Pod Save the World – Episode Summary
Title: Is Pete Hegseth a War Criminal?
Date: December 3, 2025
Hosts: Tommy Vietor & Ben Rhodes
Overview
This week's Pod Save the World dives into a tumultuous post-Thanksgiving news cycle, centered on explosive allegations against U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, including the potential commission of a bona fide war crime in a controversial drone strike operation targeting suspected narco-trafficking boats. Vietor and Rhodes also analyze the Trump administration's actions toward Venezuela, the surprising pardon of the former Honduran president, sharp new turns in the U.S.-Ukraine-Russia peace process, the harsh fallout from a tragic D.C. shooting involving an Afghan asylum seeker, and a dysfunctional FBI under Cash Patel. The show ends with an in-depth interview on the erosion of journalism in Russia.
The tone is darkly comic, irreverent, and deeply critical of the Trump administration’s legal and moral compass.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Holiday Chaos & Show Preview
- Light personal banter about Thanksgiving stress and aging sets the relaxed-yet-cynical tone.
- Show rundown: War crime allegations (Pete Hegseth), Venezuela regime change, Trump’s Honduras pardon, Russia-Ukraine peace talks, Afghan shooter in D.C., odd news from South Africa, and the chaos of Cash Patel’s FBI.
(02:35 - 04:15)
2. Pete Hegseth: A Textbook War Crime?
The Drone Strike Scandal
- The Trump administration is running a high-profile campaign against “narco-terrorists” via drone strikes on boats in Caribbean/Pacific.
- The Incident: On Sept 2, a strike killed 11 people. Survivors from an initial drone hit were reportedly killed by a follow-up “double tap” strike, a tactic that’s a classic example of a war crime.
- Command Decisions: Washington Post reports Admiral Bradley (JSOC) ordered the double tap on a verbal directive from Hegseth to "kill everybody."
(06:26 - 08:28) - White House Reaction: Initial denial gives way to subtle finger-pointing; Trump distances himself (“I guess I believe Pete, but I wouldn’t have wanted that second strike”), while Hegseth supports his subordinates but also shifts blame down the chain of command.
(09:13 - 10:32)
Moral and Legal Crisis
- Ben Rhodes: “They know they got caught committing murder…they are acting like people that are guilty of murder because they are.” (11:21)
- Legal context: No congressional authorization for these strikes, no imminent threat, and international law explicitly forbids attacks on those rendered defenseless.
- Military Culture Impact: Punting responsibility to subordinates is seen as cowardly and corrosive, risking long-term damage to military morale and order.
(12:24 - 17:15)
Political & Policy Fallout
- Administration undercuts its own legal standing by shifting stories (“navigation hazard,” “self-defense”), which convinces neither Congress nor the international community.
- Internal chaos: Post-strike, policies changed, suggesting knowledge of wrongdoing. Admiral Bradley meanwhile is promoted, then scapegoated.
- “Stephen Miller wanted to make the snuff films public,” and legal resistance at CIA and DoD reveals deep discomfort within the bureaucracy.
(18:19 - 20:54) - Tommy Vietor: “Pete Hegseth is so obviously trying to fuck over his direct reports the head of JSOC…Not going to go over well at the Pentagon…” (15:16)
3. Regime Change Rhetoric: Venezuela
- Trump threatens Maduro with an ultimatum; hopes for diplomatic exit evaporate.
- U.S. labels Maduro with invented crimes, offers surreal “amnesties,” raises bounties, and floats the potential for imminent ground war.
- Analysis: Motivated by U.S. domestic politics (hopes of locking down Florida), personal bravado, and a flagrant lack of strategic clarity.
(23:28 - 31:31) - Ben: “There’s a lot of momentum and a lot of...when your numbers are slipping below 40% ...this is when autocrats like start wars.” (30:01)
4. Pardoning a Narco-Presidente: Honduras
- Trump pardons Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), recently convicted in U.S. court for decades of narco-trafficking.
- Both GOP and Dems had worked with JOH when expedient; Trump now openly rewards political allies regardless of criminality, an “emperor of the Western Hemisphere” move.
- Ben: “...this gives up the game, you know, to pardon a massive drug trafficker while you’re bombing small boats...how fucking stupid Donald Trump thinks you are.” (37:07 - 39:29)
- This behavior undercuts any ethical or strategic foundation for the war on drugs or regime change rhetoric elsewhere (“blowing up boats” in the Caribbean while pardoning real traffickers).
5. U.S.-Ukraine-Russia: Peace Talks or Surrender?
- Trump’s envoys (Steve Wyckoff, Jared Kushner) in Moscow, crafting a peace plan heavily tilted to Russian interests.
- Major corruption scandal rocks the Ukrainian side: Zelensky’s right hand, Andriy Yermak, is raided and resigns, injecting chaos and likely weakening Ukraine’s negotiating position.
- Russia’s play: grind down Ukraine militarily and diplomatically, encourage internal discord.
- U.S. process marred by corruption, business cronies, autocratic bypassing of “real” diplomats.
(43:30 - 53:32) - Ben: “The Russians are running fucking circles around the Trump people....They form shop, they got Witkoff and Jared. They salute their envoys.” (50:47)
- U.S. proposal bizarrely gives up Ukrainian territory not even occupied by Russia.
6. Afghan Zero Units and the D.C. Shooting: Collective Punishment
- After a former Afghan CIA-aligned soldier kills a National Guard member in D.C., the Trump administration halts all processing for Afghan asylum seekers, and considers expanding the “travel ban” to 30 countries.
- Zero Units: highly vetted, fiercely fought for U.S.—but accused of war crimes.
- Systemic failure: refugees abandoned without support, and a singular act prompts indiscriminate punishment of entire communities.
- Ben: “It’s devastating...the Dumbest thing to do...the cruelest thing to do is then just say, well, we’ll kick out all these Afghans...Any high profile crime committed by any immigrant becomes a basis to collectively punish all immigrants.” (56:59)
- Tommy: “...clearly suffered some sort of deep psychological break… the zero unit tempo of operations…way surpassed even US Special Forces.”
7. Dysfunction at the FBI: The Cash Patel Disaster
- New York Post exposes Cash Patel (FBI Director) as massively insecure, egotistical, and incompetent; even his deputy Dan Bongino (“something of a clown”) is a joke internally.
- Incident: Cash refuses to get off the FBI plane at a crime scene because he didn’t have a jacket with enough patches—agents are humiliated fetching him one.
- Ben: “People who work at the FBI are proud to work at the FBI...they care more about the mission and the institution than Cash Patel and Donald Trump.”
- Administration’s destructive, self-serving management fundamentally weakens America’s systems—and angers the “deep state” they depend on to function. (68:08 - 77:55)
8. Other Global Oddities
- Dysfunctional G20 cooperation with South Africa over invented “white genocide” narrative.
- Scandal involving former South African president’s daughter recruiting her relatives to fight for Russia, highlighting the Trump era’s global populist corruption.
(65:40 - 68:05)
9. Feature Interview: Journalism, Repression, and Exile in Putin’s Russia
(80:19 - 109:07)
- Julia Lochtev, director of “My Undesirable Friends”, and journalist Ksenia Mironova detail the moral and physical dangers facing Russian journalists pre- and post-Ukraine invasion.
- Stories of harassment, arbitrary criminal charges, and the difficult choice between staying and exile—juxtaposed with American media’s own warning signs under Trump’s creeping authoritarianism.
- “Putin’s propaganda...wasn’t really designed to make you believe in something. It was designed to make you believe in nothing...if you believe in nothing, then you do nothing.” — Julia Lochtev (97:09)
- Mironova: “For me, it was just, I don’t want to make more problems for my and his families. So it’s better to leave and to check what’s going on. ... For some of our colleagues it was just so important to stay in effect field to continue their work.” (98:37)
Notable Quotes & Moments
On Hegseth and War Crimes:
- “Even Pete Hegseth…is aware that he’s gonna have a life after Donald Trump is there to protect him…they’re aware that there’s some accountability that may be on the horizon…”
— Ben Rhodes (11:21)
On Pardoning Hernandez:
- “Please point to this as the example, if you can, of how fucking stupid Donald Trump thinks you are that he thinks that he can stand up and tell you that he’s blowing up boats illegally in the Caribbean because he’s trying to stop drug trafficking while he’s pardoning some rich drug trafficker at the same time.” — Ben Rhodes (38:47)
On Ukraine Peace Plan:
- “The Russians are running fucking circles around the Trump people…they form shop, they got Witkoff and Jared. They salute their envoys.”
— Ben Rhodes (50:47)
On the FBI's leadership:
- “He clearly is such a petulant, insecure child, you know, diva. I need the patches and I need the…Walk off the plane and look like a tough guy.”
— Ben Rhodes (72:23)
On Russia’s attack on journalism:
- “Putin’s propaganda...wasn’t really designed to make you believe in something. It was designed to make you believe in nothing. And because if you believe in nothing, then you do nothing.” — Julia Lochtev (97:09)
Timestamps for Key Segments
- 02:49 – Introduction to Pete Hegseth airstrike scandal
- 06:26 – Airstrike details & legal implications
- 11:21 – White House & Pentagon finger-pointing
- 18:19 – Internal policy debate, CIA/DoD legal objections
- 23:28 – U.S.-Venezuela brinkmanship
- 37:07 – Trump’s pardon of Honduras’s JOH
- 43:30 – Russia-Ukraine “peace plan” corruption
- 56:59 – Afghan Zero Unit shooting & fallout
- 68:08 – Cash Patel’s humiliating FBI leadership
- 80:19 – Interview: Independent journalism in Russia
Conclusion
This episode sharply highlights the contradictions, corruptions, and consequences of the Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions, laced with irreverent humor and lived White House insight. The allegations against Hegseth stand as a stark example of the way governance, legal norms, and military culture are being upended for political spectacle—with dangerous global ramifications. The episode closes with a sobering lens on how the destruction of journalistic freedom in Russia may mirror slow-motion democratic backsliding in the U.S.
For listeners seeking a primer on the latest U.S. national security and global affairs news—along with bitterly honest critique—this episode is a must.