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Quint.com Wilson foreign Hey folks, I'm your host, Rick Wilson, and welcome back to the Enemies List podcast. We're going to do a doubleheader today. Going to go a little longer than usual today because we've had two major events this week that really deserve your focus and attention. The first was the Hegseth Trump addressed to 800 general staff and flag officers in Quantico, Virginia. And the second is Donald Trump's government shutdown. I want to start with the government shutdown because Donald Trump for Years jumped up and down. Oh, if a president shuts down the government, it's a shame he should take the blame here. The Democrats are going to be blamed and the Republicans are going to be blamed. I actually think the president would be blamed if there is a shutdown. I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the President of the United States. Why is Donald Trump on the top of the enemy's list this week? Because he's shut down the government. Do not fool yourselves for one moment, do not accept the predicate of this Republican Party for one moment that Donald Trump is somehow a helpless passenger as the cruel and powerful Democrats have shut off the government to just. Just to harm him. This is an outrageous lie. Despite how loudly they're telling it, despite how much they're shouting it from the White House podium, it remains nothing but a lie. Donald Trump shut down the government. Be very clear about it. Don't pretend there's any other scenario here. Let us recount. The Republicans control Washington. Absolutely. They control the House. Absolutely. They control the Senate. Absolutely. They control the White House and the entire state of governance in this country. Absolutely. They control the Supreme Court. Absolutely. What they're asking Democrats to do is to publicly cut their own throats and accept the continuation of Project 2025. Accept Donald Trump bailing out his buddies in Argentina. Acceptance. Except the government continuing to put masked thugs and masked troops on the streets to terrorize American citizens and American cities. The big lie they have told over and over and over again that the Democrats are trying to keep the government closed so that we can pay for healthcare for illegal aliens. First off, you should have heard that phrase and understood what it was. It was vomited out of some focus group that Tony Fabrizio did. And now they're. They're going to run with this idea. Wants to give health care to illegal aliens. Again, we're not doing that about illegal alien benefits. If you're an American citizens, you've been to a hospital in the last few years, you probably noticed that wait times are especially large. And very often somebody who's there in the emergency room waiting is an illegal alien. Very often a person who can't even speak English. Why do those people get health care benefits? To try to give free health care to illegals is honestly, it's sinful. I've never seen anything worse than any fighting fight in my entire life. And they voted it down for one reason. It didn't give free health care to illegal. They want illegal aliens to get taken care of with health care. It doesn't matter that it's a lie to them. It doesn't matter that it's ludicrous to them. It doesn't matter that it's. That it. That it doesn't meet any test of sense, law, logic, reason, fact, history, legislative intent or anything. It doesn't matter. They know their people are dumb enough to buy the lie. And remember, all this messaging from the White House is for their people, not for you. It's for Republicans, not for you. It's for MAGA voters, not for you. Donald Trump is closing down the government because he is having a pit of a fit of pique about a number of things. He knows the lame duck aspect of his life is coming very soon. He knows the economy that he has created through tariffs, through billionaire tax incentives, through catastrophic trade deals is coming to extract a terrible, terrible price from the Republican Party. He knows it's coming. And he's looking at the shutdown saying, well, maybe I can lie and say it was the shutdown's fault. No, you can't. Because Donald Trump shut this government down. Make no mistake. The reason he's on the top of the enemy's list this week is because he shut down the government out of pique. He shut down the government in part, so he didn't have to swear in Representative Grielva so that she would cast the deciding final vote on the discharge petition that will force the release of the Epstein files. Donald Trump controls Washington. He also, by the way, controls a lot of the media now in Washington. He controls a lot of the way that, that the stories are written and reported, because they now, a lot of reporters now know if they write something off the White House's agenda, they don't get to be White House reporters anymore. They don't get to be in the pool, they don't get to travel. And I'm not one of these guys that bleeds about access journalism a whole lot. But there are people who are pulling their punches for Donald Trump on the shutdown in the press right now. They know the person who drove this train right off the tracks, right off the bridge, is Donald Trump. The Democrats made a mistake in the spring during the last shutdown fight. They thought, this is not the time for the battle. Trump's numbers are too good. We can't go up against him. I disagreed at the time, but they're on the same sheet of music now, tactically, at least, I think where they should be. We got a poll out on October 2. 17% more people blame the Republicans than blame The Democrats for the shutdown with independents. 50% of independents blame Republicans. 22% blame the Democrats. Donald Trump cannot sustain. This combined with Donald Trump's apocalyptically terrible poll numbers across the board. And they are. They. I mean, we've talked about this a hundred times. Donald Trump's numbers are setting new record lows on the economy, on inflation, on prices, on tariffs. Donald Trump is somewhere between 12 and 27 points underwater in every poll. This is why the Democrats have struck this, this blow at the right moment. They've hit this at the right moment because Donald Trump is an unpopular president. Only 27% of the country say they strongly support Trump. Let that process for a minute. Only 27% of the country say they strongly support Donald Trump. That ain't great, chief. That's a failing president. That's a dying star slowly sinking into the heat death of its final supernova phase. He may blow up a lot more, but the power of Trump is fading. He is a bad president. Now, I advise the Democrats, both in a piece on Substack and on a long interview on msnbc, the messaging here is not complicated and it is not arguing about ACA percentages and caseloads and all that garbage. Stop it. Stop it. The way to argue this case is to talk to people in English. I know Democrats don't want to speak. They don't. You don't want to speak American. I understand that you want to say. Our focus group indicates that if we use the fo. No, shut up. Pay attention. School's in session. This is crazy. Trump is hurting you. This is crazy. Trump is hurting you. This is crazy. Trump is hurting you. How hard is this message to memorize? Not at all. But this is crazy and Trump is hurting you. And Donald Trump has made a conscious decision to harm the American people. He did it the first day he started this insane tariff war. He did it the first day he decided he would start imposing tariffs that would screw American farmers and American factory workers and American agriculture folks across timber and all the other non farm products. He knew what he was going to end up with and just doesn't care. He thinks he has this mystical power with tariffs that is that. That is bringing in trillions of dollars. It is an epic, astounding, absurd lie of the highest possible order. It is a lie so large that even Trump's fans are now looking at the tariffs and saying, that's not great. You know why it's not great? Because if you're in the. If you're. If you're in. In in, especially in the ag sector. The world has moved on. The world has moved on. Argentina and Brazil said to China, hey, we grow soybeans. You want them? China said, sure. Not a single American soybean has been sold to China, where it was formerly a billions and billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars a year. America's not exporting the things it exported because Donald Trump chose this path. Donald Trump chose now to choose a government shutdown that exacerbates, that increases the damage and the pain American families will feel. Donald Trump and his team chose the damage he did with Doge in the beginning of the administration is now going to be increased dramatically because Rus Vaught is going to fire hundreds of thousands of government workers. Not because they're bad people or because they're doing bad things, but because he wants to, because it's part of Project 2025. There is nothing I can tell you about Donald Trump that you probably don't already know. But I can tell you one thing that you need to consider more, more thoroughly. The old Adam Serwer line with Trump, the cruelty is the point remains as valid and truthful today as it was six years ago, I think it was when it was first mentioned. He wants the chaos. He wants the cruelty. He wants the suffering. He wants people to be distracted from Epstein. He wants people to be distracted from his catastrophic economic situation he's put this country in. He wants people to be distracted from the fact that he has armed and masked thugs on the streets arresting, beating and brutalizing American citizens. Not just illegals, American citizens. This is a great distraction for Trump. It's a great delay of the release of Epstein materials. It's a great way to continue doing the things that the Project 2025 boys, Russ Vaught, et cetera, want to keep doing, you know, one thing, one group that was not furloughed or defunded or that's not facing any pressure. Who? Who could it be? It's Stephen Miller's Gestapo. And yes, yes, yes, I will use the word Gestapo. I will use the word secret police. I will use the word Nazi. When you act like a Nazi and you have policies like a Nazi and you deploy people against American citizens in the same kind of brutalizing techniques. The jackboot fits. Wear it. Stephen Miller and Russ Vaught are having a field day. They love this shutdown. They love it. They love it. They're enjoying this because this is part of their portfolio. They want to be able to go and run roughshod over every institution, over every city, over every state over every government that isn't one they're in charge of. And Donald Trump has made this possible. This is Trump's shutdown. Do not buy into the BS of JD Vance going in the briefing room saying, they want us to go home. Don't try to litigate it with them. They want you to litigate that. They want you to fight about that. This is crazy. Trump is hurting you. This is crazy, and Trump is hurting you. It's pretty simple. But Trump is, in my mind, doing one thing that for the future. It's actually quite helpful. It's actually quite good. He is cementing his legacy as a failed president. He is cementing his legacy as an unpopular president. You know, people in the media bubble, people who spend too much time on social media, which either you're welcome or sorry. I spend a lot less time on social media than I once did. It has been so much better for my sanity and for my brain. I took a lot of these apps off my phone, so I'm not constantly in the dopamine drip. If you spend a lot of time on social media, you think that Donald Trump has 70% approval ratings and that he's the most popular president ever and he has all this power in the country, and he does not. He is weak. He's pathetic. He is hiding his role with his relationship with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the pedophile Ghislaine Maxwell. And those things are drumbeating in the background all the time. Every minute of every day. Every minute of every day he thinks about Epstein. All the minor stuff is another day. He doesn't have to talk about it. All the jumping in front of the cameras is another day. He doesn't have to talk about it. He understands the media ecosystem right now has a distorted view of his power. It is less than you think. By shutting down the government, it is even less than it was before. Another shutdown may end. Democrats may cave. God knows they are not the strongest people that God ever put on this earth, but Donald Trump shut this government down. Donald Trump chose to do this. Donald Trump is on the enemy's list this week because this is crazy. Trump is hurting you. We'll be right back. Hey, folks, Rick Wilson here. And if you're listening to the Enemies List, you already know that democracy doesn't defend itself. That's why I'm excited to tell you about the new season of Democracy Decoded, a podcast from the Campaign Legal center that's pulling back the curtain on how our country has reached such a precarious moment and what we can do to fix it. We're talking about dark money, gerrymandering and the political corruption that's been quietly eating away at our system for years. This season breaks it down, showing how the erosion of democratic safeguards didn't happen overnight, but over time, opening the door for our system of government to be exploited. Think of it as an inside look at how we turn things around facts, legal strategies, and civic action. If you want the roadmap on how we move forward, Democracy Decoded has it. Go listen now@Democracy Decoded.org or on your favorite podcast app. If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no bs. 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Speeds may slow above 35 gig on the unlimited plan. Taxes and fees are extra. See Mint Mobile for details. And now back to the show. With that, I want to move on to the next segment of the enemies list. Who's on the enemies list after the infamous Donald Trump? This is another entry with Donald Trump and with the moron Pete Hegseth. And you know, I use that phrase advisedly because there's a high bar for being a moron in this country right now. There's a lot of people who are really not. Let's just put it this way, the administration is not sending their best. Pete Hexith summoned 800 flag officers, 800 generals and admirals to Quantico, Virginia. Also, you summoned. The senior enlisted officials across the services brought them as well. Because if you don't believe and understand that the, the, the chief master sergeant of the Air Force has a huge role, or the chief master sergeant in the army has a huge role in governing how things work, you'd be mistaken. So these senior NCOs and flag officers are summoned to D.C. so that Pete Hegseth, major in the National Guard, Pete Hegseth, a guy who could not qual for lieutenant colonel, a guy who was kept back from certain service assignments because of fears of his ties to white supremacy. Major Pete Hegseth, a man who walked on stage wearing quite a lot of makeup and enormous amount of hair product, and I'm gonna bet you Spanx for Men walked on that stage and proceeded to lecture these 800 senior military officials on war fighting on the values that he believes define service to this country. I've spoken a lot about this this week because it is outrageous, it is absurd, it is obscene. Pete Hexseth is much more concerned about whether the troops look a certain way and whether the senior leadership looks a certain way. Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It's a bad look. It is bad, and it's not who we are. As to whether or not they're good at what they do, whether or not they're good leaders, good strategists, people who care about the fate and the lives of the men and women they send into harm's way. Pete Hexseth is much more concerned about the aesthetics of the military than the effectiveness of the military. Pete Hexith is much more concerned about this imaginary problem in the Defense Department where he thinks that we are. We are, Chuck, full of fat generals and admirals. Let me tell you something, folks. By the time you're a general officer, you're probably one of the most fit human beings for your age group. They look the part for a reason. They're tough for a reason. I don't know who it was. There was a senior army of an army three star sitting in the audience. I don't, I don't know who it was, but this guy's got the Ranger tab, the Ranger tab, which Pete Hexith could never earn. He's got combat infantry. He's got a. The usual sort of salad bar of decorations from combat assignments over the last 25 years. Iraq, metal, Afghanistan, the whole boat. Rail thin. Looks. Looks like he, like, rough as old, tough as old leather. And he just had that neutral expression on his face, that resting bitch face you get when you're being lectured by a weekend Fox News host with a room temperature IQ and a penchant for abusing women and a reputation as a drunk. Hegseth goes through this entire ludicrous performance. Ludicrous performance, including one. And I, I texted with a person I had not spoken to for. Well, let's say, put this way, I hadn't been in contact with this guy since 1995. Okay? We had known each other at the Pentagon. He's a former senior enlisted person in one of the services. Like at a leadership level. When Hegseth goes down, goes, oh, we're going to let drill instructors start putting their hands on the troops again. That particular line really disgusted these men and women in that audience. Really disgusted them. Because it's a sign of the cruel and petty nature of the kind of abuse that Pete Hegseth fantasizes about. He thinks if he takes, you know, private dipshit right off the bus and the, and the dis. Knock him around a little bit, he's going to make him a better soldier. We have the single finest military in the world by an order of magnitude. It's because we treat our people right. Tough, sure, basic isn't easy. Stress free. They're not sitting around seeing Kumbaya and talking about their safe spaces. But Hegseth has a fantasy that they are. And so he's obsessed about that. He's obsessed that facial hair in the military is somehow a, a, a detriment to morale. This also means grooming standards. No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression. We're going to cut our hair, shave, shave our beards and adhere to standards. And that's why today, at my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos. What he knows that means is that a large percentage of the men in the military who have the exception to be able to grow their facial hair out are African Americans who suffer from a skin condition that if they shave it, it's not good. Okay, he knows that. But what he's really trying to tell you in this is I want my military to be hyper fit, smooth shaven. As somebody said, it's like he wants a military full of twinks. Who knows? We'll be right back. And now back to the show. But, you know, somebody pointed out this morning, you Know, if. If Pete Heth is concerned about the role of facial hair in military leadership, may I refer you to Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who sported the single greatest mustache in the history of the American military by. By far. I thought about other examples of that. You know, Robin Olds, one of the great fighter aces of all time, spectacular mustache. These things, these things that Hegseth thinks affect morale, that thinks he affect the troops, they are a weird, homoerotic aesthetic that Pete Hegseth has in his head. This was a man so far beneath the level of qualification, intellect, discernment, strategic acumen of the people in this audience. You could have had a 10,000 Pete Hegseth on that stage and couldn't have rivaled the experience and the Judgment of the 800 Men and Women in that audience. Hegseth is a dangerous thug. He is a drunk. He's a weakling. He's a mental midget. He is a man so. So wildly unqualified for the job of SecDef that it is difficult for even me to describe. You would soon install me as pope, as have Pete Hev as secdev. This is not a man who is qualified to lead anyone. He's a weekend television host. He is surrounded by a group of pro Russia ideologues. Don't think Eldridge Colby. I've forgotten about you, motherfucker. Still on my list. They are polygraphing generals who are not sufficiently loyal. They are now making generals sign NDAs and contracts that they won't leak or talk about things. Okay, signal boy. Yeah. You first. The thing that really struck me. Oh, and I want to loop back on one thing, one more thing. On the physical standards, most general officers are very fit. Okay? Very, very, very fit. I knew a general officer once upon a time, got to know him a bit during the first Gulf War. Was not a small man, kind of heavyset, kind of big fella. And yet, consider one of the great commanding generals our lifetime, Norman Schwarzkopf. You think his troops didn't respect him because he had a pot belly? Little bit of a. Little bit of a. Of a tub there. You know why they respected him? Because he was good at his goddamn work. You know why they respected him? Because he helped set and build a strategy for victory. You know why they respected him? Because he gave a shit about the lives of the troops he commanded. This is so far beyond Pete Hex's comprehension. It's so far beyond his understanding. It is so far beyond his intellect, which is, and I kid you not, folks, I want you to remember this I have shoes. Smarter than Pete Hegseth. He is a stupid person. He has learned to play a role on tv, and he was playing a role on that stage. And as much as we fear that our institutions have been compromised and crushed and broken by Trump and Trumpism, and as much as we fear that Hegseth is holding, trying to build a Pentagon culture that holds the leadership to the standard of, are you loyal to Trump? Everything else is secondary. When Pete Hexseth finished his speech, when he finished lecturing his betters, he stood on that stage. We're the Department of War. Lean in, go forward, kick ass. Whatever it was he said at the end, you could have heard a pin drop in that room because we are the War Department. Godspeed. Room, attention. You heard a sound of silence. You heard a sound of. You heard a sound of utter contempt for a weak, reckless, stupid man is installed in one of the most consequential jobs in government. Those general officers sent a signal. Pete Hexseth was lecturing them about a phony version of leadership. But they sent a signal to every man and woman in uniform, the men and women they command around the world, the 2.5 million people in the Department of Defense, they sent a really clear signal. We're not going to clap for this. This isn't our. These aren't our values. This man is a charlatan. They may never say it in public until they're retired, but the men and women in that room who are better than Pete Hegseth by orders of magnitude, they who are better than the man who followed Pete Heskit on stage, Donald Trump, by orders of magnitude, they communicated through their silence a degree of contempt that is deserved, that is utterly merited, and that will go down as a murk of how catastrophic a choice Pete Higseth was as a Secretary of Defense. And by the way, I. The Secretary of War, gag. It's one of the things that's on my list to undo. We make it through this thing. Folks, I have a couple of small things that are just going to be my projects for the whatever future Democratic president you just. I will. I will do it for no money. I'll just. Just give me a title. I want to be the guy who arranges to tear up the abomination in the Rose Garden. I want to be the guy who arranges to tear down the whorehouse ballroom he's building. And I want to be the guy who goes and makes sure that we unfuck this government and purge out every single person like a Pete Hegseth and everyone who came below and beneath him because they are a stain on this country. And Hegseth is a stain on the Department of Defense and on the US Military. It's a good, it's a good note. The men and women in that audience did not respond to him. It's a really good note. I want to encourage all of you to check out our other shows on Lincoln Square. We have a great new show called Protect and Serve with Maya May and the great Mike Fanone. It's phenomenal. Also, check out Joe Trippy's podcast, that Trippy show. You can catch me on the Lincoln Project podcast right here on the Enemies List podcast every Friday on the Elephant in the Room. You can catch me streaming on Tuesday nights on the Strategy Session, Thursday nights on the Breakdown on Friday mornings, Andrew Wilson and I break down the polling of the week called on a show called behind the Numbers and that this week will really dig into this shutdown numbers. And they are not great for Trump and they are not great for Republicans. This is a trap in which Donald Trump has led his own party. The enemy's list is always in flow. It's always in flux. If you've got ideas for the enemy's list, shoot them to us. Put the address on the screen here. It's usually pretty clear to me. But there are often people out there that are doing bad things, hurting this country that need to be exposed. Let us know who yours are. Thanks, everybody. See you next time. It.