← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
Trump Centers Himself at Kennedy Center Honors
00:41:24
MS Now's Ari Melber reports on President Trump's appearance at the Kennedy Center Honors, and his latest attempt to use power to promote himself.
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- [00:01]
A
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C
Welcome to the Beat. I'm Ari Melbourne. We begin tonight as Donald Trump is trying to use and sometimes abuse power and to enrich or promote himself. The Kennedy center honors were last night. He made an unusual choice to host, although a president could do that, but then went farther and said he wants to shape culture in ways that the government is directly restricted from doing. As you've probably followed, we've mentioned on our air there's a big deal to do a merger with Netflix. There's other companies launching a hostile bid to get involved. We'll get into all that. But bottom line, big picture, those things are reviewed only in a nonpartisan way by the government for the benefit of the public interest for consumers to make sure there's not monopoly or that you were charged double for Netflix. They don't usually involve politicians or the president directly interfering for their own interests. That's the context for Donald Trump discussing the potential merger of what are two of the largest media companies in our country and also with global reach, Netflix and Warner Brothers.
- [01:50]
Let's got to go through a process and we'll see what happens. It's a Netflix, a great company and they have a very big market share. And when they have Warner Brothers, you know that share goes up a lot. So I don't know. That's going to be for some economists to tell and also, and I'll be involved in that decision too. But it is a big market share. There's no question about that. This could be a problem.
- [02:12]
Fact check. True, it is a big market share and that is a legitimate thing for the government to test. That's why we have a whole antitrust division of the DoJ. But legal check, false. It's not for Donald Trump to be personally involved. Indeed, we have the independence there at the doj, just like you have it in other economic areas or interest rates. Because for many, many years it has been settled precedent and better practice for us, the public to not have politicians putting their thumb on the scale. If you go back far enough. This was an issue in the first Trump term when he was seen as and widely criticized for interfering in a Warner merger involving AT&T. So some of the same players, but different now, different companies involved. And then they were denying it then in first term version of Trump, most people around him said he's not doing this because he's concerned or against CNN or personal reasons. They denied it. Now Trump all but admits it, saying he'll be personally involved. And there's more. His son in law, Jared Kushner is now part of the hostile bid by Paramount. That's what I mentioned. They're basically the different company backed by the Ellisons who are very close to Trump. They want to buy Warner instead of Netflix. So this is a huge conflict of interest to have the President say he wants to be personally involved while yet again his family pops up taking sides and presumably being in line to make a lot of money if they win. There's also this Trump supporter pictured here in the Oval Office. Now the Ellisons can have a relationship with Trump or any other politician. And as long as the government is not cheating or corrupting power at the federal level to help them, the Ellisons, like everyone else in our big capitalist free speech economy, have every right to publish and broadcast anything they want. Please don't mishear me to be suggesting that there are some good billionaires and then bad billionaires and all that kind of talk. We have a free market and we publish a lot of material through the airwaves, through print, through companies. The New York Times is a newspaper, it's journalistic outlet. It's also publicly traded company. That's fine, but it's not fine and could even be an abuse of power if the government, whoever the politician in this case Trump, are putting their thumb on the scale trying to approve pick winners and losers or punishments, their political First Amendment protected opponents and critics through this process. And as Trump said, we're talking about major market share, we're talking about some of the largest companies with the most media in the country. Now as for the Kennedy Center, Trump also used that backdrop to talk about how he views himself as less of a public servant of the people with a temporary time in office and then return to being a citizen and more like a kind of autocratic self dealing monarch like he would really maybe joke about or actually name institutions after himself.
- [05:25]
I don't know. I hear that.
- [05:27]
D
I don't know.
- [05:28]
C
That's up to the board.
- [05:32]
Well, let's take a moment to remind everyone about that board that he and the structure of that answer says, well, it's up to them. And as if they might be some independent random group, but in a spirit of purging that we've seen, not a crime, but a type of purging that breaks all kinds of nonpartisan traditions in our government, he made a point of ousting the board to have his loyalists to try to reshape what the Kennedy center is. And historically it has been more of a balanced kind of bipartisan thing. You can debate their choices, you can debate anybody who's honored there's, musically or otherwise. But there was a balance to it. Now he's installed loyalists. As for the naming of these institutions, it's not just a red carpet comet. There's something called the Institute of Peace, which is one of those kind of government related institutions you might not think about all that often. He's already renamed it after himself. He's hung these banners that we see around Washington, something that would be a kind of mini scandal or at least a joke if most presidents did it. But this is maybe the least of the worries of Trump critics. And as we look at the guardrails being being tested right now, today, the Trump administration is before the Supreme Court grasping for more power on a substantive matter. Right. You have to look at all of this together. One joke on the red carpet, even one renaming you might put aside. But he wants to take the power to fire other independent government officials. He wants to reshape so many parts of the federal government as a personal or parochial activity, not a place for nonpartisan public sector expertise. So he would do to the media oversight I mentioned, the same thing he would do to the cultural oversight, the same thing he would do to the Fed if he can get away with it. And the Times reports it seems like the Trump appointed justices and conservatives on the court are friendly to that argument. It's a dynamic that alarmed Justice Sotomayor, and she argues and warns that kind of approach could go further than monarchy.
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Neither the king nor parliament, nor prime ministers, England at the time of the Founding ever had a unqualified removal power.
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Removal power is the legal term about who can fire and withdraw the employees of the federal government. It is well established that the president gets their cabinet and gets to pick policy. That's not really in doubt. What we're talking about now is Donald Trump demanding these type of powers consistent with what I just told you about in those other realms, well beyond what any president has demanded. And think about it. If you have a government that can go up and down the entire org chart and put in loyalists, regardless of their qualifications or their independence or even their legal scruples, you take an oath to uphold the Constitution and only put in all of your people, what do you end up with? Justice Sotomayor warns that that which is not currently possible leads you down a road to something that looks like a corrupt patronage machine that would make even the Kings blush. And here we are in this no Kings era. While the would be king sees his approval sag to historic lows, what he wants is everything. And what he has in terms of actual support in the country is ebbing towards some of the lowest periods we've seen. I want to bring in our Professor Jason Johnson from Morgan State, Ms. Analyst, and Molly Jong, fast contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and also an analyst with us. Jason, these are separate points I'm pulling on, and I would forgive any politician a little banter on the red carpet. Oh, maybe I will, maybe I won't, if that's where it stopped. But in fact, it's not a joke. And the Supreme Court's looking at even more substantial power. What do you think is alarming here? If we're gonna be a society that still has free speech and a government that knows its place.
- [09:41]
B
The idea that Donald Trump is trying to put his name, his stamp, his power, his face on everything, right? Regardless of if he has any expertise. It reminds me of the very popular documentary on Netflix right now about Sean Combs. And there's a key scene where Suge Knight stands on stage and says, if you're tired of that guy trying to be all up in the videos, all up on stage, maybe you should go somewhere else. That's what we're looking at. Donald Trump is trying to be all up in everything, and he shouldn't be involved in murder. He shouldn't be putting his name on the Kennedy Center. And that not only chokes competition and makes life more difficult for us as American citizens, but it's also damaging to democracy. And that's why I see the law.
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C
So I have a question. I'm going to let you. I'm going to let you finish, but I have a question. Are you the first person in the history of the world to compare President Trump to the accusations against Diddy at the Source Awards by Suge Knight.
- [10:40]
B
It is quite possible I might have been one of the first people to make that connection. But given the criminal history of Diddy and the accusations of impropriety, there's a lot of parallels between him and the current occupant of the White House.
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C
You know, Jason brings the fire. Molly, your thoughts here and why, why some of what's happening. I don't want to say behind the scenes court is public, but out of the view of some of these controversies is as important.
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E
So I would say this. Donald Trump loves culture and he loves it for a number of reasons. But I think the biggest reason is that he has sort of practiced this politics, his downstream of culture, this bright Bardian thesis that if you get in the culture, you can get in and win. And that has worked for him two different times. Right. We saw him in the 2024 cycle on the podcast and in, you know, at sporting events. He wasn't doing that because he loves sporting. He was doing that to get in front of low frequency voters. So he does see, and he knows that he got famous on the Apprentice. So his idea, the Kennedy center is a sort of natural extension of his. And again, culture, I'm using the word culture very loosely. I'm not saying he wants to read War and Peace. I'm saying he wants to be in this other part of the media complex that's not politics. And so I think that's what we're seeing here. And he also does see an expansion here in the Kennedy center situation. He gets to put his people in there. It's like a patronage thing a little bit, too. The two things we really see Trump, like love, are sort of culture and kleptocracy in varying degrees.
- [12:19]
C
Yeah, yeah. And on the, on the whole merger front, Jason, a lot of that stuff gets wonky. I mean, it gets complicated. But big picture, you're talking about media duopolies or monopolies and really high stakes. There's a reason why some of the most powerful people in the world, presidents, billionaires, say, oh, you know, who owns Warner Brothers Matters, who owns the airwaves Matters. Who owns the streaming wars Matters. And here was a White House official, Kevin Hassett, on the meddling. Take a listen.
- [12:55]
Presidents prior, I believe, have never, have never at least publicly declared their involvement in these decisions. They've historically been left to the antitrust department with inside the Department of Justice. So how different is this and how should we think about that? Well, I don't think it's, you know, just rare for presidents to have Opinions about big society changing mergers. The President is just very interested in making sure that there's a lot of analysis to make sure that we make the right choice.
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Jason, it only raises the question, what is the right choice in their view? Because they've got an FCC chair who's literally tried to shake down Disney in public. They lost that Kimmel war. We all witnessed that. For arcane legal reasons, this deal probably matters more than abc, at least in the number of people's households. It affects us. I think a lot of our viewers know, you know, they watch Netflix. They know people watch Netflix. But because they're not technically a broadcast network, that FCC chair is not involved. Instead, it's doj, and there's a concern that they're trying to shake it down just like FCC did, to reward Trump friendly coverage and punish everything else.
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B
And, Ari, we don't have to speculate on shakedowns, right? Once Trump got into office, Amazon offered $40 billion. $40 million to Melania for a documentary. Million.
- [14:20]
C
Yeah.
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B
I mean, these media companies have already said, look, whatever it is that we gotta do to get these deals through, they find ways to privately, behind the scenes, backdoor offer money to this administration. Ted Sarando said, hey, I already had a meeting with the President Trump. But to your point, I think the larger concern here, and I say this, not just as a consumer, but as labor, as employees, this will potentially destroy the middle class of Hollywood. This limits opportunities for creators, this limits opportunities for outlets. This increase the potential costs of HBO Max and access to Cartoon Network and everything else like that. This kind of merger is precisely the kind of thing that in the past, we would have immediately assumed that you couldn't get away with, but that this administration, if either Jared Kushner or Trump himself or anyone associated with him and find a way to personally profit, it'll go through, even if the consumer suffers.
- [15:13]
E
Molly, I think the problem here is that you have a situation that looks so corrupt. Even if it's not, people won't necessarily trust it. For example, antitrust trust is a real thing. The Biden administration had mixed results with it, but they certainly tried. The problem with Trumpism is so much of it seems like every part of the federal government is a branch of the executive, right? This unitary executive theory where the presidency is the most important. We see the Supreme Court thinking about doing that here again. And so we see a DOJ that serves really at the pleasure of Donald Trump. And so even if this is not corruption, it will look like corruption to, you know, a pretty big percentage of the population. And that's why for such a long time the DOJ has tried to be independent and at least to, to show that they were really their own branch, or not branch, but their own element of the government. And what we're seeing here is there's no faith, the public has no faith that she's going to execute what's in the best interest of the American people.
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C
Right. And Jason, I emphasized.
- [16:20]
Most speech, what we call First Amendment protected speech that matters these days is published through companies. We're a capitalist society. So you might think of the New York Times, like I said, as this special paper. Well, it's a company. I'm speaking to you through airwaves on a company. That's how it works. And it's fine if some companies have a view, if that's Paramount's view, okay. But when Paramount starts hiring the president's son in law, like this is some third. And they're not embarrassed. This is some third rate operation. It's not technical bribery, but it's what in other countries we criticize as graft. What does that tell us about, again, a decision that's going to affect so many people's lives.
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B
The long term danger of everything we're seeing in this administration in unfortunately only 10 months, Ari, is the institutionalizing of corruption. This is third world country, banana Republic stuff. The idea that I have to go into business, we've seen it with crypto, we've seen it with Hollywood, we're now seeing it with an attempt at a merger. The idea that this administration has to wet their beak somehow, that somebody personally connected to them, not just the administration, not just a friend, not a donor, but someone within the Trump family has to personally benefit from any major business deal in order to go forward. That's what I fear we're gonna be stuck with perhaps for a generation because it'll be very difficult for any future administrations to avoid that temptation to operate the same way. If that's how business seems to work.
- [17:51]
C
Yeah. And it's farcical and like I mentioned in our setup tonight, that a lot of these things run together. There's all this crypto business that's with Trump's own blood relatives, his own family and children. This is one of his children's husband, obviously. And you can imagine the conversations of, oh well, Paramount's got a meeting with a bunch of the high paid folks on the call. You know, how do we get this message to the president? Oh well, you know, I'm gonna see him at Christmas. I'M gonna see him at Mar A Lago Friday. It'd be funny if it if it weren't so damaging. Molly, I wanna play for you what MTG has just said in a widely seen interview. You know, talk about how these alliances are fraying going after Trump. I have that when we come back in 90 seconds.
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Behind.
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E
The scenes do they talk differently? Yes. How I watch many of my colleagues go from making fun of him, making fun of how he talks, making fun of me constantly for supporting him to when he won the primary in 2024. They all started.
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Excuse my language, Leslie kissing his ass and decided to put on a MAGA hat for the first time.
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C
MTG laying it out there in a widely seen new 60 Minutes interview. Your thoughts, Molly, on this fallout from what was once a very prominent Trump supporter.
- [20:46]
E
Yeah, you know, look, is Marjorie Taylor Greene, does she still subscribe to a lot of views that I do not share with her? And most of the Audience here does not share with her for sure. But is she speak, you know, is she really a believer? I think she is really a believer and that's why she's had such a difficult time with Trump's refusal to release the Epstein files. And that's where this all comes from. Remember, she was one of the women in Congress who said, why don't you wanna to sign? You know, you had these women signing this discharge petition going against Trump. Now, by the way, the clock is ticking on those Epstein files. We, you know, there's a. There, it's law that they need to be out in, you know, less than 30 days. So I do think she, she is a real believer and I do think her insight is valuable. Do I think politically she's aligned with the left? Left? Absolutely not. But I do think it's interesting how quickly Trump's turned on her and how she really felt that Trump was not doing what she, you know, this sort of populism that he advertised.
- [21:52]
C
Right. And she invokes a track record that makes her harder to dismiss on the right while voicing at times, problems of Trump that relate to evidence, the Epstein failure, the secrecy, all of that. I want to turn to another update. Both our guests stay, but this is about President Trump's pattern where there are problems that he seems to create and then say he's going to fix them. The farmers are the issue right now. Trump has announced a new $12 billion package for U.S. farmers, many of the same people suffering the consequences of Trump's erratic tariff plans, which have not ever gotten us the 90 deals in 90 days that he promised. Take a listen.
- [22:36]
This money would not be possible without tariffs. The tariffs are taking in, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars. And we're giving some up to the farmers because they were mistreated by other countries for, I don't know, maybe right reasons, maybe wrong reasons.
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Mistreated by the other countries. The Washington Post finds over 180 farmers have already filed for bankruptcy in just the first half of this year, which is a huge jump, 60%. Jason, your thoughts on what is a very pricey investment. While the safety net. And safety net, I should say, and other programs are cut. The safety net is down, the bailout is up, and the tariffs apparently continue.
- [23:25]
B
Ari, if I run up your water bill and then come back to your house and give you a $50 Walmart discount card. Right. That doesn't. That doesn't really solve the problem.
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D
Right.
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B
You ran up my water bill. That's what the issue is. And that's what's been happening here with Trump when it comes to tariffs, especially when you're talking about agricult. I have a student who's actually like an agricultural student in Georgia, and he was talking to me about how the cuts in the FDA cuts to subsidies for environmental improvements in farmers are costing people so much money that experimental agricultural practices for land preservation and everything else like that have been cut under Doge and it's making farming so much more expensive. This is another example of Trump trying to come in and, as you said, rescue people from a problem that he created. But here's the thing. Farming doesn't go quarterly. Farming doesn't go by election years. If you lose a whole season of crops, if you don't have the opportunity to sort of replant and redo, you could be out for years. So this $12 million isn't going to fix a farmer who may have to turn over their farmer, give it to the bank by the spring, because their next three season of crops are ruined.
- [24:27]
C
Yeah. And this is a big deal. And Molly, as Jason emphasizes, some of this is on different timelines where you live in the country and how close you are to, as we say, the food you eat. You know, there's some people are on a supply chain where they're not as close to us and they don't think about it. But this is a huge deal in farming communities, both what they've already faced and now whether this help will work if you keep the same tariff program. Right. Then Molly raises the question of do you have regular bailouts? Most bailouts respond to a single event, not ongoing policy. The Journal says when Trump imposed tariffs on China the first term, the government sent $23 billion to farmers to compensate. USDA estimates soybean growers accounted for 70% of the losses. I don't think we need to call up Krugman or any economist, Molly, to say this doesn't sound super cost efficient. And it is our tax dollars.
- [25:26]
E
Yeah. And we've seen that There, you know, 90 deals in 90 days. We don't have those deals. We just have these tariffs. Right. And the tar are affecting their attacks on the American consumer. We are all paying this tax on things that we buy from other countries because Donald Trump doesn't understand how tariffs work. And so it's punishing farmers, it's punishing people who manufacture in certain places. I mean, it's just. It's just a broad swath of stupid that doesn't need to be here. And by the way, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to save Donald Trump from himself. They can say that he doesn't have this emergency power, this emergency security power, which we all know he doesn't have, and then he can be saved from himself. He could say, oops, they said I couldn't do the tariffs. And then everything would be, I mean, again, trade wars are hard to back down from, but at least it would be an exit to get into a place where things went down in price. I mean, affordability is what voters are mad about.
- [26:27]
C
Right. Congress is supposed to be involved in tariffs and they're not a unilateral power unless it is actually of a higher standard, like the wartime standard, which we've seen them try to claim war powers in many issues Jason might be familiar with, because I think we've discussed it before. It's a Supreme Court jurisprudence known as the hold me back jurisprudence. Someone who doesn't really want to fight. Hold me back. The court comes in, they hold him back, he gets to sound fake tough, but we all move on without compensating soybean farmers. Jason, Absolutely.
- [26:59]
B
I would totally do this, but I got to go. I got to go with my friends are leaving. But I would be here and do this. Yes. This is what Trump's need and it's written otherwise. Right. We'd have trouble. This is the only way you get Trump out of bad policy where he can save face. And usually if we're talking about foreign policy, we say that about like Russia and Ukraine, you know, Putin needs a way to save face or Jing needs a way. That is how our president operates now. He needs a way to save face. But frankly, if I were a smart Republican or going back to somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene, I would be screaming for this sort of thing because the consequences for their party politically, his inability to back down from unpopular policy is going to negatively impact their entire party next year. And it's not just going to be Congress, it's going to be state level, it's going to be government level, it's going to be local level. Because his ego won't allow him to recognize his plans were bad from day one.
- [27:49]
C
Yeah. Jason and Molly, thank you. Coming up in the show, we have these new reporting about that boat strike. Calls for the full video. New pressure on Hagseth. We have someone that has served our country with distinction. You may remember him well, the four star General Wesley Clark. Clark. And the scandal has expanded well beyond Washington into our culture.
- [28:11]
Is there any truth to the allegations that after an initial strike on a drug smuggling boat, you ordered a second strike to kill the survivors. First of all, that kind of cruel, heartless act has no place in Operation Kill Everybody.
- [28:36]
Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth remains under fire over these reports of a possible war crime. Tonight, video of that infamous second strike which killed the survivors is still being hidden by the administration. NBC reports. Admiral Frank Bradley, who oversaw the attack, has told lawmakers that they concluded the boat was not actually heading to the United States at all, that it was going towards a South American country and the alleged drugs on the boat were actually intended for a different continent, possibly Europe or Africa, but not the U.S. nBC has two U.S. officials and one person familiar with the briefings on that point, which of course explodes the entire rationale for the US Doing anything to that boat. Would expect, at a minimum, a review of the intelligence, and then also questions about whether the United States was in the right legal or moral position to kill all those people if it had nothing to do with our country. Bradley said Hegseth ordered the military to kill all 11 people. There was an internal list that the US has of what they believe are narco terrorists and thus they could be lethally targeted. That echoes the drone war era, where decisions made in Washington on paper quickly become a rationale for killing without any trial or process. Quote, while the survivors were not armed, Bradley said the mission identified the drugs as the threat to the U.S. just imagine how expansive a kill authorization could be if you accept that this is why we have laws of war. And again, we're not yet at war with this country. But if you can say that drugs, which of course are perhaps sadly trafficked all over the world, are the rationale as the threat. And it doesn't matter whether they're coming to the US and the people on board don't have to be attacking the U.S. but that threat allows you to kill a bunch of people without declaring war or having a trial or doing intelligence, well, that's a license to kill everywhere. Atlantic also has reporting about the second video. Apparently these lawmakers and a couple service members have been able to see. It discusses footage of the two men's desperate final moments, which made some viewers nauseous, leading one to nearly vomit. Again, you don't know until you've seen it how it might feel to watch someone who could be. Again, we haven't seen the video. A protected survivor pleading for help, holding wreckage in the ocean, then being blown to smithereens. Hegseth continues to defend the strike using the language of counterterror, but will not say that what they will do about this video, which, if it is valid or helps their case, you would expect they would want it released.
- [31:14]
From what I understood then and what I understand now, I fully support that strike. I would have made the same call myself.
- [31:21]
D
President Trump said he would have no problem if the full video of the strike is released. When can we see that video? When will you release it?
- [31:29]
C
We're reviewing it right now.
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These are defenses that don't really wash. They release the videos they think help them, they hide the videos that they think hurt them, and then they say that they're reviewing it. I mean, it's all part of one operation. Obviously the hiding leads to the scrutiny and concerns of a cover up of a war crime. Alleged Republicans who viewed the video, we should note, have defended the strike. So there may be some partisan difference there or just a difference on viewing the evidence. There is, however, growing concern about this Pentagon secrecy. Releasing part of the video, but not the key part is a strange strategy for them. And now there's a push to have lawmakers with specific, specific orders behind the attacks get the unedited video. Here's Senator Schiff.
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They're unlawful, they're unconstitutional. And killing two people who are shipwrecked at sea is also morally repugnant. If the Pentagon and our defense secretary is so proud of what they're doing, Let the American people see that video. Let the American people see two people standing on a capsized boat or sitting on a capsized boat and deliberately killed and decide for themselves whether they're proud of what the country is doing.
- [32:47]
That's a fair request and standard. And a lot's changed in our life and politics. Lots change in how people get information. We know all that. But this is an important issue that is clearly breaking through across the country because it touches on core questions that haven't changed because of the Internet or the MAGA era. A lot of people have connections to the military in our country. You got a lot of military households, a lot of other people who interact with the military, a lot of people who have a family member or an ancestor who serve bravely. And there is both pride and recognition of what our military can be and how it should be. And if there is a belief or here we have reports and evidence that the politicians who have come in are changing things and putting the military in harm's way or demanding it do things of which it should not do. Banned by the Uniform Code of Military justice, executing shipwreck survivors, as some of the accounts report. A lot of people think that's a big problem and just playing tough or saying this is how it is now or this is MAGA is not cutting it. We also know the issue's breaking through because everybody's heard about it and it's become a national kind of punchline, even amidst the grim background. Saturday Night Live making fun of the country's defense secretary.
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Well, to answer your question, if I was just playing army, would there be 80 dead fishermen, narco terrorists in Venezuela right now? Next question. Yeah. So is 80 the official death toll?
- [34:22]
E
Is 80 the official?
- [34:24]
C
No, it's six seven. Six seven.
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Idiot.
- [34:32]
The jokes are of course about a serious topic, but part of the joke is that amidst this problem, we have such unserious leadership at the Pentagon. That seems to be a concern of both parties right now. And we're going to get the take from someone who has served with distinction at the highest levels. Retired four star General Wesley Clark next.
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We're back now with retired four star General Wesley Clark, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. Welcome to you. Your view on where the military stands and public oversight needs to go on this boat attack.
- [36:46]
D
First of all, I think we need to see all of the evidence. That evidence is not out there yet. The video certainly is important. Also, the orders that were given to Admiral Bradley by Secretary Hedgehog. There should be an operations plan with orders in it and it would have rules of engagement in it. Even though Secretary said it doesn't respect him legally, there's always rules of engagement in there. It's really hard to make a judgment until you've seen those things. Right now it's split along partisan lines. I understand that. That's the way America works. My concern is we don't want the military involved in partisan politics. We really have taken pride in ourselves over the last, let's say, 200 years in trying to stay out of partisan politics. Sometimes we get swept up in it, but we don't like it. Ike ran for president and he was elected and he did his best to protect the military from partisan politics. Al Hay, guy I worked for, ran for president. I ran for president.
- [37:52]
But that's different. When you're retired and when you're out there on your own. Yeah, you have the right to have a political opinion, but when you're in uniform, you serve the commander in chief or the chain of command. And obviously you have to do that within the bounds of the law. And as far as we know, in this case, the legal opinion supported the action of the, of the admiral. We haven't seen that opinion. What we know is it must have been a lot of anxious moments there because 41 minutes after the first strike went by, before the second strike was conducted, I don't know what happened during those 41 minutes. My imagination would be that this is the smoke cleared. They saw the two people there. They ask, oh my God, what do we do now? We didn't sink the boat. There's two people there. What are we supposed to do? They had a lawyer on the line. Probably call the Pentagon. I mean, all of that needs to be unpacked before we can make a judgment from a military standpoint.
- [38:57]
C
In traditional war and combat, under the traditional rules.
- [39:04]
The scenario would be to try to rescue unarmed shipwrecked survivors. They would become prisoners of war, right?
- [39:11]
D
That's exactly right. And you know, In World War II, that didn't happen to some of America's sailors. We had German and Japanese both who would attack our sailors defenseless, Just like we had parachutists who were machine gunned after their plane had been shot down by Germans. Over Europe. Those are war crimes. That's very clear. And as everybody has said in this last week or so as we talked about this, there are war crimes that are so obvious that everybody is supposed to disobey any order to commit that crime. Shooting civilians, shooting people who are trying to surrender, torturing prisoners and things like this, those are war crimes. And our soldiers are taught from the very beginning not to do that. And we've taken pride on it. So really hard to see this. And my friends who know Bradley say he's a good man, put in a lot of great service, he's a strong leader. Okay, okay, I got all that. But we, you know, the public wants to see the evidence on this. And it's really difficult for me as a military person understand both sides of this. I want to see the evidence. Crimophasia, what happened as it's described is a war crime.
- [40:42]
But maybe there were circumstances. What are they? I mean, we've heard so many stories on this. We heard at one point they had radio and they were going to call somebody. We're in another time that there were ships, other.
- [40:55]
Narcotic ships in the area that could have picked them up. Turns out there was no radio. There were no other ships. And so we don't know. I don't know what to believe on it, but I'm worried because it's not just this, but it's the national security strategy. It's the preparation to abandon Europe. It's the focus of military force in Latin America. I mean, I don't know what we're going to do in Venezuela. I got several different scenarios. I know the Venezuela used to be a democracy. I know the majority of Venezuelan people don't support Maduro. Okay. But, you know, you're going to go in there and break things and kill people to put a democracy in place. There's a lot of weapons in Venezuela and you have a lot of forces on the outside and inside which would resent and resist an American presence. So.
- [41:49]
I'm very wary about the new national security strategy as it's been put out there. Maduro is a problem, but Maduro is a mosquito compared to Vladimir Putin. And what can happen if Ukraine taken.
- [42:05]
C
Yeah. And you have obviously the experience in the military as well as at the diplomatic level of trying to figure out Europe, NATO, what you mentioned there in Russia and Ukraine, and then what seems to be to many people, escalation or combat of our choosing and whether that's going to be meaningfully tested and as you said, scrutiny for the American public. So, General Clark, as always, thank you for your service and your insights tonight. We will be right back.
- [42:42]
Donald Trump and the White House have been called out repeatedly for misusing people's songs. But it is backfiring on them as some of those people who have huge followings are crushing the White House and Donald Trump's policies over it. The White House took pop star Serena Carpenter's music repeatedly. Now they're basically trying to do videos online to go after immigrants. And she is pushing back. She's got tens of millions of followers online. She's calling a video that promotes the immigration crackdown that tried to misuse her song. She says it's evil and disgusting. Disgusting. Now, the White House removed that post after her objection. But now they've posted a doctored clip of Carpenter. This is your government spreading misinformation. Where she was on SNL and they altered her voice and went in a way, as you see here, subs the word too hot with illegal and then goes into these ICE arrests. Mind you, when the United States government puts out misinformation, which some people might be able to sue over, you've got a lot of confusion out there. Some people think, well, if I saw it from our government, it's probably true. Or what she really said. Now that we've warned you, here's a little bit of the doctored clip.
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F
I think I might need to arrest.
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C
Someone for being too illegal.
- [44:02]
They can argue it's some kind of joke or meme, but plenty of folks are confused and it's also very misleading. Her reference there was basically about someone being so hot, not going after people who are perhaps undocumented. How big a star is Sabrina Carpenter? Well, she has one of the largest young followings in the world. She was on the top list from Spotify Rap that we covered last week. And she's not alone when it comes to pushing back. The number one artist of this year, Bad Bunny has used his platform to push back on Trump and what he calls a racist, anti Puerto Rico agenda, Olivia Rodrigo, or if you want to go more classic, Neil Young all going at Trump this year and telling their massive and loyal audiences about what they view as Trump's troubled policies. It's an example where picking this fight is actually activating a lot of pushback. That does it for us. The WEEKNIGHT starts now.
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