Pete Hegseth (2:15)

I'd have to check. You don't know. It's a big Pentagon.

Interviewer / Committee Member (2:22)

You directly commissioned Mr. Parlatore in the Naval Reserve as a NAVY Commander in March 2025, did you not?

Pete Hegseth (2:28)

I was very proud to do so.

Interviewer / Committee Member (2:30)

And when you did, because he's a Navy Reserve officer, he didn't have to

Jason Crow (2:34)

go through the PPO process.

Interviewer / Committee Member (2:36)

The White House Presidential Personnel Office. Right. He wasn't vetted by a White House ppo.

Pete Hegseth (2:41)

Uniformed service members don't get vetted by.

Interviewer / Committee Member (2:43)

Answer is yes, he didn't have to be vetted by White House ppo. He didn't go through the Senate confirmation

Jason Crow (2:48)

process either, did he?

Interviewer / Committee Member (2:51)

The answer is no.

Pete Hegseth (2:53)

I don't know what you're getting to, but Tim is a fantastic.

Interviewer / Committee Member (2:55)

I'll tell you what I'm getting to.

Jason Crow (2:56)

The answer is no.

Interviewer / Committee Member (2:57)

Right.

Pete Hegseth (2:58)

He does great work.

Interviewer / Committee Member (2:59)

Okay. Was it true that he was accused of lying by the president's legal team?

Pete Hegseth (3:05)

I'm not familiar to. You'd have to give me the article.

Interviewer / Committee Member (3:08)

Well, it's right here. Wanna look at the statement from the president?

Pete Hegseth (3:11)

Anybody can blow up a quote and claim it says something, and that's what you're doing in a little stunt.

Interviewer / Committee Member (3:15)

Secretary Hegseth, what I'm really concerned about is you purport to have unfaltering loyalty to President Trump, and yet you are continuously.

Pete Hegseth (3:22)

Oh, you care a lot about President Trump, don't you? You're going behind the waste of your five minutes. Waste of your five minutes that I reclaim my time.

Joanna Coles (3:31)

And as we've seen, these hearings turn out to be bad for cabinet secretaries. Kristi Noem left shortly after hers. Pam Bondi left shortly after hers. Who knows how long Pete Hegseth is going to last? And this is a shorter interview than we would normally do. But we felt the urgency of the moment made for us to squeeze into the congressman's schedule. But we're going to come back in three weeks with a much longer interview with him. So just one more quick but important note. After we recorded our interview with Jason Crow, Tim Paulatori sent a letter to the congressman denying Crow's accusations and questions in his testimony. Pollitori also offered a statement in response to the comments made in this podcast, which Crow's team has responded to. We will be linking to that letter and those statements in the episode description. Anyway, let's get into it. Before we do, I'm just going to ask you to press the subscribe button, if you would. We can bring you these conversations because we are independent media and we really appreciate your support. Okay, that's enough. Let's get into it. Congressman. Congressman, you are the talk of D.C. you pulled a full Gordon Ramsay and filleted Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense. War, who knows what he's the secretary of. Possibly chaos, possibly forever war. What was the significance of you asking about Tim Palatori? Who is Tim Palatori and why are you anxious about him?

Jason Crow (5:11)

Well, there's rightfully a lot of attention on the quagmire, that is the war in Iran now, the vaccine mandate, all the things they're doing to jeopardize our service members. But There hasn't been as much attention paid to the rank corruption and the pay to pay politics that Pete Hegseth and his cronies have turned a lot of the Department of Defense and his front office into. Right. So the significance of this is you have a man and Tim Parlatore, who used to be Pete Hegseth's private attorney, who has basically been given a key role in the Department of Defense and the ability to maintain a private law practice at the same time. And I can explain how they've been able to pull this off so that he can earn money, be paid by God knows who. At the same time, he's advising the Secretary of Defense on promotions and important national security issues. It is not just corruption, but it's jeopardizing, in my view, it's jeopardizing our safety and the security of Americans.

Joanna Coles (6:17)

So how does this happen? Because normally there's a vetting process, so something like this should be flagged. But the implication of your questions yesterday in the committee was that normal processes had not been followed.

Jason Crow (6:33)

That's right. Well, first of all, what Pete Hegseth has done, he claims unfaltering loyalty to Donald Trump, but then he's hiring people who Donald Trump has fired, who he has disparaged. In the case of Tim Parlatore, like this, is a lawyer who used to serve as a lawyer for Donald Trump in his campaign, was fired by Trump and his campaign team and called a liar and disparaged by Donald Trump. Pete Hegseth uses a very unique set of appointments. So what he did was he appointed parliatori, did a direct commission, and made him a Navy Reserve officer. And by making him a Navy Reserve officer, a couple of things happened. Number one, this position, which is normally a Senate confirmed political appointee position, was not. It's a military position. So he bypasses the Senate confirmation process, and by making him a reserve officer, it also bypasses the White House vetting process through the ppo, the personnel office of the White House. So that's how he bypassed all of those normal processes. This person didn't have a security clearance when he first made the appointment. It's unclear whether he still does. And then on top of it, also by making him a Navy Reserve officer, it allows him to maintain a private business, a consultancy or a law firm, and make money at the same time as he's working basically full time at the Pentagon as well. So that's how they have been able to take advantage of loopholes in the system to do what they have set up at the Pentagon.

Joanna Coles (8:10)

Wow. And do we know why Donald Trump fired him?

Jason Crow (8:14)

We are trying to get to the bottom of that. I mean, there's something bad happened with Parlia Torre and Donald Trump's lawyers in the White House. We're not really sure what. So there are really more questions than answers at this point.

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Joanna Coles (9:37)

Does Donald Trump know that Tim Palatori is working as a special advisor in the Pentagon for the secretary?

Jason Crow (9:48)

Well, that's why I did my questioning. I was in part speaking to Donald Trump, which I never do. Audience of one, right?

Joanna Coles (9:53)

I mean, there's no audience of one.

Jason Crow (9:55)

There's exactly like. There's no love loss between me and Donald Trump, clearly. I mean, the man tried to indict me and put me in prison in February, you know, accused me of treason, said he was gonna have me executed. So I was an impeachment prosecutor in their first impeachment trial. So there's a long history between Donald Trump and I of us going at each other. But in this instance, I was highlighting for the White House that Pete Hegseth is grabbing people and putting him. Putting them in key political positions where they are able to make tremendous amounts of money, who the White House has disparaged and cast out into the street.

Joanna Coles (10:35)

Well, you also implied that Tim Palatori, in his legal work, had clients who were foreign countries. Pete Hegseth didn't seem to know. I mean, we literally. It will be a masterclass for legal students. I think the way you filleted him yesterday, it was an extraordinary performance. And you could See him sort of dancing on the head of a pin. Do we know if Tim Palatori is working for foreign governments?

Jason Crow (11:03)

We have heard many rumors that that could be true. So that is why I asked that question, to try to figure that out. But either way, Pete Hegseth answered that either yes or no is disturbing in its own right. But if the answer is yes, then that's a huge problem. Obviously, if the answer is no, then Pete Hegseth has appointed someone, a senior advisor, given them a security clearance, presumably, and positioned them in a senior office, and travels with somebody and has no idea who his clients are or what potential conflicts of interest are. So either way, it's problematic.

Joanna Coles (11:44)

So Peter Hegseth is asking for a budget of $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon. We appear to be stuck in a quagmire with the Strait of Hormuz. This is a man who left both veterans organizations that he was working for under accusations of financial incompetence and drunkenness. You've been in the military. You've served in Afghanistan, in Iraq. You talk to a lot of people who also served. What do you think of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense? War?

Jason Crow (12:26)

I think it's worse than incompetent. I think he's a vengeful individual who not just lacks the qualification, but has a meanness to him and a corruption of his heart and soul to him that allows him to do things to people in organizations that most normal people would not do. I think he is in extreme danger, which is why my focus has been getting him to getting him fired, basically. Right. Like, is he gonna resign? I've called for him to resign, and I know it's popular for people to call for him resign. This man's not gonna resign. He's just not. I know. I know. Some people have called for him to impeach. I would love to have him impeached, and of course, I would pursue that, but we don't have the votes for that either.

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Jason Crow (13:13)

Republicans are simply not going to do that right now so long as they hold the majority. So what can we do? We can make it so untenable for him and highlight the level of corruption and the incompetent, as you point out, the Strait of Hormuz. There was no plan here. We started a war without a plan for handle very, very sensitive items. Right. Like how to protect our troops in the region. Clearly, there was no plan for that. And American soldiers and service members are dead as a result of that. There was no plan for the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, how do we know there was no plan? Because the Department of Defense was sending its minesweepers to Asia in the weeks leading up to the war. Right. And if there was a plan to secure the Straits, we wouldn't have been doing that. We would have kept those minesweepers in the Middle east because they're essential to keeping the Straits open. So this has been bungled from the very start.

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Joanna Coles (14:59)

Pete Hegseth survives this war? I mean, it felt very clear yesterday that Donald Trump had there to be very much the face of this war. I mean, I don't want to say it's a forever war, but the one thing that he promised his MAGA base that there would be no wars. There would be no forever wars. Here we are, at least right now, it looks like the negotiations have come to a halt. Nobody understands how we're going to get out of this situation. Does Pete Hegseth become the inevitable fool guy here?

Jason Crow (15:36)

I just don't know. Every time I think he's on the ropes, he finds a way to survive. I think the way to get Pete Hegseth out of this position is to highlight his incompetence, his corruption, painting over the full truth of the advice he's giving to Donald Trump. Donald Trump values loyalty, people who are willing to be completely loyal to him. Not to their jobs, not to the Constitution, to him. But if he thinks that people are incompetent or that there's too much drama associated with their job, as is the case of Kristi Noem, he will tire of them. So our job is to highlight the corruption, the incompetence that Pete Hegseth is telling them what he wants to hear instead of the truth painting over ugly realities and giving him bad advice. I think that is the most effective way to draw that wedge and to get Pete Hegseth out of this really important position where he's jeopardizing our troops.

Joanna Coles (16:37)

How bad is the corruption, do you think, in the Pentagon?

Jason Crow (16:43)

Well, what I'm hearing is it's pretty stunning, right? I'm hearing a situation now where general officers have to lobby for positions. Right. There is a well defined process for our senior military appointments that's based on merit, it's based on performance, it's based on experience. They have redesigned that process, funneled it through Pete Hegseth's office, so that it's based on loyalty, it's based on ideology, and it's based on lobbying. This is stunning that the people who are the most responsible for our national security and the welfare of our troops might be getting appointments based on who they're paying or who they're lobbying or who they're buddies with. How dangerous is that for our men and women who we have a sacred oath to protect? I think we are going to be spending years uncovering corruption the likes of which we have never seen in the United States of America. We have our work cut out for us if we regain the majority. We have an obligation to uncover this corruption, not because we want to go after people or be vengeful or settle the score. I have little interest in that. But because they are stealing from my constituents. They are stealing from the American people. People who can't afford to pay their groceries or their rent or who are losing their health care, are having money taken out of their pockets and put into the pockets of Donald Trump and his cronies and political hacks. And that is wrong.

Joanna Coles (18:17)

There was also a report in the Financial Times that two days before the war in Iran began, Pete Hegseth's bank, Morgan Stanley, had looked into investing in an ETF which specialized in defence contractors. Now, Pete Hegseth has said that he's denied it. He said, I didn't do that. But I'm assuming that it's quite easy for people to take advantage of the knowledge they have and to make investments where they know these things are probably going to be advantageous.

Jason Crow (18:58)

Yeah. One of the things that the Trump era has highlighted is how many holes there are in the system that allow corruption, allow conflicts of interest, things that maybe we just took for granted as customs and traditions, because people come into public service to do the right thing. And as soon as you have people in the position who don't care about our traditions and our norms as a democracy and are willing to just monetize the position. They drive a truck through those gaps. One of our tasks as we move forward is not rebuilding what once was or taking us back to where we were. We need to build a new thing. It has to be different and look different, and it has to have a lot more protections against corruptions and conflicts of interest, which is why I've signed on to efforts and pushing efforts to ban stock trading for members of Congress, which is why we needed to do that for senior positions within the administration, too. If you want to go into public service, you shouldn't be making money and cashing in on that. That should be a sacrifice. Service entails sacrifice. And right now this administration is just turning that on its head. And we have our work cut out for us in the years ahead in terms of reform, legislating and putting brick walls in front of those gaps right now that people are using.

Joanna Coles (20:19)

Okay, final question, because I know you have to go, but you are part of a relatively new band of Democratic congresspeople. You took an area in Colorado that had just been held for four previous terms by a Republican. You're the first Democrat to be elected in that district. Today we got the news that Janet Mills is no longer standing for the Senate seat in Maine. She's the governor there currently. But if she were to win that Senate seat, she would be aged 80 going into the House. And one of your military compatriots, Graham Platner, is likely to get the nomination for that seat. So how does. Is this a sign of the Democratic Party relinquishing some of their older people and realizing that it's time to go with a younger band of candidates?

Jason Crow (21:17)

No, it's not a sign of that, because what I've learned in politics is that political power is never given away. People don't easily cede it and give it away and unfortunately, pass the baton gracefully to the next generation. It has to be taken. Political power must be taken. And what you're seeing is the next generation of leadership, servant leaders, stepping up around the country and taking that political power. They're fighting for it. They are earning the trust of people. That is why I've been proud to be the chair of the battleground, because I've been running around the country. I've been in New Hampshire and Illinois and Michigan and Wisconsin and Arizona. I've been recruiting that next generation of servant leaders who are stepping up to take power back and who are going to reform the Democratic Party because we need massive reform to the party, who are going to take us in an entirely different direction and who are going to not just win an election. I'm so tired of just stumbling from election season to election season. We need a movement that's going to forever break the fever of the mega movement and is going to spark a new enlightenment in America, Democratic enlightenment that's going to move us for a generation. An entirely different direction.

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Joanna Coles (23:09)

What an interesting strategy to highlight to an audience of one Donald Trump, the president, that his secretary of defense, slash war, has been hiring people that he's fired and using a loophole to do it. So he needs no Senate confirmation or to go through the usual processes. And there he is sitting in the middle of the Pentagon as a special advisor to Pete Hegseth. Will Pete Hegseth survive? Well, Jason Crow hopes he won't. If you have been thank you for joining us. Don't forget, forget to subscribe to our button. Just hit the button on the subscription box and don't forget to leave us a comment telling us what you think. Is this a good strategy to get Donald Trump to pay attention to Pete Hegseth? Let us know what you think. So the good news is we have so many Beast Tier members now, there are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support. Thanks to our production team.

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