House and the Senate. 2022, he ran for the House, and in 2024, he ran for the Senate in Virginia. And because of that, he was sort of doing the podcast runs, and he said a lot of very interesting things on those podcast runs. He was doing Steve Bannon's war room. He did an interview with the sort of evangelical praise and worship guy, Sean Foyt, where he talked about Wiccans. So there's a lot of fun stuff out there from him.

[Sam Stein]

All right, let's.

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

We've.

[Sam Stein]

We've waited too long for this. Let's dive into it. Let's play the first clip. It's all of nine seconds. It's about peeing.

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

Like, for crying out loud, you know, if you pee standing up, you're a man. If you pee sitting down, you're a woman. And, you know, it's just really quite that simple.

[Jared Polin]

Nothing says alpha male like being scared to pee sitting down.

[Sam Stein]

No comment on this one. All right, you mentioned alpha males, which was a big theme for his campaign. Obviously, he lost both, so maybe it wasn't as persuasive electorally as he imagined, but it keeps coming up all the time. In these interviews, I guess it's because he, he wanted to present himself as an alpha dude who served in the Navy when he was running against Tim Kane. Let's play the alpha male clip.

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

We need the alpha males and alpha females. You know the, the ones that were like I said, they, they called, they said. I went on some weird cannibalistic rant when I said we need the young men and women that are going to rip out their own guts and eat them and ask for seconds. Okay? That's what we need. We need warriors. Look, I don't care what your pronouns are. It makes no sense to me. Look, we need people that are going to fight for this country and those are people that are going to win wars. Not, not, not TikTok influencers or anything else.

[Sam Stein]

Okay. Very Pete Hegsethian.

[Jared Polin]

Yeah. I would say from watching these, one thing that I really started to notice as him and Pete Hegseth sound a lot alike. Like they're both these anti woke alpha male warriors. And that is the message that he just keeps trying to sort of bring home is that we need alpha males in the military and nothing else.

[Sam Stein]

I will say he was a little bit more open minded than Hegseth in that he was fine with alpha females, which was not something Heth would be comfortable with. Hexith doesn't think it's for women, women to be in the armed forces. There were some really messed up ones, not just haha, look at how ridiculous he sounds. Ones including this really kind of tore me up a little bit. This is just his position on the work of undocumented workers and what you should do with it. With respect to the agriculture industry was

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

in Yuma and 90% of all leafy vegetables are grown in Yuma, Arizona. And if they find an illegal alien sleeping the field, they must burn that entire field because they don't know if that person brings any communicable diseases.

[Sam Stein]

Is that true that they have to burn the entire field if you have an illegal air? I don't believe it.

[Jared Polin]

I don't believe it is either.

[Sam Stein]

Is there like any basis for what he said that for like or is he just. Does he actually believe they should do it? Do we know?

[Jared Polin]

I gave it a quick Google, couldn't find anything on it.

[Sam Stein]

Someone can fact check us on this one, but that seems highly dubious. All right, this one's been making the rounds. It's kind of a popular one now that he's the acting naval secretary. This is about him wearing. Oh, this is because he was being accused of being a white supremacist. He had this type of response to it.

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

This is great. I know I'll be attacked by left and call me white supremacist, but I have one asked for them. It's just when you give me my hood, make sure it's got the little slits and not the circles so I can see better.

[Jared Polin]

I mean, Ban is just eating that up.

[Sam Stein]

Bannon loves it. Little anti Asian bigotry that you can just can get away with if you're Vietnamese. He had a. This one's a weird one because this one is about his belief that California is being taken over by witches. You want to set this up for us?

[Jared Polin]

In this clip, he talks about how this location was originally called Christ Lovers Point and then they got rid of the Christ part. And that is because California has been taken over by Wiccans. From what I understand, he is pretty Christian guy and apparently has big fear of Wiccans and thinks they're taking over California.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, just to be clear, California has not been taken over by Wickens. He believes they might be taken over by Wiccans. Let's play the clip.

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

There's a place in Monterey, California called Lovers Point. Yeah, the original name was Lovers of Christ Point, but now it's become they. They took out the Christ. It's Lovers Point. And it's really. Monterey is a very dark place now. A lot of witchcraft and. And the, the. The. The Wiccan community has really taken over there. And we can't let that happen in Virginia.

[Jared Polin]

I wonder what he thinks will happen if the Wiccans take over Virginia.

[Sam Stein]

Is there a big Wiccan community in Virginia? If so, where in Virginia? But I mean, old Town Alexandria, definitely. Big Wiccan community there. Does he really believe that witches are taking over places in California?

[Jared Polin]

I'd like to think he doesn't, but no.

[Sam Stein]

He sounded sincere there.

[Jared Polin]

Seems really sincere about it. And considering he was speaking to Sean Foyt in that clip, I know for a fact that Sean Foyt definitely believes that the Wiccans are taking over California, man.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, moving on. Communists. He doesn't like them.

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

Ukraine. I'm. As a Vietnamese refugee, I will kill a communist every day and twice on Sunday. The problem is that no one can tell me the. What the desired end state is. What does victory look like in Ukraine?

[Sam Stein]

I guess we should have spent a little time looking at what he was saying about Ukraine, which he seems non supportive of using help with for the Ukrainians. But yeah, it seems comfortable. Killing.

[Jared Polin]

There's A couple clips out there of him talking about how he opposes funds to Ukraine.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, he does?

[Jared Polin]

From the military. Yeah. He is pretty open about his anti Ukraine position. He's not anti Ukraine, but he's anti US supporting Ukraine monetarily.

[Sam Stein]

I guess that puts him in sort of standard company for the administration, which is filled with people who feel the same way. I guess we should jump to don't need NATO because this is related to his position on Ukraine. Let's play the clip.

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

We are Americans. We don't listen to anybody else. They listen to us. Things like NATO, who, you know what NATO stands for, it says needs Americans to operate. You know, they need us, we don't need them.

[Sam Stein]

I'm shocked he lost his election with his ability to come up with acronyms like that. He's wrong, but this seems to be part of his foreign policy.

[Jared Polin]

I mean, Hegseth this morning was saying that alliances are a two way street and we have to work together and that Europe's not pulling the weight. But here he seems like they should listen to us and we shouldn't listen to them at all. And I mean it's very.

[Sam Stein]

Well, no, you're right about that. But now it's like Trump, Trump basically saying they need us. So it's, he kind of fits into the crowd here, but it's not particularly reassuring. If you're hoping that people in the high up ranks of the military in the Navy are, I don't know, believe in multilateral alliances. Here we have two more. I'm going to go with drag queens and then we're going to do. Right. So let's do the one about drag queens.

[Additional Commentator]

We don't need drag queens, you know, recruiting for United States Navy because we're looking for the alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds. These are people that are going to win wars. And of course they said that I was going off some, some weird cannibalistic rant, but that's what the military is made up. And that's what really most of Americans are like.

[Sam Stein]

It's like the platonic ideal of a Republican talking point circa 2024.

[Jared Polin]

I don't know what his obsession is with people who rip their guts out, but he said this on multiple occasions. Like that is his ideal person in the military. Someone that's willing to rip their own guts out and eat them.

[Sam Stein]

And eat them. They gotta eat the guts after.

[Jared Polin]

You gotta eat the guts.

[Sam Stein]

All right, last one. This is bad. Ice again. He seems you know, it's, I don't know if I don't know what the psychology is here, but you know, it's common that the, the sort of immigrants themselves or people who are first generation or second generation tend to be fairly harsh when it comes immigration enforcement in America. It's a pattern that we saw play out in the 2024 election. But you know, like, like we said up top, his family benefited from birthright citizenship. His family came over as refugees. His father served at usaid. He is a beneficiary of amazing generous pro immigration policies for America. And he ran for office on vehemently anti immigrant platforms. Let's play this last clip.

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

That's the big question right now, right? You know, are you better off today than you were four years ago? I mean, if your answer is yes, then you're probably an illegal alien. And I'm going to call ice on you just cruel.

[Sam Stein]

No need for that. But that's what you need to do to run in 2024. Jared, any other thoughts on our new Naval Navy Secretary?

[Jared Polin]

I think him and Pete Heath are going to get along great.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, it seems like that. It seems like that's why he's in there. Although I guess he's got to build the ships fast or else he'll suffer the same fate. And that's not something he can just do.

[Jared Polin]

Got to get the ships built as fast as possible. Which sounds like a really safe way to build ships.

[Sam Stein]

Exactly. As long as they're floating for a little bit and you can show the President you're good. Jared, I appreciate you guys sorting through all this stuff so that we don't have to. It's a lot of work. I'm glad we made this video. Thanks for your service. You're not still on $3ameal?

[Jared Polin]

No, I, I am eating three meals a day. Spending a nice $10 typically. So got a little bit more flexibility in the meals now.

[Sam Stein]

Good to know. All right, Jared, Paul, and thanks so much. As a reminder, we got those shows out in California. May 20, May 21, San Diego, Louisiana. Go to the bulwark.comevents for tickets and subscribe to this feed while you are at it. Got a lot of good stuff here. Take care.

[SpinQuest Advertiser]

I'm here with Spinquest where you can play and win from the comfort of your own home with hundreds of slot games and all of the table games you love with real cash prizes. Right now, thirty dollar coin packs are on sale for $10 for new users. It's all at spinquest.com that's S-P I N Q U-E-T.com Spinquest is a free

[SpinQuest Disclaimer Voice]

to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[Kiana (Shopify Advertiser)]

I'm Kiana, and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like, I can't stop. I'm addicted. Start your free [e-mail].