C (2:21)

Because I just don't know enough about it. I think it's something that I was told is under investigation. But Tomahawks are, are used by others. As you know, numerous other nations have tomahawks. They buy them from us. But I will certainly, whatever the report shows, I'm willing to live with that report.

B (2:42)

I'll stop telling lies as soon as a report is shown to me and then I'll just Read from the report. Okay. The reporter there again is Sean McCreesh from the New York Times. And he pointed out importantly, not even Donald Trump's Secretary of defense, Pete Hegg says is saying what Trump is saying. And that is saying something in and of itself. The bombing has become a point of rupture with Donald Trump's MAGA base. Some of its most prominent members, many of whom were already skeptical of of the war with Iran to begin with. Fox News's Laura Ingraham posted on social media that the Trump administration must investigate and address the bombing head on. She called it a, quote, horrible unintended tragedy of this war, end quote. So on this question at least, they seem to have lost. Laura Ingraham. Tucker Carlson is a prominent critic of Donald Trump's war in Iran. He posted this scathing video. Watch

C (3:42)

the bombing of a girls school

D (3:44)

next to an Iranian naval base that was apparently the school of choice for officers at the naval base. These are the children, the daughters of the people were fighting. You have to believe that was accidental,

C (3:55)

despite the fact it Was hit twice, 40 minutes apart.

D (3:58)

Looks pretty much like a double tap, which is to say a bombing and then an attack on the people coming to rescue the injured. But as an American, you have to believe this was a tragic mistake. But we have to verify that.

C (4:07)

Because if you wake up one morning

D (4:09)

and you're living in the kind of

C (4:10)

country that thinks it's okay to kill

D (4:12)

not simply military officers, but their daughters, that country's not worth fighting for.

B (4:19)

Wow. So the deep skepticism Donald Trump is facing again from some of the most prominent and powerful voices inside his own coalition at home comes as Donald Trump's contradictory statements on what the goals or endgame of the war are. His see sign between promising escalation, things like the worst is yet to come, and then looking for an off ramp, telling it was almost over. Those statements look less and less tethered to real things happening on the ground in Iran or any strategy by the day, given that the Iranian regime shows no signs of backing down. Iran's foreign minister told PBS News this, quote, I don't think the question of talking with Americans or negotiation with Americans once again would be on the table because we have a very bitter experience of talking with Americans. That is where we start today with New York times correspondent Sean McRaish. Also joining us, former DHS chief of staff during Donald Trump's first term. Myles Taylor's here with me at the table for the hour. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling is here. He served as the commanding general of the US army in Europe. Sean, your question, and I'm sure you didn't intend to become part of the story at all, so I'll apologize in advance for our coverage if you're part of that. But it did seem like an important distinction that on this matter, he's the only one saying that the Iranians bombed the girls school. Has he? I mean, is that still their position?

E (5:54)

Yeah. So it was interesting. I was asking administration officials all week, and the administration had a line which was that it's under investigation and that the United States does not would never purposefully target civilians in that way. But Trump himself had not been asked. And so I was on Air Force One on Saturday, and we were coming back from Dover, and he came back and I looked at him and asked about it, and he just spit out this thing that it was Iran who was responsible. And I was sort of stunned when he said it because nobody had said that. And, you know, Pete Hegseth was just over his shoulder as it was happening. So I turned and looked at him, and he would not repeat what Trump was saying. And the look on his face, I think, was revealing in and of itself.

B (6:37)

What is your understanding of whether there's an actual investigation into the two strikes on the girls school?

E (6:44)

I don't know what the status of the investigation is. Caroline Levitt was asked about that just now at the briefing. Why is it still ongoing? We're, what, nine days into the war now, and this happened on the first day. I think people are wondering what's happening with that. But Trump himself did say to me yesterday that he'll accept whatever the results of the investigation are.

B (7:06)

What is your sense of why they have not settled on a rationale for why they went to war in Iran?

E (7:14)

I don't know. The messaging is all over the place, even about the timeline of it. So it still seems like they haven't all gotten on the same page today. Some of the things they were saying seemed like they were walking back some of the stated objectives. You don't hear them talking about regime change as much anymore. It just seems like they're saying they want to wipe out the, you know, their attack capabilities. But, you know, many questions abound still.

B (7:40)

What was the most interesting thing you heard from Trump yesterday

E (7:46)

on that exchange? I think it was interesting that he sort of backed down a little bit at the end and wobbled. But I felt like when he came out and began speaking to us, I was thinking that he was going to announce he was winding down. It sounded like he was sort of congratulating himself and there was going to be a big but coming, and then it never happened. And so even though it was the first press conference he did since taking the country to war, there was a sense from reporters in the room that we were all sort of scratching our heads at the end of it. Like, what was the point of any of that? It was all over the place.

B (8:18)

I mean, I had that sense going into it. I mean, he's been the most incomprehensible messenger. I mean, Rubio went to the Hill in the early day, the first Monday after the initial strikes and seemed to say, we are at war in Iran because Israel was going to strike anyway. Lindsey Graham was on TV talking about how he went to Bibi Netanyahu and told him how to talk Trump into it. I mean, do they feel, do they still feel like Trump is in control of the war in Iran?

E (8:51)

Was he ever in control? It's interesting because Trump is actually such a brilliant messenger. Anyone who's covered him these last 10 years knows this. He really can oftentimes tap into public sentiment. He knows how to drive a message. He's sort of branding genius. But this subject, it feels he's bitten off more than he can chew here. And even he doesn't seem to know exactly what he wants out of this or when he wants it to end. And there's an almost Kafkaesque quality to hearing him talk about the timeline at this point. It's short, it's long, it's forever, it's however long I want it to be. It's sort of head spinning, isn't.

A (9:29)

Is

B (9:31)

Yesterday he got on the phone, I think, with CBS and said it was almost over. And then ahead of that 5:30 press conference, he seemed to walk it back. Are they sensitive to the stock market on any of this?

E (9:44)

How could they not be?

B (9:47)

Yeah, that's my sense, too. Let me bring the others into the conversation. Jamal Hartling, I mean, Sean, sort of made my point or sort of articulated what my argument was going into this, that Trump is the least. It's like he's someone's grandpa at home watching the war coverage on Fox and shouting at the tv. His utterances don't seem to be tethered to unclassified versions of PDBs. His utterances don't seem to be tethered to any calls to the region. I mean, he has held himself up as having close alliances in the region. He doesn't seem to have any, doesn't ever talk about what other leaders are dealing With, I mean, there are bombs and projectiles landing at the airports and hotels of some of, some of our. And his closest allies in the region. He seems to get up and say things that, that, as Sean says, Pete Hegseth isn't even saying.

C (10:43)

Yeah, there's not a whole lot of forethought, is there? One of the things going to the strike at the girls school I find fascinating. It's just a lack of understanding of the levers of government and what his directorates, his departments do. And he should know if he's in control of the military as the commander in chief, that any kind of incident like this will drive an investigation. The military will do it without being told to do it. I mean, in combat for multiple years myself, there was always the occasion where something happened. It's like, oh, did we screw that up? Or let's find out whether it was a fratricide or a missile going somewhere. It shouldn't. You investigate it and you get the details for him to stand up before an investigation starts and said, oh, yeah, it wasn't us. And then a day later says, well, somebody told me there's an investigation. Yeah, no kidding. There's always an investigation. And you shouldn't say it wasn't us until you get the results of the investigation. That's kind of breaking it down. But the connection though, Nicole, is the fact that he seems to have a secretary of defense that doesn't want to tell him what's really going on other than show him war porn. You know, the flicks of things blowing up and killing people and giving details and statistics. But there's a whole lot more to conflict in combat than just those kind of things. And it doesn't seem like you say it, he's not interested in any of that. He's just interested in the marketing plan, as Shawn just said.

B (12:12)

What is that like for military families?

C (12:15)

Well, yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that and been talking actually to my spouse about that because she said, you know, when you and our sons and our daughter in law were serving in uniform in conflict, she wants something resembling the truth from the leaders of the country. She wants people to get on TV and tell her what's really happening, even though it might be bad news. When is the war going to be over? When are our boys going to be coming home? When is the violence going to stop and what is the plan and how long are they going to be there? Those are some of the questions that the family members have because they don't want to miss Another Christmas without their soldier or sailor. They don't want their kids to miss the high school dance without their dad. That kind of stuff. You know, it's the basic family level things that drives the families at home. While some of the facts are being obfuscated by this administration.

B (13:14)

Can I ask you about the two strikes on the girls school? It seems like if the objective was regime change, which is one of the reasons we don't consistently get that as the reason, but it was one of the reasons and perhaps the one that Trump has posted on social media about the most, but to Sean's point, not really talked about that much publicly or in his phone calls with reporters. But it would seem that bringing a majority of the Iranian people along with the military effort would be important and that a strike on a girls school where 130 school age little girls die would be the kind of thing you'd really want to. Again, strategically, if it was a mistake, admit the mistake, apologize and go about the other strategic objectives. I mean, what do you think happened?

C (14:04)

Well, it could be a number of things. And again, this is where an investigation becomes important. You know, every time you hit a target in combat, there's a strike package. Here's what we're hitting, here's why we're hitting it, here's how it affects the overall war, here's the intelligence that backs that up. Here are the second and third order effects that may occur. So it may have been a targeting error. They thought it was a intelligence headquarters and oh my gosh, it turned out to be a girls school or the Iranians wanted us to believe it was a target of an intelligence center and they advertised it as such. And we hit a girls school and didn't say, here's the intelligence behind it and here's why we missed the target. Again, those are all the things that go in an investigation. It could very well be a good target. Pardon me for saying that, because it may have been on top of a ammunition storage dump or an intelligence center or a headquarters and the Iranians purposely had a girls school on top of it. That comes out, it came out in the attacks in Gaza. But what we're portraying now is more like the attacks that Russia conducted against Ukraine. When they hit that music school and then said, wasn't us, we didn't do it. Well, who else is out there? You know, that's the kind of questions you have to ask in these kind of investigations.

B (15:19)

Miles, let me bring you in on all of this. First, the President's. I hate to use the word performance. Because to the general's point, these are. There are parents watching to find out how long their kids are going to be deployed, praying that they won't be among those killed or injured. And to call it nonsense is probably the nicest thing I could say about it. It is inconsistent and at points incoherent and rarely seems to reflect revelatory information about the war in Iran.

F (15:54)

Yeah, Nicole, I think a good question to ask today is why did Trump start to change his tune yesterday and dial back his rhetoric about regime change? You could say that when he went to Dover and he saw the caskets, that affected him. But I gotta tell you, from two and a half years in his first administration, I never saw an instance where the deaths of people in the military or law enforcement really affected the man and his decision making. He. He was much more affected by decision making about money. And I don't say that lightly, but Donald Trump is not a man that's really known for his foresight or his judgment or his knowledge of history. But I've got to imagine that this week, Nicole, as things started to get worse with oil prices, someone walked into the Oval office and said, Mr. President, you don't want to be Herbert Hoover. And he said, who is Herbert Hoover? And he had to be told, that was the president that presided over the start of the Great Depression and the stock market crash. And the president probably said, ah, I don't want to be Herbert Hoover. So the actions you're seeing him take, if it's called backpedaling, is probably done so that markets aren't spooked, not so that families aren't spooked. And that's what worries me, because even if we end this war today, Nicole, the Iranians won't end this war today, they won't end it next week, they won't end it next year. Historically, they have a very long memory, and they will be dead set on attacking Americans for many, many, many years to come. And so will their allies. Donald Trump has gotten us into a much, much worse situation than he realized.

B (17:28)

Miles, let me play this for you. Donald Trump on the war being both complete and also just beginning. You've said the war is, quote, very complete, but your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it? And how long should Americans be?

C (17:45)

Well, I think you could say it both. We could, we could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here, I could call it. Or we could go further. And we're going to go further.

B (17:58)

Miles, you worked for him What? What? Translate. What does that mean?

F (18:04)

I honestly think his. His actions throughout the whole conduct of this war so far in so many ways, put American lives in danger. Think of it this way, Nicole. Donald Trump is like the guy who runs into a crowded theater and yells, fire. He created this huge panic in the region, a huge conflict. But instead of putting the fire out, he's now closing the doors to the theater and he's allowing the thing to burn. Because even if he exits right now and he ends it quickly, the chaos is still going to be enormous. And even if it continues, it's going to burn to the ground. And that's not just in the region. I mean, here on the home front, they've gone further than making the United States unprepared. The White House is reportedly still sitting on urgent intelligence bulletins to state and local law enforcement around the country. That's not just performative to protect the president politically. That has real impacts on the ground. I used to write those bulletins when there were terror threats, and that meant that state and local law enforcement got a direction from the federal government to reallocate their resources to places to protect human lives. Maybe that's synagogues that could be targeted in places like Pittsburgh. Maybe that's locations in Los Angeles that might be targeted by Iranian proxies. That's important. And the White House is not even doing its most basic job of protecting Americans amidst this conflict that they created, because no one knows what the president is thinking from one moment to the

B (19:27)

next, including maybe the president. Sean, that's why your question was so important and really revealing him, how he's sort of bobbing and weaving through these things that he seems to think are stories in the media and not news and events that he put in motion. We really appreciated the question yesterday and the opportunity to talk to you about it today. Thank you for starting us off. Thanks, Miles, and the general. Stick around after the break. Our next guest is giving voice to the fears many people have when it comes to how the Trump administration. Administration is handling the war in Iran. Quote, they are making it up as they go along, he said. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy will be here. Plus, there are new fronts today in Donald Trump's effort to seize our elections. From an FBI raid in a state that has been a hotbed for election deniers to a new push for voter suppression in Congress. Marc Elias will be here to break it all down. And later in the broadcast, law enforcement in the state of New Mexico searched the ranch of Jeffrey Epstein. And what is the most visible sign yet that a probe into the Epstein case is heating up there. All those stories and more when Deadly in White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

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B (22:20)

It is the 10th day of the war in Iran, and here is where things stand. 8 United States servicemembers have lost their lives. Earlier this afternoon, the Pentagon confirmed that 140 service members have been injured. The average price of gas is $3.54 a gallon, the highest since Trump took office and up 55 cents since the day the war started. And when asked about when we, the American people, could expect the war to end, Press Secretary Caroline Levitt would not commit to any timeline. She said that the war will end only when Donald Trump, quote, determines the military objectives have been met, fully realized, and that Iran is in a position of complete and unconditional surrender. End quote. I want to bring in Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Senator, you've been prolific social media and in other interviews and I just want your take on this excruciating moment for Any military family, any military spouse, any, any kids who have yet to hear the President, United States articulate a clear mission, a clear timeline, strategic objectives or definitions for success.

A (23:32)

The most sacred responsibility that a Commander in Chief has is the decision on when to send our men and women into war. Because it obviously exposed our young soldiers to the unthinkable, to dying in combat. And that's why our founding fathers said one person shouldn't be in charge. It should be up to Congress listening to the American people. I just came from a two hour closed door classified briefing on the war. Just confirmed to me it's totally incoherent. We are not going to be able to achieve any of our stated objectives. But I mention it because it's another closed door briefing. We have still not yet heard a full explanation as to why this is necessary. We still have had no hearings in front of Congress that the public can see. And I think that's pretty simple because if the President did what the Constitution says, come to Congress to get authorization for this war, he wouldn't get it. Is the American people would demand that their member of Congress, their Senator, whether they be a Republican or Democrat, vote no. Because this is a disaster of epic proportions. It's already getting Americans killed, it's driving up prices here at home. Harder line leadership, more antithetical to US Interests are strengthening inside Iran. And there's really no way that we're going to be able to destroy their nuclear program because most of it is buried underground unless we mount a ground invasion which would be even more disastrous and more unpopular. This has just been a debacle, a 10 day debacle. And we're going to use whatever leverage we have in the Senate to try to prompt those hearings, to try to prompt that vote and to get this administration to start paying attention to the Constitution.

B (25:24)

From your briefing or from your conversations, do you have any sense if boots on the ground are, are a serious consideration?

A (25:34)

Well, they certainly have not taken the option of ground troops off the table, neither publicly nor privately. Now every single briefing you have, you get a surprise. We got one just about 30 minutes ago when the Department of Defense told us that in fact their nuclear program and getting rid of it is not, not an objective of this war. Literally in my other ear, I'm listening to Ted Cruz on another network explain why this military mission is so essential to destroy the nuclear program. I may have to walk over there and tell him that in fact the administration is now briefing Congress that getting rid of the nuclear program has nothing to do with this mission. But it speaks to the incoherence. I can't really blame Ted, because every single hour, the objectives that they state publicly and privately for this war. War change. So, yes, every time we get a briefing, we learn something new. But we shouldn't be learning the objectives for this war. It should be the American people who are learning about why they're going to be paying thousands of dollars more every year for gas and for groceries for everything else they buy as this war grinds the global economy to a halt.

B (26:44)

Yeah, I mean, let me just show you what has happened to gas prices over 10 days. This is according to AAA. Before the war started 11 days ago, gas was national average gas price was $2.98. It is now $3.53. It's on a trajectory that speaks for itself, especially ahead of spring break and Easter and Passover and ahead of summer. Do they have a strategy for this other than Donald Trump basically telling oil tankers to man up and just go for it?

A (27:17)

No, they have no strategy to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And that's what this basically comes down to. This is a 21 mile wide stretch of water that all the Middle Eastern oil moves through. Iran essentially controls it. Why? Because even if you destroy their navy, all they have to do is drop a handful of mines in that water. Maybe they've done that already and no tanker, even with an escort, is going to move through. But even if we wanted to escort the tankers, you know, you're talking about devoting the entirety of the US Navy just to move tanker traffic through the strait. It's just a debacle. Totally foreseeable. And there's no sign that it's getting better. The tanker companies have basically made it clear we're not moving any product through the strait. The US doesn't really have the capacity to escort all the traffic that needs to move through. And so global oil market analysts are telling us this might be Armageddon. Like prices might be 5, 6, $10 pretty soon. And that's just not. Your family's having trouble filling up your gas tanks. That means the price of food doubles, as well as transportation costs to move everything throughout this country skyrocket.

B (28:38)

What is the reason if the nuclear program isn't the reason? As poor Ted Cruz, I never thought I'd put those three words together. Is over there talking about nukes. And we know that the intelligence did not suggest that an attack was imminent from Iran. What is left? Why are we at war with Iran?

A (28:57)

Great question. Yeah, great Question. I mean, the simplest explanation might be the one that they gave 24 hours in, that they've kind of tried to backtrack since, since then, which is that Israel made us do it, that Bibi decided on this timeline, Netanyahu decided he wanted to attack, and he convinced Trump to join him by scaring Trump into believing that US Assets in the region would be at risk. And so Trump was better off just joining Netanyahu. I hope that isn't the full explanation, but you're right. As we are now hearing that the nuclear program is not part of their targeting campaign, as we're now more confident that even harder line leadership is taking hold as the Strait of Hormuz is still being shut down, even as we get their navy, what's left as the explanation? It might just be that Israel forced our hand. And how weak does that make the United States look? How weak are we if our allies can force us into wars of choice that are bad for US national security interests?

B (30:03)

When you talk about an oil Armageddon, what tools? I mean, if this was a sort of functioning administration, what would the collaborative effort be like to deal with an energy Armageddon? And let's stipulate they are not. They don't seem to be on the same page on much of anything.

A (30:25)

Well, I mean, that's kind of asking, you know, after you drop an egg on the ground, what's your plan for reassembling it perfectly into its previous form? Once you break this thing, once you have, once you have attacked Iran, assassinated their religious leader in the middle of Ramadan, there is probably no way to de escalate. They are going to use the one power, the one piece of leverage that they have, which is their ability to mine and harass traffic in the Strait of Hormuz to maximum benefit. So I just don't think there's actually a solution here except ending this war immediately. Even once you do that, it's likely going to take months before traffic restarts, because it's not just the strait being shut down. It's actually Iran's ability in the early days to attack a lot of the production capacity in the region, including Saudi Arabia. So production is down because of those strikes and the transit corridors are shut down. Even if the war ended tomorrow, that's still months before traffic starts, and it's probably even more months. Right. Five, six months before energy prices get down to where they used to be.

B (31:43)

Let me ask you this. I mean, one of the tools they would have, in addition to attacks on energy infrastructure is Terrorism. I think it's one of the 11 rationales that has been offered. Did you hear anything about a ramped up counterterrorism strategy to protect the United States and our allies from terrorist attacks from Iran if they choose to deploy any?

A (32:08)

No. And we are in fact doing the opposite. Cash Patel, over the last year, has waged war on our counterterrorism capabilities at the FBI. He has summarily dismissed some of our top people who hunt terrorists domestically. Right now, cisa, which is the agency that protects us from cyber threats, is closed. Notwithstanding our disagreements with the way that ICE is operating, we've offered Democratic votes to reopen cisa, which is inside the Department of Homeland Security rule. Republicans have refused. So not only are they not standing up protection against terrorist attacks, they are weakening our ability to find those plots and. And stop them. And the plot and the threat is going to increase. Traditionally. Nicole, as you know, we've traditionally faced threats from Sunni terrorist groups. That's what ISIS and Al Qaeda were. But Shia militancy will grow again in the wake of the United States having assassinated their holy leader during the holy month. Those Shia militancy groups, which have been quieter in terms of their designs against the United States, will likely get much louder.

B (33:25)

Senator Smarvey, thank you for taking us around the. I want to say around the world, but we can get much beyond Iran and. And the United States. To be continued. Thank you very much for your time.

A (33:36)

Thank you. Yep.

B (33:38)

We will follow up on everything we just heard from Senator Murphy with our panel. We'll also talk about our friend General Mark Erling's incredibly timely and important and moving new book about sacrifice and leadership and parenthood. Stay with us.

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we're back with Miles Taylor and General Mark Kirtland. General, the senator there, taking us through the economic insecurity that's been created, the domestic lack of security with the purging of all the folks that protect us against terrorism. But really, the thing we've been talking about all hour, the lack of a coherent objective for a war that's already taken the lives of eight service members.

C (35:37)

You know, the military will take the command from the Commander in Chief and say, okay, here's what you want us to do, we'll do it. All the other government agencies are saying, okay, how do we contribute to that? And what we're hearing is not a contribution. It's a confusion. Each one of them is saying something different. We're hearing that not only from members of the Congress and the Senate, but also the Department heads, the Defense Director, the CIA director. All those people are saying something different in terms of what the mission is. If you don't know what the mission is, you can't support it. And if there are 14 different missions, you're going to have 14 different solutions or 28 different solutions for how you're going to get support from Homeland Security and the FBI. That's what troubles me the most. I mean, you know, I think the President thinks that he can use the military any way he wants and achieve the kinds of results he saw in Venezuela or the one strike against Soleimani. But when you go into something massive like this, there are going to be second, third, fourth and fifth order effects beyond what's going on in the war. That's what really concerns me and Miles,

B (36:45)

the Senator pointing out that we're going in the wrong direction when it comes to beefing up our protections against the risk of terror attacks.

F (36:55)

Yeah, he was absolutely right to point out that the White House seems pretty much content to have the Department of Homeland Security shut down even as the senator noted, rebuffing offers from Democrats to reopen parts of that department, critical parts that would protect against cyber attacks and terrorist attacks. I mean, Nicole, the only thing I can think of to compare this to is it's like a bureaucratic hostage situation because even the agencies that are still fully operating like ICE and cbp, they've been told to send their counterterrorism people off to do deportation arrests. They've taken them off the mission. The intelligence professionals that are still on the job have been told to keep their bulletins and their warnings to themselves. The counterterrorism professionals that are still at their desks are being told to focus on antifa, a made up domestic terror threat when we may well face the biggest foreign terrorist threat we have faced since 9 11. And then Carol Lennox just dropped a story that said at the FBI, people are calling it bureaucratic decapitation, institutional decapitation, because so many counterintelligence and counterterrorism officials have been fired. I don't think people realize how serious this is. I mean, quite truly we could be moving towards something that's as big of a deal as the threat level we faced before 9 11. Certainly we now have an adversary capable of carrying out that type of attack at some point.

B (38:16)

Absolutely harrowing. Miles Taylor, thank you for joining us. After the break, Lieutenant General Mark Hertling is out with an incredible new book about his experience with war. We'll read from it. We'll talk about it next.

F (38:33)

How many American deaths are you willing to have in this war?

C (38:37)

Well, as I said before, when you have conflicts like this, you always have death. We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That's the way it is.

B (39:01)

That's the way it is said no president ever. Rather callous, quite unpresidential language for taking the United States of America to war. That is now part of a new pattern made normal by Donald J. Trump, the president who reportedly denigrated soldiers who gave their lives in war as quote, losers and suckers. Reporting first revealed by the Atlantic and later corroborated multiple times. The president says that deaths are, quote, the way it is now as eight American soldiers have died during the ten day old war with Iran. The idea of sacrificing your life for your country is something that is foreign to Donald Trump. He said he doesn't understand it, quote, what's in it for them? He asked one of his top generals. But it is something every soldier in every military family lives with. They grapple with it, and it's something my guest here at the table, General Mark Hertling, faced himself while serving his country in the Gulf War. He wrote letters to his family if the worst came to pass. He's now published them in a new book called if I Don't Return. Gemma Hertling writes this quote. I had the sober and nagging realization that our two young sons just might grow up without really knowing their father. My remedy was to begin a journal. If I didn't come home, at least our boys would have my words, know my actions, remember some things about me as they grew. Soldiers have done this for generations, and those journals often outlast the battles themselves. Frank, unfiltered accounts, more powerful than official histories. But against the predictions, I survived. We're back with General Hertling. I'm so glad you did. Your contributions to this program are immeasurable, and I'm so glad that we get to have these conversations. I told you this. I've read this. I haven't read it without crying yet, but I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try. So this is how it starts. To Todd and Scott, your sons. The pages that follow contain the random thoughts I had during my deployment of Operation Desert Shield. I arrived in Saudi Arabia today with the knowledge that this would be a significant event in my life that I might want to share with two of my three best friends, with the hope that this might give you insight into the man you both call dad. I'll record my thoughts so that you might share them with me when I return. I love you both, dad. Your third best friend is your wife. Tell me. Tell me about what you wanted to. What you wanted them to know. You know, how this started. Did you want them to know the sort of. The minutiae or the big things, or did you just want them to know you?

C (41:40)

All of the above. I mean, it was interesting because as you read through the book, you know, I bounced between subjects. There were some really deep thoughts, and there were some days where I talked about MREs or the details, my best friends. I mean, the silliness or, you know, what was going on in the army or when the war started. I took the pause after we fought to write the details of that. So it was really just giving them a history of who I was, to give them a feel for what was happening to me and the way I was thinking about different things. But in those moments, I was trying to teach them things as well, about character, about values, about friendship, about love and finding a mate. All those things. Yeah.

B (42:25)

What do you think they learned from you?

C (42:31)

Well, it was interesting because when our youngest son found this journal just a couple years ago and started typing it up and then gave it to me in the Christmas of 24, he said, dad, you were there. We know what you were doing. We read this thing you were preparing us for in case you didn't come home, but you've been back to Iraq a couple more times and we've been there. Even though my wish for them was never to go to war, Both of them spent 11 different combat tours between the two sons and our daughter in law, who were all soldiers. And they said, tell the story that changed your life. Tell the story not just as a young major, but as you went through the ranks and did other things and led more soldiers into combat. So he was very interested in thoughts. And what he said was, we now have five grandsons and they need to know who you are today. Not then, but today. So that's what started this whole thing. And Nicole, I've said this before, I don't think he thought I was going to do it when he handed me the manuscript and said, you need to do it for us and your grandchildren. But it was a project that I would dive into every night and the outline was present. I mean, it was in the journal entries I wrote back then about all the silly things.

B (43:49)

What's harder, being the parent that started the journal, knowing as you write that you might not come home or watching your own sons deploy?

C (43:58)

Oh, yeah. My wife summed that up really well. She said it is having your family serve in uniform is at once your greatest fear, but it's also your greatest pride because they are doing something bigger than themselves, you know, and she's one of the heroes of the book because while we were doing those 11 deployments from 2003 until 2013 and then beyond with our oldest son who's still in the military, she was at home. She had one four month period during that 10 years where all of us were home. So it kind of gives an indication of what the military families do. Which gets to your point about earlier. They sure would like to know, right? Information. They don't want to be BS'd by somebody that knows the truth. So it's important to have that trust connection between the leaders and the lead and the leaders of the government and those who serve it.

F (44:58)

Right.

B (44:58)

It affects every aspect of their life, big and small. We have much more. We have to Sneak in a quick break. We'll be right back. I want to read something from the book about leadership. This is from page 240. Quote, While most researchers say the three key elements of leadership are defined by a leader's attributes, competencies, and influence methods, a leader must also incorporate the context in which he or she is leading. Context requires understanding the scope and scale of the issues, the culture of the organization, and the growing responsibilities placed upon you. It requires widening the aperture, recognizing that a broader, more diverse group of followers depends on you. This is obviously what you embodied. It's what the people that you know. It's the reason that the American people hold the military in such high regard. What is it like to have someone like Donald Trump as commander in chief?

C (46:00)

You know, the military is in a situation where they obey the orders of the president, the officers take an oath to the Constitution, and they translate those orders from the president to the soldiers. It gets back to, how do you translate some of these things? How do you make it matter for the soldiers that are under your charge? How do you tell family members that officers always get together before a deployment and say, here's where we're going and here's what we're going to do, and we need your support. So it makes it more difficult. You know, when you go to the War College, Nicole, it's funny. It's a year worth of being instructed in strategy. And somebody summed it up for me under four terms. Always take the high ground. Personalities matter. Logistics determine the arts of the possible. And the fourth one was words are important, so you better be precise. We're not being precise in what we're asking our soldiers to do.

B (46:57)

It's a really important book. It really centers, should center all of our coverage of what's happening right now. It is an absolute privilege to get to have these conversations with you, and we'll do more tomorrow.

C (47:08)

Thank you.

B (47:08)

You're my next guest on the podcast.

C (47:10)

Good. Looking forward to that. It's going to be fun. We're both going to cry.

B (47:13)

We're both going to cry. I barely made it through this one. The book is out today. It's called if I Don't Return. Pick it up and read it and take it in and talk about it with your family. Coming up next for us, Donald Trump's efforts to seize control of our elections is ramping up and it's very public. We'll have that story after a quick break, so don't go anywhere.

D (47:35)

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