How Trump is Abusing the Military - with Senator Tammy Duckworth

Summary

Podcast Summary: "How Trump is Abusing the Military - with Senator Tammy Duckworth"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know
• Host: 186k Films
• Episode: How Trump is Abusing the Military - with Senator Tammy Duckworth
• Release Date: July 16, 2025

---

Introduction

In this compelling episode of "Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know," host Hasan Minhaj engages in a profound conversation with Senator Tammy Duckworth, a two-time Peabody Award-winning comedian, decorated military veteran, and the first Thai American woman elected to Congress. The discussion centers around former President Donald Trump's misuse of military resources, the sanctity of the military's role in society, and the pressing issues within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

---

Senator Tammy Duckworth's Background and Humor

Humor as Survival

• [00:06] Hasan Minhaj: Opens with admiration for Duckworth's dark sense of humor, connecting it to her resilience.
• [00:24] Tammy Duckworth: Attributes her humor to survival and "army humor," emphasizing that laughing is a coping mechanism in the face of adversity.

Military Service and Personal Sacrifices

• [00:52] Hasan Minhaj: Highlights Duckworth's harrowing experience in Iraq, where her Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in 2006.
• [01:43] Tammy Duckworth: Confronts former President Trump's disrespectful remarks towards the military, specifically addressing "Cadet Bone Spurs" and advocating for genuine support for the armed forces.

---

Critique of Donald Trump's Use of the Military

Obscene Military Parades

• [08:43] Hasan Minhaj: Brings up Trump's military parade celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, questioning its necessity and cost.
• [09:53] Tammy Duckworth: Labels the parade as "obscene," arguing that the $60 million could have been better allocated to support homeless veterans, food stamps for military families, or scholarship funds.

Militarization and Authoritarian Tendencies

• [12:07] Tammy Duckworth: Criticizes Trump's politicization of the military, stating, "He's moving the military towards that. Where Americans won't respect the military anymore."
• [14:40] Tammy Duckworth: Explains Trump's attempts to manipulate military law to justify using troops for domestic purposes, violating the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits military involvement in civilian policing unless under foreign invasion.

Implications for Democracy

• [19:31] Tammy Duckworth: Discusses the incident where a U.S. Senator was manhandled by DHS, highlighting escalating authoritarian tactics that threaten democratic norms.
• [21:58] Tammy Duckworth: Emphasizes the importance of checks and balances, stating, "Congress should be able to stop him because our Republican colleagues will not stop him."

Notable Quote:

"Trump is politicizing the military... It's at the request of the local community."
— Tammy Duckworth ([12:20])

---

Veterans Affairs (VA) and the PACT Act

Challenges within the VA

• [31:07] Hasan Minhaj: Shifts focus to Duckworth's work with the VA, specifically the PACT Act aimed at aiding veterans with service-connected disabilities.
• [32:49] Tammy Duckworth: Details the legislative efforts to streamline benefits for veterans exposed to harmful substances like Agent Orange and burn pits, noting the bipartisan support for the PACT Act.

Personal Experience with VA Benefits

• [36:26] Hasan Minhaj: Inquires about Duckworth's personal challenges with the VA.
• [36:10] Tammy Duckworth: Shares her struggle to prove her amputee status to receive VA benefits, highlighting systemic inefficiencies: "The rules of the VA were so moribund that I had to wait 90 days to go in to see a physician's assistant to prove that I was still an amputee."

Impact of the PACT Act

• [31:17] Tammy Duckworth: Explains that the PACT Act has already benefited over 1.8 million veterans by presuming certain illnesses are service-connected, thereby streamlining access to necessary treatments.

Notable Quote:

"The VA was saying things like, oh, you have leukemia... you can't get your benefits."
— Tammy Duckworth ([06:10])

---

Addressing Waste and Fraud in Government Agencies

Combating Fraudulent Claims

• [38:28] Tammy Duckworth: Recounts her aggressive stance against fraudulent VA claims, exemplified in a 2013 hearing where she confronted a veteran falsely claiming severe disabilities.
• [40:12] Hasan Minhaj: Questions the balance between eliminating fraud and supporting genuine veterans, prompting Duckworth to clarify her approach.

Systematic Approach to Reform

• [42:16] Tammy Duckworth: Differentiates between genuine anti-fraud efforts and reckless policies, criticizing Trump's administration for actions that ultimately cost taxpayers more rather than saving money.

Notable Quote:

"If you want to go after waste and fraud, let's do it. Roll up your sleeves."
— Tammy Duckworth ([42:16])

---

Preserving Democratic Principles and the Military's Role

Upholding the Constitution

• [24:56] Hasan Minhaj: Challenges Duckworth on the military's duty to the President versus the Constitution.
• [24:56] Tammy Duckworth: Clarifies that military service is an oath to defend the Constitution, not to serve the president personally: "I disagree with the war in Iraq, but I value a military being subservient to the civilian leadership more."

Resisting Unlawful Orders

• [30:13] Tammy Duckworth: Urges military personnel to resist unlawful or unconstitutional orders, emphasizing the importance of loyalty to the Constitution over presidential directives.

Notable Quote:

"What I say to them is, are you willing to resign in order to uphold the Constitution of the United States?"
— Tammy Duckworth ([30:13])

---

Conclusion

The episode culminates with a powerful emphasis on the necessity of maintaining the military's apolitical integrity, safeguarding veterans' welfare, and upholding democratic checks and balances. Senator Tammy Duckworth articulates a vision where the military serves the Constitution and the American people without becoming a tool for political agendas. Her unwavering stance serves as a beacon for preserving the values and structures that maintain America's democratic fabric.

---

Key Takeaways:

• Militarization Concerns: Duckworth critiques Trump's use of the military for political spectacles, arguing it undermines the military's respected status and its constitutional role.
• VA Reforms: The PACT Act represents significant progress in simplifying benefits for veterans, ensuring timely and fair access to necessary services.
• Democratic Integrity: Upholding the Constitution and ensuring the military remains apolitical are paramount to preventing authoritarianism and maintaining democratic principles.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Tammy Duckworth ([00:24]): "Survival. I mean, it's army humor. It's survival."
• Tammy Duckworth ([12:20]): "He's politicizing them and he's got somebody there next to him telling them when to boo, when to clap."
• Tammy Duckworth ([30:13]): "Are you willing to resign in order to uphold the Constitution of the United States?"

---

This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of the episode, highlighting Senator Tammy Duckworth's insights and critiques regarding the abuse of military resources by Donald Trump, the importance of supporting veterans, and the defense of democratic institutions.

Transcript

[Tammy Duckworth]

Lemonade.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You have an incredible dark sense of humor. It's like I have had many senators on the show. You have a unique comedy sensibility. And I'm saying this as a stand up comedian. You've endured and gone through a lot of stuff in your life. What gave you this dark sense of humor to find levity in the darkness?

[Tammy Duckworth]

Survival. I mean, it's army humor. It's survival. You don't laugh at it, you'll cry. Right.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Is it true that all your friends that were amputees. T shirts at Walter Reed Hospital?

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

People that have served, but they're now amputees and they would wear T shirts that say, ask me how I lost ten pounds overnight.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah. Do you know which one I wore?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Tell. Tell me.

[Tammy Duckworth]

My favorite one is. Lucky for me, he's an ass man.

[Hasan Minhaj]

How's your husband feel about that?

[Tammy Duckworth]

He keeps throwing it away and I dig it out of the garbage and put it on.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Senator Tammy Duckworth shouldn't be here. I'm serious. In Iraq in 2006, every Black Hawk helicopter that she was piloting was shot down. And the only thing that stood between her and death was the skill and courage of her fellow soldiers. That, and, of course, a lot of luck. It's why she titled her first memoir Every Day is a Gift. And while her personal story is harrowing, it's also been her superpower. Senator Duckworth lived through two different wars in her childhood. Later, she made enormous sacrifices as a soldier, and now she's been on the front lines of fighting for veterans ever since. That gives her a very special credibility to go after the President, who she famously called Cadet Bone spurs on the Senate floor in 2018.

[Tammy Duckworth]

And I have a message for Cadet Bone Spurs. If you cared about our military, you'd stop baiting Kim Jong Un into a war that could put 85,000 thousand American troops and millions of innocent civilians in danger.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So I sat down with Senator Duckworth to talk about her least favorite cadet. How she maintains her respect for the military even when it's run by complete dumbasses. And whether soldiers should follow orders to shoot protesters. Spoiler alert.

[Tammy Duckworth]

No hurry. Right away. No delays. Are Daddy Glass. You have had such a laugh.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You are the first Thai American woman elected to Congress. First the first woman with a disability elected to Congress, the first senator to give birth while in office.

[Tammy Duckworth]

That I tried. That I worked on.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And your daughter became the first baby on the Senate floor. Now, technically, wasn't that Senator Ted Cruz?

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah, They've been babies on the Senate floor for a Long time. A lot of whiners, but yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

How old was your daughter when she set foot, foot on our Senate floor?

[Tammy Duckworth]

10 days old.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Wow. Incredible. Your life that you outline in your book, every day is a gift is. It's truly wild. Let me just give a quick recap for those who haven't read the book, but you should read the book. Okay, so you, you grew up in Bangkok during the Vietnam War. Your father was an American soldier. Then in Bangkok, things get crazy, so you go, all right, let's, let's go to place somewhere that's a little bit more chill. Let's head to Cambodia.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah. Well, my dad, how did that happen? My dad worked for the United nations refugee programs and aid programs. So he, he was one of these guys that was always about bringing help to people. Right. And being so proud to be an American and bringing help, and that's what America stood for. And so he said, well, somebody's got to do it, so I'm going to do it. So he was in Cambodia, you know, bringing aid during that war there.

[Hasan Minhaj]

But you guys were the last commercial flight out before Cambodia. Yes.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah. So my brother, my mom and I left on the last commercial flight out of Cambodia before Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. Yeah, we had to duck the bullets and were flying overhead and all of that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So how do you make sense of you're living through? I mean, this is act one of a very powerful kind of coming of age war movie. Do you see that as kismet, destiny? Like, how do you frame that in your mind or just as a child where you.

[Tammy Duckworth]

As a child, I was so grateful I was American and I could get out. I was so grateful that my dad, this American GI who met a local Thai woman, married her and stayed because there were so many Amerasian children whose fathers abandoned them and went back to the States and they were left there and we called them children of the dust sometimes, you know, And I saw that they didn't have the options. I did. But because I was American and I had that passport, I could leave and I could go and move on with my life. And so I was just always super grateful for having been born a United States citizen. And my dad instilled in me the fact that I needed to give something back in exchange for that. That that was a privilege that a lot of people don't have.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You talk about how you grew up in quote, unquote, privilege in these developing parts of the world. And again, I want to put that word in quotes, developing you live a pretty good life in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Singapore. Then you come to Hawaii where it's quite literally paradise for a lot of people on Instagram. And it's a vacation spot. You take photos with BAE and it's this very posh kind of white lotus experience. But your experience in Hawaii is you and your family, you quite literally are living off of food stamps.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah. And sometimes the food stamps were run out and just trying to survive the best that we could. My dad had at this point been unemployed. Nobody would hire him, who's in his late 50s and I'm now in my late 50s and I think about that sometimes. And he was working for tips only as a doorman at a department store. And literally, you know, don't get between me and a penny on the street because I will pick it up, I will run you over my wheelchair and knock you over to pick money up off the streets because I know the value of every cent.

[Hasan Minhaj]

How did that experience growing up in Hawaii shape your perspective on the social safety net of the importance of it?

[Tammy Duckworth]

I wouldn't be here without it.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Had. If there were not the school breakfast and school lunch program at my high school, 80% of the kids were on some sort of subsistence support school breakfast, school lunch program. Had those programs not been there, I would have dropped out of high school. Stu would probably have been a, you know, good, well being individual, but would have probably lived a life in a cycle of poverty, would never have been able to have gone to college, served in the army, certainly wouldn't be a United States senator. Right. So that program saved my life. The, the fact that there was a public school that I could go to. I remember I came from overseas where in Asia you have to pay to go to school. So a lot of kids don't get to go to school beyond the third or the fourth grade if their parents can't pay for, for the school. And so just the fact that I was able to finish high school, let me give you a statistic that's really scary. The United States military for the last several years had not been able to meet the recruiting goals because they could only recruit from 24% of the 18 to 24 year olds in this country because 76% of them failed the basic entrance examination to get into the United States military. And here's what they failed. They either did not have a GED or a high school diploma. And if they did, they couldn't pass the math and English test written at the eighth grade level. So that's the importance of investing in education. Or they had some sort of childhood health condition that was never cared for, like diabetes or ADHD or really bad teeth because you didn't have dentists. That fails a bunch of people from being able to serve in the United States military. Or they had some sort of criminal conviction usually tied to the opioid epidemic or tied to marijuana. Criminal justice reform that knocks out 76% of the population of 18 to 24 year olds in this country. So if you want to talk about the strength of America and how badass we are as a nation and we can only recruit from a quarter of the population in order to serve in the military, what's the point? Point? If you don't make those investments, then you're not making investments in the people who can make our military great.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Senator, you have a lot of pride in the military. And you, you come from a military family that goes back how many generations?

[Tammy Duckworth]

Pre revolution. Pre revolution, Yep.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You are a Purple Heart recipient.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah, I am. I wasn't trying to get that right. It's one of those things people say, you win one. I'm like, no, I didn't win it. I wasn't. I wasn't a competition.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay. As we.

[Tammy Duckworth]

I'm proud of it, but I wasn't trying.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You're proud of it, but it wasn't something you were going for.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Got it. As we have this conversation, we are a couple days out from the President throwing a military parade for the 250th anniversary of the US military.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Of the Army.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Of the Army. And it coincidentally happened to be the same day as his birthday. Is it a little bit weird that our President is throwing himself a military themed birthday party?

[Tammy Duckworth]

It is very weird for American presidents to do that. It is not weird for tin pot dictators and tin pot dictator wannabes like Donald Trump to do that. It is actually very small. When you're the baddest military on the face of the earth, when you're the strongest, you don't need to do a parade to show how powerful you are. But it was really, for me, number one, obscene. Because we spent so much money on that parade. The total was going to be somewhere around $60 million. For $60 million, we could have saved so many people in so many ways. We could have paid to feed our homeless veterans. We could have. There are 200,000 military families in the National Guard and Reserves who rely on food stamps. We could have given them money. We could have started scholarship funds. You want to celebrate the army? Start a tuition Scholarship fund for military men and women or their children. Don't throw a stupid parade that nobody.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Wants in the United States of America. The articulation of military might. Hasn't it always been through parade? There's always spectacle plus military. When you go to an NFL game, they have the F18s that fly overhead. People go, but that's for a Dallas Cowboys game. Yeah, right. Or. I remember. I don't know if you watched wwe. John Cena announced the death of Osama bin Laden live. I think it was on WrestleMania or Smackdown. I will. We will double check this. I don't know if it was WrestleMania or Smackdown, but John Cena did announce the death of Osama bin Laden. He has been captured and killed.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Hit it. We have caught and compromised to a.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Permanent end Osama bin Laden.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Is the military parade a legit expression of pride or is it a perversion of it?

[Tammy Duckworth]

It's a perversion of it because the military, when we're asked to show up and, you know, I used to do static display, fly my Blackhawk and stuff like that. It's. It's at the request of the local community. They wanted you to fly over the baseball game. You want you to fly over somebody's funeral who serve honorably, that sort of thing. But for a legitimate professional military, where there's separation of the military and the political, you don't cross that line. And you certainly don't abuse our military might by using our men and women in uniform like they're a bunch of little tin soldiers for you to play with. That's not what they are. They're the most patriotic, the most professional people in this country, and they have the greatest respect of the American people. And what Trump is doing is obscene. It's obscene when in terms of spending money, it degrades our military and it makes them more political. And he's politicizing the military. I mean, the military is one of the institutions in America where people still respect them. Right. A few years ago, Time magazine did a poll where. And I'm a member of Congress, where members of Congress. The only thing that had a lower approval rating of members of member of Congress was colonoscopies. But cockroaches had a better approval rating.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Than the members of Congress.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Members of Congress. Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Right.

[Tammy Duckworth]

You know, and I'm.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Cause cockroaches don't get money from super PACs.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah, I guess, you know.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Got it.

[Tammy Duckworth]

But. But here's the thing. He's moving the military towards that. Where Americans won't respect the military anymore. And that is not where we need to be as a nation.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Well, I'd love your feelings about this, because here's how I feel as a citizen. I feel like we're creeping towards authoritarian ish. Donald Trump recently gave a speech at Fort Bragg, and he gave the speech just for some kind of context, literally as tanks were rolling into Washington for the military parade and Marines were being deployed in Los Angeles on protesters. But let's play back a couple moments, and I'd like to know your thoughts on this. Let's take a look.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third World lawlessness here at home. Like is happening in California.

[Hasan Minhaj]

As commander in chief, I will not let that happen.

[Tammy Duckworth]

It's never going to happen.

[Hasan Minhaj]

In Los Angeles.

[Tammy Duckworth]

The governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles.

[Hasan Minhaj]

They'Re incompetent and they.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Paid troublemakers, agitators and insurrectionists.

[Hasan Minhaj]

They're engaged in this willful attempt to.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Nullify federal law and aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders. Very simply, we will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe again. It's happening very quickly.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So essentially, a sitting president is giving a speech to soldiers who are dressed kind of like M. Bison in Street Fighter, akin to Raul Julia in the 1994 film Street Fighter. Great film. Raul Julia, by the way, also played the dad in the Addams Family in the early 90s. So he had a lot of range during his career. May he rest in peace with Angelica Houston. Of course.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yes.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Now, this president is saying that we're being invaded by essentially aliens and protesters, his own citizens of his country, while simultaneously getting members of the military to boo the governor and the mayor of Los Angeles. From what I understand, the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles, and then accusing other people that go to these protests to be enemies of the state. Are we in a dictatorship yet because it feels dictatory?

[Tammy Duckworth]

We're not. He's trying to make it a dictatorship, but we're not. The language that he uses, very specific. Because he wants to be able to put troops where he wants them to. And under the United States Constitution, under American law, there's a thing called posse comitatus, which is our military is prohibited from performing policing functions unless we're under invasion from a foreign source. So when he uses that language, it's very specific. He's doing it because he wants to get around the prohibitions. By law, under posse comitatus, he's not allowed to call up the National Guard without the governor's approval, which is what he did in California. So he's using this language in order to invoke a clause that says, oh, we're under invasion. So I can do this.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Got it.

[Tammy Duckworth]

It's kind of like saying, oh, I want to declare martial law.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay.

[Tammy Duckworth]

And so he, he, it sounds.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So he's using key language to implant.

[Tammy Duckworth]

To imply for legal, for, for a legal justification for the. What they're fighting in the courts. But what they did there was they went and they. My understanding is that they actually asked service members if they were maga and they put all the MAGA service members there, but you're not even supposed to ask them. And service members should not be answering that question.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay.

[Tammy Duckworth]

And so he is politicizing them and he's got somebody there next to him telling them when to boo, when to clap, when to respond.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Oh, like almost like they're in a live studio audience where they have the applause.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Exactly. Going back to. He's using them as if they're little tin toy soldiers for him to play with.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Did you guys hear that X is suing the New York City Attorney General? Elon apparently wants to challenge the Stop Hiding Hate act because it will require X to disclose how much they moderate sensitive speech claiming it would violate the First Amendment. Now, at hmdk, we just started using a platform called Ground News, which shows a breakdown of publications reporting on a story in which way they tend to lean politically, right, left or center. Now, this isn't about eliminating bias. We've all got biases. It's just trying to make you aware of potential biases of different publications so that you can factor that into your own analysis of the issue. For example, with that story about X, I was able to scroll between some of the 43 publications reporting on that lawsuit. And I noticed a right leaning one included a photo of Elon Musk looking like a business class seal team 6. While the left and center chose photos that make him look like he's about to fire unicef. Huh. So you should use the link in the description or go to groundnews.com hasan h-a s a n to get 40% off their vantage plan. The same one that that I use here at HMBK that breaks down to just five bucks a month. For unlimited access, visit groundnews.comhassan and subscribe today. This episode is sponsored by Ekster the future of wallets. It wasn't easy giving up my Velcro Michael Jordan wallet that I've had since 1997. But Ekster won me over. They thought of everything with their Wallet Pro. The sleek, slim design easily slides into my pocket. No awkward bulk or heavy weight to worry about. The Wallet Pro can fit up to 14 easy to access cards thanks to its metal card ejector. Bam. Look at that. Plus Extra has a whole add on ecosystem for your wallet, meaning you can customize it as your lifestyle evolves or devolves. It's rough out there. I'll put this right here just for a little bit. Now my favorite part is that the wallet is trackable using the Find My app. See, right now.

[Tammy Duckworth]

My.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay, my wallet is heading to the elevator. Okay, somebody took. Do you guys know where Austin is? Because I think he took. Okay, I'm going to need a new wallet. Thankfully, right now Ekster is running their summer sale. You can get up to 32% off until August 4th. If you use my code Hasan at checkout, you will get an additional 10% off. Go to partner.extra.com Hasan Minhaj to get the next generation of wallets today. No, but for real though, did Austin take my wallet? So this is pretty unprecedented stuff. Your colleague, fellow Senator Alex Padilla. I mean, this was something I had never seen in my life. I'm 39 years old. I've never seen this in my adult life. But he was recently thrown to the ground and cuffed at a DHS press conference. This is a US Senator right.

[Tammy Duckworth]

In the federal building in his home state, in his jurisdiction.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Tammy Duckworth]

He stood up, said, I am Senator Alex Padilla and I have a question, and was immediately manhandled by dhs.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Right.

[Tammy Duckworth]

And then pushed out of the room and thrown on the, on the floor. But the insult goes way beyond that because the White House immediately does what the White House does, which is start to lie and say, oh, he lunged at the stage. He never identified himself. When in fact we have video that says, actually he just stood up and says, I have a question.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So what's the MO Here? Because even Richard Nixon would go, whoa, this is too far. I mean, Nixon would have liked it, but he wouldn't have done it. Yeah, so. So play the 4D chess out for me. What. What is the administration trying to do by cuffing a US Senator?

[Tammy Duckworth]

He's trying to intimidate and scare people. If they can do this, a US Senator, what are they going to do to the average citizen? What are they going to do to the average person who just is concerned about his neighbor being deported by ice who's a law abiding person and not a criminal. The way Trump said, you know, he's, he, you want to deport violent felons and, and, and violent criminals, go for it, I'll help you. But that's not what they're doing.

[Hasan Minhaj]

People clearly are shocked by Trump's Fort Bragg speech. You are as well. But didn't the Founding Fathers also predict this? This is a quote they did from James Madison in 1787. James Madison writes, a standing military force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The idea of having a military, a standing military, military bases all around the world, this is something the Founding Fathers warned against. How do you reconcile this?

[Tammy Duckworth]

I think he was warning against an excessive executive branch. I think that's what he was warning against. For me. He's talking about the checks and balances. We have to have the co. Equal parts of government, which is what the Founding Fathers put into place when they, when they formed our government, because there are three co, equal branches. And Congress should be able to stop the President of the United States. So should the judiciary. But what we have right now is a Congress that is unable to stop him because our Republican colleagues will not stop him. And by the way, you had a Secretary of Defense who just said that, yeah, I'll do whatever the President says I should do, even if the judiciary says it's not legal.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Well, it's, it's really interesting that you're calling balls and strikes when it comes to serving a president, but being someone who has served in the military, you have to serve the commander in chief. Right, that which is the President. Here's something from your memoir that I thought was really interesting about you. Write about your experience serving in Iraq. The commander in chief had ordered the invasion and the US Congress had voted to support it. So I did what soldiers are duty bound to do. I followed a lawful order.

[Tammy Duckworth]

I disagree with the war in Iraq, but I value a military being subservient to the civilian leadership more. That's why we don't have military juntas. That's why we don't have the military overthrowing the civilian government in this country. So it was important to me that, hey, President Bush was due fully elected and he issued an order that was a lawful order. Even though I didn't think that there were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I wanted to be in Afghanistan destroying the enemies who dare to attack us on 9 11. I volunteered to go. I wasn't even select. I wasn't even actually caught up for Iraq. I volunteered to Go. And I'm still proud of that service because that service is the essence of what has driven me every single day of my adult life, which is to defend the Constitution of the United States.

[Hasan Minhaj]

How did you get yourself to do. How did you get yourself to that place? There's this internal monologue in your head, and I can only imagine how difficult it was. I remember being in high school at this period of time, the mainstream media is talking about, quote, unquote, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It's being co signed by legacy media. There are people that are protesting against it. What made you go, okay, I will serve. I will go there. Even if the Jiminy Cricket inside of you is saying, I don't know if this is entirely right, how did you get yourself to that place?

[Tammy Duckworth]

I knew that going to serve was right because it was a legal order. Had the order been an illegal order, I would not have followed through. This is what happened in Lafayette Square during Trump's first term. He tried to order the military to shoot protesters in the legs. And the military leadership said, no, that is not a lawful order. So you have the requirement to oppose unlawful orders, unconstitutional orders, and in fact, I've asked this question of every single Trump appointee coming before me in the Senate this term. It's like, will you oppose any unlawful or illegal orders or unconstitutional orders from this president? And the ones that equivocate, the ones who can't answer simply by saying, I will oppose, I won't vote for. The military is a unique component of American life, of our society. They play a role, but that role is subservient to the civilian leadership who are selected by the American people. You serve the American people, but the oath of office to serve in the military has never been, I serve the President of the United States. The oath of office is that I will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

[Hasan Minhaj]

What if the military is ran by people you don't respect? I want to play a moment from Pete Hexseth's confirmation hearing where you give him a pop quiz.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Can you name the importance of at least one of the nations in the asean? In asean, and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations. And how many nations are in asean, by the way? I couldn't tell you the exact number of nations, but I know we have.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Allies in South Korea and Japan and.

[Tammy Duckworth]

In Aukus with Australia trying to work on submarines with them. None of those countries are allies across none of those three countries that you've mentioned are in asean. It is shameful that my Republican colleagues voted for him. This is a guy who the largest budget he ever ran was $13 million and he so badly fucked it up, they had to bring in forensic accountants to figure out what he did. And that is his qualification to being Secretary of Defense of a military with a budget of $825 billion. This man is not qualified. He's destroying the military. He, he is destroying the fabric of our system of government because he's willing to lay down everything for Donald Trump as opposed to living by his oath of office, which is to the Constitution of the United States.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So it sounds like your line of questioning is really parsing between two things, which is qualifications versus being a presidential loyalist. Am I talking about this the right way?

[Tammy Duckworth]

No, No. I have three main buckets. I tell my staff when we go to look at nominees.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Tammy Duckworth]

One, are they qualified for the job? Do they know what the hell they're doing?

[Hasan Minhaj]

So that's what that clip.

[Tammy Duckworth]

That was. Right. Because the Secretary of Defense actually negotiates multinational agreements, joint security agreements. And ASEAN has some of our longest allies, some of which the Philippines we colonized. Right. We took by force at one point. So are you, do you do your job? Are you qualified?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah. Number two, ethics.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Are you ethically suitable to be, that is, you know, do you have any ethical problems? And my colleagues before me had proven that he did not have the ethical standing to be Secretary of Defense. And the third is, will you live up to the oath of office and the Constitution of the United States? And he failed on all three.

[Hasan Minhaj]

The long days of summer are already getting shorter and the last thing I want to do with my valuable time is spend hours in the grocery store. Fluorescent lighting is not a great look for your boy. I have decided to make this season both enjoyable and delicious by getting hello fresh. Every week. You can choose from 60 delicious and healthy recipes to have delivered straight to your door. Plus their new ready to made meals are heat and go ready in only three minutes. Next on my list is the chimchurri chicken grain bowl and the spicy coconut shrimp curry soup. I can't wait to add that and try it. I'm getting them delivered to the office so my team stops wasting time on their pesky little meal breaks. Make your summer enjoyable and delicious by signing up for [e-mail] Hassan10 and get 10 free meals with a free item for life. That's hellofresh.com Hassan10FM for 10 free meals and a free item in every box. Hellofresh.com Hassan10fm one per box with an active subscription. Free meals are applied as a discount on the first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan.

[C]

Hey, Julia, Louis Dreyfus here. If you listen to me on my Wiser Than Me podcast, you probably already know that I'm an investor and an evangelist for the mill food recycler. There are a lot of reasons to love mill, but for me, it's all about the impact. Keeping food out of the garbage is one of the most powerful things we can do to help the planet every single day. We're talking banana peels, carrot tops, old takeout. When that stuff heads to the landfill, it becomes a huge driver of climate change. If you already compost, great. But of course, there's the smell, the flies, the running to the curb every day with a little leaking compost bag made of cornstarch. That's where mill comes in. It makes keeping food out of the trash as easy as dropping it in. It can handle nearly anything from a turkey carcass to like 20 avocado pits. It works automatically while you sleep. You can keep filling it for weeks and it never, ever smells. Mill makes dry, nutrient rich grounds that you can use in your garden and add to your compost feed to your chickens. Or mill can get them back to a small farm for you, but you kind of have to live with mill to really get it, and that's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mill.com wiser for an exclusive.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Offer to kind of close the loop here. What would you say to the citizens that are listening to the show that are concerned that we are descending towards fascism and the President is descending towards outright authoritarianism and fascism? And what would you say to your colleagues in the military that may feel that way? How do they grapple with this paradox that we're living through right now?

[Tammy Duckworth]

Well, what I say to them is, are you willing to resign in order to uphold the Constitution of the United States? Are you willing to resign when you are given an illegal order? And there have been secretaries of defense, there have been military men and women at the top, leadership who, who have resigned rather than serve this president, who have been asked to do things that they have deemed has been illegal and they have left and have been many members of government who have done that? What I say to the American people is make sure your representatives, whether it's a member of Congress or a senator, knows. And that's why the no Kings protests were so critically important. I mean, look at the masses of people who turned out and said, this is not acceptable.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Were you shocked by the size and scale of what you saw?

[Tammy Duckworth]

I wasn't shocked, but I was so grateful that it's finally happened. I had hoped that it would have happened sooner, but I'm glad that it finally happened.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I want to talk about some of your work with the va. So the VA is the Veterans Affairs.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Department of Veterans affairs, yes.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And you were instrumental in the passing of the PACT Act, Is that correct? And this was primarily about veterans and their access to benefits?

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yes, it's about veterans who have illnesses caused from within military service getting access to their benefits without being able to definitively prove that that illness is from the service. For example, it comes from the Vietnam era. Really where this started was all these men who served in Vietnam were exposed to Agent Orange. Women, too, but mostly men. They developed these illnesses over the next several decades of their life that could never been definitively proven was caused by Agent Orange. And the VA was saying things like, oh, you have leukemia. B. Can you tell us the date and time that you on the ground with the grid coordinates of where you were when Agent Orange was sprayed on you 40 years ago? Oh, sorry, you can't get your benefits. You can't get your health care. And veterans were dying trying to get in. And so the PACT act is something that came about as a result of that, where we say, you know what? We're going to presume that if you were boots on the ground in Iraq, you were probably exposed to burn pits. And we're going to assume that your Parkinson's disease that you suddenly have developed at age 25 is from that burn pit exposure, because we see that it is 30% more likely or 50% more likely that men who people were next to burn pits, and so it provides them with the benefits that they need. And we signed up a million veterans in the first year and over 1.8 million veterans so far so that they can get treatment for the illnesses that they have now. Respiratory cancers, because they were exposed to burn pits. It was a bipartisan deal. Yeah, bipartisan.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I remember. You know, Senator Duckworth, I gotta. I gotta tell you something. I remember learning about Agent Orange and how it affected people who served in the military. So, you know, my mother, she works at the va. She still works at.

[Tammy Duckworth]

The va. We need to fire her.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Oh, God, really?

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah. We're firing every. The. The VA secretary says he has a goal of 80,000 people to fire from.

[Hasan Minhaj]

The VA. Have you been emailing Elon or what's going on. Do you know something I don't know? No, for real.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Because the VA secretary testified in committee that his goal is to fire 80,000 people from the VA.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So are you telling me that my mom's going to be moving in with me sooner than I expected?

[Tammy Duckworth]

I mean, maybe mine moved in with me. I mean, she didn't work at the va though, but she's, you know, Asian moms move in with you after a while.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And the thing is, I wanted her to move in, but I just didn't think it would happen this soon. The question I was actually trying to get at was I remember learning about Agent Orange and the effects that it had on our military service workers. And I know that as a young man, that created a ton of skepticism in myself towards the military wars, needless wars, its impact on the most vulnerable on both sides, by the way, and then future wars, meaning anytime the United States announced that our country was about to go to war, I always felt just something within me was, for what? For whom? And what do I know that I don't even know yet? Something fucked up is about to happen to people in ways that I don't even know yet. And because of all that, I just kind of, I guess as a artistic pacifist, I walk away from all of it. What got you to walk towards it, specifically with the war in Iraq and now knowing that so many American veterans were exposed to burn pits. I'd love to know how you wrapped your head around that.

[Tammy Duckworth]

No, it's not. It's not how I wrapped around my heads around that. I became a soldier because I was so proud to be an American and I wanted to give something back to this great nation for the privileges I had growing up. I became a politician because of exactly what you said. Because I wanted to be there in the United States Capitol, standing on my titanium legs, asking the tough questions when the drums of war yet again sound, when my colleagues start thumping their chest and talking about invading another country, I want to be there standing on my titanium legs, asking the questions, why are we doing this? What is the true cost? And are we willing to put the bill for that for the next 40, 50, 67 years, as long as these veterans are alive. Now, if it is a noble cause and if it is the right thing to do, fight Nazi Germany, I will be the first to vote for it. But. But I am not going to let you get away with being a tin pot dictator and wasting the lives of the men and women who are willing to lay their lives down to Fight for this country and to lie to America for gin up made up war so you. So you can thump your chest. I'm not going to let that happen. And that is why I became a politician. Because there's not that many people who can stand on the floor of the United States Senate and say that without being having their patriotism questioned.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Is it true that you fighting for the PACT act was inspired by a real story where you had to prove to the VA that you had lost your legs?

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah. So it's about. So the poor va.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Correct me if I'm right.

[Tammy Duckworth]

No, no.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I was like, let me, let me follow the logic.

[Tammy Duckworth]

When I left the military health care system to go into the VA health care system.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Tammy Duckworth]

The rules of the VA were so moribund that I had to wait 90 days to go in to see a physician's assistant to prove that I was still an amputee. They couldn't just give me my benefits. I had to apply for benefits.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So you had, you had to like go in? You had to go in and show them or upload a photo and go. No, I had to go in and.

[Tammy Duckworth]

I had to go in. I had to go in and show them and bring my medical records with me. And the poor physician's assistant didn't want to be there. He wanted to be taking care of veterans who were really sick.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Right.

[Tammy Duckworth]

And he didn't want to be there, you know, going, yeah. Yep. Sure enough, they didn't grow back. How about that? Right. So that's why we wanted to do the PACT Act. We wanted to have presumptive things and that handoff so that veterans don't fall through the cracks, so that they don't die waiting to get into the va. Which is why we ended up hiring more people at va so we could take care of all these veterans so that they. Not unlike the Vietnam era guys who died waiting for their benefits. We're not going to let that happen to the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. And now we have a president in place who says he, you know, he says he's patriotic. I mean, the man molests every American flag he can get around. And yet, Jesus, he calls us suckers and losers and cuts benefits to the veterans who are still here who had more courage than he did. The men dodged a draft five times.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Do your fellow colleagues and friends in the military also feel this way or is there a split?

[Tammy Duckworth]

I think they feel this way for the most part. I think you've got some young kids. If you look at the faces in that crowd behind Him. I think that there is a whole. You talk about algorithms, social media. There is a whole split within the military that happens with some groups that is self fed. But the leadership of the military, as we groom the next generation, I think that they feel exactly the same way. And the young people coming up, many of them feel the same way as well. Are there minorities within the military that goes for this stuff? Sure. But our nation is fractured right now, isn't it?

[Hasan Minhaj]

You have gone hard in the paint today towards our president, but you've also gone hard in the pate against people that abuse VA benefits. I want to take a quick look and play some game tape of you grilling someone about their VA benefits and their abuse of said benefits back in 2013. Let's take a look.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Mr. Kistalu, how are you? Thank you. Thank you for being here today. I am not well, but you're welcome. All right. So your foot hurt, Your left foot? Yes, ma'. Am. It hurts. Yeah, my feet hurt, too. In fact, the balls of my feet burn continuously and I feel like there's a nail being hammered into my right heel right now. So I can understand pain and suffering and how service connection can actually cause long term, unremitting, unyielding, unstoppable pain. So I'm sorry that twisting your ankle in high school has now come back to hurt you. And such a painful way if also opportune for you to gain the status for your business as you were trying to compete for contracts. Do you feel that the 30% rating that you have for the scars and the pain in your foot is accurate to the sacrifices that you've made for this nation, that the VA decision is accurate in your case? Yes, ma', am, I do. You know, my right arm was essentially blown off and reattached. I spent a year in limb salvage with over a dozen surgeries over that time period. And, in fact, we thought we would. Lose my arm. And I'm still in danger of possibly losing my arm. I can't feel it. I can't feel my three fingers. My disability rating for that arm is 20%.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I mean, look, you did go hard in the paint at him here, and you did break his ego in about five minutes.

[Tammy Duckworth]

The man twisted his ankle in a military prep school, went on to play four years of college football, and then claimed 30% disability to get a $300 million contract from the federal government as a disabled veteran. Never, never served a full day on active duty.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Why was it so important for you to highlight this case?

[Tammy Duckworth]

Because there's so many veterans waiting for their benefits and dying, waiting for their benefits. And you've got cheaters like him who do two things. One, he's taking benefits away from other veterans, and two, he's making people distrust the legitimate people who are trying to get benefits. Yeah. The people who are dying of Agent Orange exposure, the people who are dying from Burn Pit exposure. It makes people distrust the VA and the people who are there. And you got guys like that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah.

[Tammy Duckworth]

By the way, he's in jail. He tried.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Oh, he's in jail.

[Tammy Duckworth]

He killed his wife.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah, you should look it up. He hung her. They found her hanging in the basement.

[Hasan Minhaj]

How?

[Tammy Duckworth]

Staged it as a suicide. Yeah. He's not a good guy.

[Hasan Minhaj]

No, clearly not.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

This story keeps taking new twists and turns. Yeah.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah. He's in jail.

[Hasan Minhaj]

My God.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay. This took a very dark turn, Senator. What I was trying to get at was. Well, clearly one of the things that you are trying to highlight is you want to cut waste and fraud.

[Tammy Duckworth]

I do.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah.

[Tammy Duckworth]

I actually passed one of my legislation has to do with cutting waste and fraud in the military.

[Hasan Minhaj]

But walk me through this. So. And this is where the paradox is. So help me solve this. You are trying to highlight and go after waste and fraud clearly through this clip in 2013 with Mr. Castillo, who is a murderer. That's. It's not even the worst thing that he did. In a weird way, then, as we know, Doge goes after waste and fraud. How do you deal with this? What came first, the chicken or the egg? Which is. By highlighting waste and fraud, it will create more panic around waste and fraud, which then may create things like Doge, which actively cut and bludgeon institutions and things in government that are working. But, hey, you might lose an artery. You might lose some vital things along the way. But hey, we have to rapidly cut things down. I haven't been able to reconcile this. I'd love to know what. How you kind of parcel through this.

[Tammy Duckworth]

You can cut waste and fraud, and you can find it, but you have to do it in a systematic way. What Doge did didn't cut waste and fraud. Doge ended up costing the taxpayers tons more money when they froze the funding to USAID programs, which is foreign aid programs. Well, there's a law that already exists that says that if you freeze and you don't make payments for contracts for the guy that brings the food to the refugee camps or the contractor who runs the Voice of America station in Nigeria, and you have that contract, the law says the United States Government has to pay interest on that. So when they froze that and we didn't pay those bills and then they started them up again, it ended up costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in interest. Donald Trump deported, I mean, 100 undocumented people to India using a C17 aircraft to the tunes of millions of dollars, when normally if you use a deportation flight and you contract it with, with a charter airline, it costs $38,000. So Doge hasn't cut any money, hasn't saved any money. Doge has cost the taxpayers millions of dollars more. You want to go after waste and fraud? Let's do it. Roll up your sleeves. I'm on record. I've already saved American taxpayers money. I forced the military. They had a whole boondockle with military uniforms. And we can get into that sometime. It's a long story. That ended up saving the American taxpayers $2 billion in the very first two years it was enacted.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So you're basically saying there's got to be kind of an order of operations. It can't be a group of, it can't be Internet shit posters coming together and hey, let's get into a Google Doc and see what we can do.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Right.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You were the lead sponsor of the bipartisan don't miss your Flight Act.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yes.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Thank you for focusing on one of the most marginalized group in this country. I'm talking about procrastinators like me who are horrible at time management. Thank you for shining your light on one of the most marginalized groups in this country.

[Tammy Duckworth]

This is actually about connecting the last mile from when you take your mass transit system and you get closer to an airport and then you can't get from your stop through the front doors of the airport. So a lot of airports, there's this.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You're talking about connecting flights?

[Tammy Duckworth]

No, no, I'm talking about to get into the airport.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay.

[Tammy Duckworth]

So you take the train or the bus or something and you still have to navigate your way through. O' Hare only has one road in and out of the airport. It's always backed up. So there's not money set aside for improving the infrastructure around, in a five mile radius around an airport. So that infrastructure usually just get. There's money for highways and freeways, and then there's money for the airports itself, but there's not money for that last.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Oh, literally the buses to get from five miles out into o', Hare, into.

[Tammy Duckworth]

O' Hare or at all of our nation's airports. And so there is, there is that gap and, and it, it adds so much time to the to commuters. And then it basically encourages more people to drive, which increases congestion. So this is just about allowing airports to be able to connect from that last mass transit stop and to the doors of the airport itself.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Got it.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

So that's awesome. But I'm still fucked when it comes to if I have a layover flight and the flight initial flight's delayed.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay. Well, you can't have it all.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Can't have it all.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Senator Tammy Duckworth, thank you so much.

[Tammy Duckworth]

Thanks for having me on.

[Hasan Minhaj]

If you haven't subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now's the perfect time. Because guess what? You can listen completely ad free. Plus you'll unlock exclusive bonus content like Halle Berry on how to be a good partner during menopause or Mehdi Husson on the dumbing down of media clips you won't hear anywhere else. Just tap that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe on any other app that's lemonadapremium.com don't miss out.