Andrew Kaczynski (2:36)

Right.

Sam Stein (2:36)

Like, so why don't you give us the backstory about why it matters that Hegseth said this back in 2016 or whatever?

Andrew Kaczynski (2:42)

Well, I mean, it's because him and Trump, and I mean, Trump in particular, suggested that Democratic members of Congress. I mean, guess what? He didn't suggest. Right? He said it.

Sam Stein (2:51)

No, he said it.

Andrew Kaczynski (2:52)

He said it.

Sam Stein (2:53)

He said it.

Andrew Kaczynski (2:53)

Like we're trying to be careful sometimes and say, suggest in our public. He said it. He said it. Yeah. That Democratic members of Congress who said that troops didn't need to follow unlawful orders should be executed. That Trump said, like he's saying. What was the.

Sam Stein (3:09)

Well, he called it sedition. And he said the punishment for sedition is execution. Right. I mean, that's, that's the proper way to. Right. And the backstory was that there was like six Senate Democrats or six Congressional Democrats who had put out a very kind of weirdly timed video or oddly timed video where they just reminded troops that you do not have to follow unlawful orders. Okay. Trump responds. And then Pete Hegseth says he's going to court martial one in particular, and that's Senator Mark Kelly, because I guess Mark Kelly was the only one of the six who was.

Andrew Kaczynski (3:40)

He could.

Sam Stein (3:41)

He could court martial. So then what did you find that made it hypocritical?

Andrew Kaczynski (3:47)

Well, if we go back, you first last week, and the thing that's most, I guess, sort of ridiculous about all this is that what they said is just law. You know, that is just military law. It is military law that you do not have to follow unlawful orders. It is in the Uniform Military Code of Justice. You know, you're required to follow lawful orders, but you don't need to follow unlawful ones. So last week we found a video of Pete Hikeseth giving a speech in April 2016 where he's like, let's be.

Pete Hegseth (quoted clips) (4:18)

Honest, there's a pent up supply of Attacks on Donald Trump on the Republican side of the spectrum. A lot of people held back for a long time. Last debate, Marco Rubio did in this debate. It was Rubio and Cruz drooling, going at Trump. And they went with the New York Times transcript with, with Trump, with Trump University with offshoring jobs and ties. I mean, they were going with everything.

Sam Stein (4:37)

They military leaders saying you could not.

Pete Hegseth (quoted clips) (4:40)

Possibly kill the families of would be.

Andrew Kaczynski (4:42)

Terrorists and they would not follow the order. And his answer, Donald Trump's answ. And what if the generals won't listen.

Sam Stein (4:48)

To you when you say take out the values? Oh, they'll listen.

Andrew Kaczynski (4:51)

That's really not the answer.

Pete Hegseth (quoted clips) (4:52)

No. I got some response from vets on that saying you're not just going to follow that order if it's unlawful.

Andrew Kaczynski (4:57)

Right. Especially because what happened with the CIA last time, they end up with the, they get legal authority, do waterboarding.

Sam Stein (5:03)

Next thing you know, there's a new president and there they have to go lawyer up.

Andrew Kaczynski (5:06)

Yeah. And that was essentially the same thing that all of these Democratic senators were saying right now. I remembered and it's weird because like 2016 seems so long ago.

Sam Stein (5:20)

It is long ago.

Andrew Kaczynski (5:22)

It is long ago. Right. I'm getting older. But there was one of the presidential debates that I remembered when I was like searching for this stuff because I was like, Pete Hagseth, he was like always commenting, he's always on Fox. I was like, what did he say? There was a controversy where Trump literally set it a debate. He said he's going to bring back torture, like big time. All right? And so I was like, what did, what did he say around this stuff? So we went over to the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine, and that's where we found that he said not once, not twice, but three times in comments that were, to be clear, targeting Trump. He's responding to Trump being like, the military is going to follow my orders to say, literally direct quote, you're not going to follow an order if it's unlawful. Military is not going to follow illegal orders. And then there was a whole, a whole thing on Megyn Kelly where he's really critical of Trump, where he's calling Trump all bluster, calls him an armchair tough guy. He brings up all of his draft ferments. He defend, I mean, it's crazy to think about. Now he's defending John Mc, the honor of John McCain.

Pete Hegseth (quoted clips) (6:28)

It's typical Trump, all bluster, very little substance. He talks a tough game, but then when pressed on it, he's an armchair tough guy. I hate to say it, but this is a guy who said that John McCain is not a war hero, yet he sought his own five military deferments because he says big blustery things that people want to hear after seven years of mom jeans from Barack Obama, who refuses to fight the enemy and frankly, has restrictive rules of engagement that hurt our men and women on the battlefield. But he goes way too far. And then when the military says we won't follow illegal orders like torture or killing families, which is not loosening the rules of engagement, he suddenly realizes, wait, I might actually be commander in chief. And the problem here is, is that voters don't know whether you get the bluster Trump, which is the armchair tough guy, or you get the one who walks it back on a statement now and says, no, no, no, I'll follow the law.

Andrew Kaczynski (7:21)

And he's attacking Trump. And he's like, you know, it's funny because the exact quote that Hagseth used on Megyn Kelly is like, trump is going to create ambiguity for the military because he's going to be like, you know, follow my orders. And they might not follow my orders. They will follow his orders. And hey, because that's going to create ambiguity for the military. And that is like literally the same thing that he's now attacking senators for saying. He was like, there. The statement that they give is that they claim the Democratic senators created this process where now, you know, there's ambiguity around should we follow this order? And that's literally almost exactly what Pete Hegseth was saying in these clips.

Sam Stein (8:01)

And that's why we expect that Hagseth will court martial himself at this point right now. Can you. You've watched more clips than probably anyone in human history. I think it might be helpful to sort of get people reoriented by what 2016 Republican primary. Fox News was. This is pre Trump emerging as the candidate. It was like, you know, early on.

Andrew Kaczynski (8:24)

Well, this is March. Okay, so this happens in March. All right.

Sam Stein (8:27)

Yeah.

Andrew Kaczynski (8:28)

And I had totally forgotten about, like, there had been at this point, like, I think Marco Rubio is still in. John Kasich is still in.

Sam Stein (8:40)

Oh, yeah. He was like the last to go eating a bunch of Italian food on.

Andrew Kaczynski (8:44)

The bunch of Italian food in Brooklyn, New York. Just, you know, staying in, living his best life.

Sam Stein (8:50)

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Andrew Kaczynski (10:08)

We had the first Super Tuesday. All right, but. And the first Super Tuesday, Trump won most of the delegates. And this is before, like, there was like, Super Tuesday too. And maybe I'm not remembering correctly, but I think that's when Trump wins Florida and like, Rubio drops out. Yeah, but that's where we are when we're having this debate. And you know, it's like, it's Fox too. It's like Megan, Megyn Kelly is like, really, like, you know, she's the one who's like, bringing the people on. It's funny because you have, you have even Pete Hegseth. So Pete Hegseth is like Pete Hegsest, like, long time, like, crusade almost urban stories on this has been like, we need to like, loosen the rules of engagement groups. And so it's like you have Pete Hegseth who's like, he literally says even. Like, even for Pete Hegseth, Trump has gone too far with what he said. All right? And then like, you have like Carl Higby who's on the other side who's like, defending Trump.

Andrew Kaczynski (11:02)

And so it's like you have those two, those two going at, going at each other. One is defending Trump, one is like attacking Trump. And even, even for, for Pete Hag, Seth, Trump has gone too far in these clips.

Sam Stein (11:14)

So I want to peel back the current A little bit. Then I want to get into your kind of process. The reason I want to book you on is there's an internal bulwark slack thing happening here, which is, you know, when this first happened and Hegseth was like, I'm court martialing Mark Kelly. I was. I slacked internally with some folks was like, I wonder if Pete Hagseth back in the day was like, we can't, you know, troops can't, you know, can disobey unlawful orders. Like, or I imagine he had said it around Obama where it's like, you don't have to obey an Obama order. Um, and there was a colleague here. I just. I'm not going to name names. Andre, who did not, was like, no way. He's like, hag Seth's offer. Like, let the. Let the guys torture. Let him do it.

Andrew Kaczynski (11:58)

Exactly.

Sam Stein (11:59)

Ain't no way. And now they. And so basically you proved that I'm clairvoyant and you made Andrew look silly internally. And that's the entire reason I'm doing this video.

Andrew Kaczynski (12:10)

That's what I thought too. I was like.

Andrew Kaczynski (12:15)

Because I was like searching around and I was like, I was. I wasn't even thinking about Hegseth. All right. When I was looking for the clips, I was thinking, anybody connecting Trump? Pam Bondi, New York Times had a great story today about how Pam Bondi also filed like a court briefing or something saying troops can't disobey.

Sam Stein (12:33)

I miss that one.

Andrew Kaczynski (12:34)

Yeah, yeah, I know, right? There's like so much going on. But I was like, who? So I wasn't even necessarily looking for Hegseth, and he was the one that I found. But I had a very large. Because we. When he picked Hegseth, I was sort of like.

Andrew Kaczynski (12:51)

I was like, oh, my God. Because, like, there's so much to go through because he's been on Fox for forever. Yeah, he's doing speeches forever.

Sam Stein (12:58)

And it's like, well, can I ask you about that?

Andrew Kaczynski (13:00)

Yeah, sure, sure.

Sam Stein (13:01)

What's your process here? Like, I mean, I've always sort of marveled at your ability to dive through this stuff. And honestly, I've tried to an occasion emulate it with just a bunch of like way back machine searches and you know, LexisNexis back when I use that stuff and a lot of Google stuff. But like, what's your process for doing a search like that?

Andrew Kaczynski (13:19)

I mean, at least for Hagseth, the way we found these additional clips was I went to the archive.org Internet Wayback Machine, which has television, you know, they have. They have Internet, but they also have television archived going all the way back to 2010. It's an amazing resource. And I went and searched and, you know, they're like, transcripts aren't perfect. So, like, my name, like Kaczynski is never coming up on the transcripts. So. But I searched, like, unlawful. I looked after. I found the initial clip last week because I already had that saved, because I all. I made a huge database of all Pete Hagseth old comments when he was selected to see what has he said? Who is this guy? What does he believe? All right.

Sam Stein (14:02)

Yeah.

Andrew Kaczynski (14:03)

And so it was. I found the first clip about two weeks ago, but then I was like, I want to really target this whole controversy at the debate. There is no way that Pete Hegseth, Fox News contributor at the time, always talking about military affairs, was. There was no way that he did not comment on this. Right. So I went back and I went to the Internet Archive way back machine. I popped in the exact date and I searched. Just, you know, I put in. I put in Pete and then I like the search string and I put like, Unlawful Orders and it pulled up, you know, at least. At least three clips of him talking about this on Fox News, Fox Business. There's probably. Probably more. There's probably more. But I kind of thought three was enough to like, get the point across that this is what he said. Do you.

Sam Stein (14:45)

Do your eyes start to glaze over ever? Like, do you have bad vision? Are you just. How do you. I mean, we're all staring at screens.

Andrew Kaczynski (14:52)

We're all staring at screens all day, right?

Sam Stein (14:53)

That's a good point. You think it would. It would have materialized now if it was going to affect your vision?

Andrew Kaczynski (14:57)

I mean, it probably is. I have really. I wear pretty. Pretty intense contact lenses.

Sam Stein (15:04)

And if it's not on tv, but like, there's like. The other piece you had was a speech he gave, right? Like, that was not a TV appearance.

Andrew Kaczynski (15:11)

It's on YouTube, I think. I think I found it through, like, Facebook or something. Facebook is a really good place to find stuff, dude.

Sam Stein (15:17)

They have a good search engine. You can do good searches through there.

Andrew Kaczynski (15:20)

Sometimes. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm not really sure why it doesn't work. Sometimes they have a really good date search.

Sam Stein (15:26)

Do you still get the thrill when you uncover like, a good nugget like that or has that worn off at all?

Andrew Kaczynski (15:33)

I mean, sometimes, you know, like, I.

Sam Stein (15:37)

Was hoping you'd say. Yeah, it still gets me jazzed.

Andrew Kaczynski (15:39)

Yeah. I mean, sometimes, like, it's important I still get, you know.

Sam Stein (15:43)

Yeah, nice discovery like that. I guess I want to. There's a philosophical question that I suppose that's worth asking, which is like, you've uncovered so much hypocrisy over the course of your career and, you know, it's great. I mean, it's important, I think that actually is valuable. Like, this stuff is valuable. I want, I don't want you to feel, you know, distressed about it, but like, at the same time, does it act. It feels like it increasingly doesn't matter in politics where it's like, oh, yeah, Pete Hegseth, like, took a diametrically different position nine years ago on this issue. Now he wants to court martial someone for something he himself said. And it's just like, we're going to keep going on with our routines. Yeah.

Andrew Kaczynski (16:20)

I still think it's important. Right. Yeah, it's important, like, we know that he is especially because, like, at least in this particular instance, the, like, the, the harshness in which he's going after like, like, I mean, Trump, like, suggested these people should be executed. Like, he's retrouthing. Didn't he retreat someone who said they should be hung? Like, this is like, this is so. It's like, it is important at least in this distance because, like, they, they stated the Uniform Military Code of Justice. And Pete Hegseth, as we've seen now, is done that at least four times. And, and, and three of the instances is like, look like he singled out Trump. He said Trump might be somebody who issues unlawful orders and if he does, they shouldn't be obeyed.

Sam Stein (17:04)

Yeah. Well, listen, I, I appreciate your work. Okay.

Andrew Kaczynski (17:08)

Thank you. Thank you.

Sam Stein (17:09)

You have to be appreciated. You have one, one person out there at least who, who appreciates what you're doing. No, it's been a pleasure, man. I've always wanted to have you on. I'm sorry it took forever to get you booked.

Andrew Kaczynski (17:18)

Let's do it again.

Sam Stein (17:18)

Would you do it again?

Andrew Kaczynski (17:19)

Yeah.

Sam Stein (17:19)

This hasn't been too many time.

Andrew Kaczynski (17:21)

I'm, I'm available. We put, we put this together and like, I don't know, it's five o'. Clock. We put this together in like two hours. Let's do it again.

Sam Stein (17:27)

Absolutely. It would be a joy. Andrew Kaczynski of cnn, you guys gotta go read his work. Whenever he does something, it's fantastic.

Andrew Kaczynski (17:33)

And sign up for CNN too. It's behind the paywall. Sign up if you want to keep going.

Sam Stein (17:38)

Maybe if you want to keep Kay File going, but also sign up for Bulwark. You know, if you want to have.

Andrew Kaczynski (17:42)

Conversations like this, why not?

Sam Stein (17:43)

Yeah, just do both.

Andrew Kaczynski (17:44)

Maybe we'll start a bundle someday.

Sam Stein (17:48)

You guys have some other things going on. Okay, we won't talk about that. Andrew. Thanks buddy. Really appreciate it.

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