← To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes
Paul Rieckhoff: Trump, War Crimes, and the Afghan Betrayal
00:47:49
Loading summary
Transcript77 lines
- [00:00]
Boost Mobile Representative
The holidays are coming and I've got a Boost Mobile gift just for you. Aww, for me, Anna? Yes, Anna, you deserve a gift. The Boost Mobile unlimited plan is just $10 a month for the first two months. Then $25 a month forever with unlimited data, talk and text. It's a gift. Thanks, Anna. Anytime, Anna.
- [00:19]
Paul Rykoff
The holidays are here and the best gift is for you. Offer valid@boostmobile.com after your first two months, you'll pay $25 a month unless you.
- [00:27]
Charlie
Go online or call to cancel.
- [00:29]
Paul Rykoff
Requires autopay.
- [00:30]
Paige from Giggly Squad
Hey guys, it's Paige from Giggly Squad. And if you're anything like me, holiday shopping has officially started. And you know where I'm going. Ulta Beauty they have the cutest gift sets right now like the Sol de Janeiro, Shea Rosa and Cheer Perfume Mist trio. It smells so good. I've been misting it everywhere. On me, on the street, on my pillow. It's a whole vibe. I'm obsessed with the Tarte Kindness Cafe collector set. It's packed with everyday makeup must haves and it's honestly too cute to wrap. And if you need a cozy little self care moment, the Moroccan Oil hand care essentials kit is luxe, hydrating and smells delicious. Don't worry if you can't decide right now. An Ulta Beauty gift card is the perfect gift for everyone. So whether you're gifting your bestie or yourself, make the season yours and head to Ulta Beauty today. Ulta Beauty gifting happens here.
- [01:16]
Ryan Reynolds
Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [01:38]
Boost Mobile Representative
Of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes if network's busy, taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.
- [01:59]
Charlie
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome to the month of December. It is December 2025 and it occurs to me that members of Donald Trump's cabinet are not having a good week. Year, month, life. Pam Bondi had that amazing face plant last week with the dismissal of the Comey and Letitia James indictments. We know about Pete Hegseth. We'll get to that in just A moment. Cash Patel. I don't know whether you've seen this is a big story in the New York post about this 115 page report basically saying the guy's a complete, complete clown. And then of course you have Kristi Noem, who's basically now having to admit, yeah, I was the one who ordered the planes to go to El Salvador in defiance of the federal judge order. I mean, damn. So joining me once again on the podcast, our good friend Paul Rykoff, who is the founder of Independent Vets of America and the host of the Independent Americans podcast. Paul, how are you doing?
- [02:57]
Paul Rykoff
I'm all right. What a start to December, huh? I mean, the shit show is picking up right where it left off.
- [03:04]
Charlie
Okay, so I want to spend some time talking about Pete Hegseth and whether or not he is in some big trouble, by the way. I mean, the guy, you know, just a reminder of how utterly unfit the man is, that in the middle of all of this controversy about the extrajudicial murders, war crimes, he's posting cartoon memes about killing terrorists. I mean, the guy is an 8 year old boy, you know, with the mentality of a 12 year old. I mean, what do you say about.
- [03:32]
Paul Rykoff
The guy, you know, I mean, Pete, where to begin? I mean, it's the demented gift that keeps on giving. You know, I've known Hagseth, I think we've talked about this before for 20 years or so. I think it's important for folks to start with understanding that he was kind of built in a lab for this moment. Now, it might have been a broken lab. He might not be the ideal product here, but he's not just a Fox News host, right? He was built by conservative organizations and conservative donors to be this showman, right? To be this culture warrior, this attack dog. And that's really what he reliably is. I mean, he plays this lowbrow game. I think it's dishonorable. I think it's disgusting, I think it's shameful. But this is what Trump got him for, right? And the same reason he got Nome and the same reason he got Patel. This is right out of central casting. And if you know Pete Hegseth, you know, this is what he's always been. You hope that he would moderate himself, you hope that he would get more serious. You hope that he would be more restrained and more disciplined. But he is, he is radical, he is overtly political, he is extreme, he is unqualified, he is sloppy and he is very, very arrogant. Charlie and I Think that's part of what our enemies can see, our allies can see, more and more of the country can see. And there's a disrespectful tone to the office that I think actually does matter. He's a man who doesn't seem to have honor, doesn't seem to have integrity. And if you think he's not gonna lie to you about strikes on alleged drug boats, remember, he lied to two wives. And he's had a very, very disrupted personal life that was the focus of a huge part of his hearings, because there was a question of, can you trust this man? You were warned. Can you trust him to tell the truth? Can you trust him to be loyal to the Constitution and not to Trump? And I go back to the hearings when I think it was Slotkin or others asked him, you know, will you promise to be loyal to the Constitution over Trump? And he wouldn't say yes. So this is what we get, right? I mean, this is a firm, dangerous manifestation of all of that.
- [05:40]
Charlie
Yeah, we'll come back to this a little bit later. Whether or not he's really in trouble on all of this. You know, you have congressional hearings both in the Senate and in the House. Even Donald Trump appeared to be. Donald Trump, who's a very much a war of crimes enthusiast himself, distanced himself from Pete Hegseth. And you just don't get the sense that he completely gets. But I want to start someplace else. Okay, let's just. There's so much. And I want to talk about.
- [06:07]
Paul Rykoff
The.
- [06:07]
Charlie
Afghan refugees, and I know you've dealt with Iraq and Afghan refugees before. And of course, one of the big stories of the last week was, first of all, the tragic and brutal shooting of two National Guards from West Virginia in Washington, D.C. the death of one of them. Donald Trump reacted the way he often reacts, which is to basically apply collective guilt to an entire national group or race. And he's now shut down all. All asylum, all visa requests for Afghans. And so give me your sense of where we're at there. I guess I want to focus on that part of it because, you know, there were many of us, including you, who were very, very outspoken about the moral obligation this country had to our allies in Afghanistan. You know, the men and the women who fought with us and interpreted for us. And now they appear to have a massive Trumpian target on their back. So where are we at here? Your thoughts on this?
- [07:07]
Paul Rykoff
You know, Charlie, it's one of those situations that requires intellectual vigor, requires nuance, requires depth of understanding. You know, Counsel from many sides. It's a very gray situation. And Donald Trump sucks at gray situations, right? I mean, he makes everything black and white. He makes everything them against us. And in many ways, this is kind of a great case study in how something that is very complex and goes back to, you know, to multiple administrations here that we could talk to, but oversimplifying it to further his political agenda. I mean, this was an assassination. It was. It was absolutely ghastly, outrageous. You know, you got two young National Guardsmen, one who's dead and one who's in critical condition. And I think it's a reminder that anytime you put troops out on the street anywhere, they're in harm's way, right? Even if they're in training at Fort Bragg or if they go overseas. So I think it underscores how much, I think we've kind of gotten a little bit. Lacked a bit laxed about, about deploying our National Guards and reservists. Especially after 9, 11, there was a big spin up, right? Every troop was on airports and bridges and tunnels, and we were all afraid about terrorist attacks. We kind of got lulled into complacency thinking it was like a safe thing. But all of us who've worn the uniform know that everywhere you go in a uniform, you're a target. It's why they tell us to take our uniforms off when we travel internationally, right? Because they don't want you to be a target. So I think it's a complex situation. But when it comes to the Afghan nationals, I mean, these are most of these folks, an overwhelming majority of these folks served with honor and with distinction, went through the right process. And I think maybe the most alarming part of this is I don't think Trump is either taking into account or caring about the fact that with this statement, you have ensured that nobody's gonna stand with our troops again, period.
- [09:02]
Charlie
Right?
- [09:03]
Paul Rykoff
Like, if we have to go into Venezuela, right, and you need Venezuelan nationals to come and stand with American troops, to give them intelligence, to serve as translators, to help them not die, right? They're not gonna do it. And I think that's really, really important here because there's been a betrayal of the Afghans that is separate from this process, which of course could be improved. We'll find it looks like this guy went through all the regular processes in the right way and may have been radicalized or may have been mentally disturbed. We don't know. We'll find out. But the larger message is, hey, let's shut the door on all of them and kick them all out. And that is so dangerous to our national security. Most of all, Charlie, it reminds me of the debates we used to have about torture, right, in the early days after 9, 11. And one of the things we used to say to people is one of the reasons we don't torture is because we want them to give up on the battlefield. We want them to know that if they give up, they will be treated well. Right? And this is the same kind of message. We want people to know that if you stand with us, we will stand with you, and we will have your back, and we will take care of you. There's gonna be a rigorous process, and we're gonna check all your background. But there are lots of Afghans who are struggling in this country because they haven't been given a pathway to success. But you shouldn't just throw them all in one big lump and now kick them all out and send them back to what is a wasteland that we've created through multiple administrations. There's plenty of blame for Biden. There's plenty of blame for Trump, all the way back to Obama. But I think the radical jump to demonize another group of people who seem very scary, right, to the outsiders, it's another them versus us. Look at these scary brown people who come from the Middle east who shot these two lovely white National Guardsmen from West Virginia, right? I mean, it's like a Stephen Miller special. And I think that's what makes it most dangerous, not just to Afghans and not just to our troops, but to our overall global national security. We where we've got troops in hundreds of countries around the world who are gonna need allies. So, you know, it's one of those times where Trump needs to have nuance, needs to have some intelligence, needs to shape the larger issues at play here. And instead, he's hitting the Stephen Miller button, and it's folding into a radical agenda that wants to kick out everybody that's not in line with them.
- [11:15]
Charlie
Well, that's it. I mean, you can tell that it is the Stephen Miller agenda, and they are using this incident as a pretext to justify their mass deportations and shutting down all immigration from what Don Trump used to colorfully call shithole countries. The real tell on this was in his Thanksgiving Day rant. He's talking about all immigrants, all including Afghans, and then sort of veers off and then these Somalis in Minnesota who are taking over the state. So, like, what is it about the Somalis? What is their possible relevance to all of this other than like the Mexican rapists, like the Haitians who were not eating their dogs, like the Afghans. And Donald Trump is at the point now where there's almost no pretense that we are going to go after and we distrust foreigners, which is not true. Not all foreigners, just foreigners who are from third world countries who are not white. And you know, I wrote in my newsletter yesterday, I'm old enough to remember when he first proposed his Muslim ban back in 2015, 10 years ago this month, there was huge pushback among Republicans. How un American this was. This wasn't conservative, this was racist. And everything you notice 10 years on, complete silence, nothing crickets.
- [12:31]
Paul Rykoff
Yeah. And Charlie, can I say something too? The protection of the Afghan allies has been a bipartisan issue. There's been a lot of very, very much so Republicans on this, including Pete Egseth. Right. I mean there are. Anybody who served in post 911 knows this is actually a unifying issue. And there are so many success stories. It's kind of an underground railroad of American Post 911 veterans who've been saving Afghans and Iraqis. Two of my Iraqi interpreters live now in America successfully. One of them, Mohammed, lives in Nashville. He's got two kids. His son plays high school football. I mean, he's a great American success story. Right. He's settled here, he's contributing to the community, he's paying taxes, he's doing an incredible job. And that's the overwhelming majority of them who went through what was a very rigorous.
- [13:16]
Charlie
What happens to him though? And what, what, what is he, is he, does he wake up at three in the morning and going, I am, I thought this was over. I am doing everything I'm supposed to do.
- [13:25]
Paul Rykoff
More importantly, legally, what, what happens to his high school age kids? Right?
- [13:29]
Charlie
Yes.
- [13:30]
Paul Rykoff
I mean like what happens to this is like way downstream. People have to understand like he got here I think over 15 years ago, right. His kids in high school now, like they've been here, they've settled, they've done the right thing. Some of them are serving in our military now or serving in our police departments and our fire departments. They have a high propensity to serve. They want to give back like so many other immigrants. But it does fold into the us versus them narrative, which is so critical to their culture war. And I think you and I have talked about this before, Charlie. The military continues to be the tip of the spear. And every time they can activate around the military, they're going to do it, whether it's the national Guard in the streets or the drug boats or this assassination in D.C. it's going to be the same button they keep hitting. So it always becomes an us versus them. And the them is someone who's not white from another country. And the US Is often perceived to be white troops. Right. Like, you know, it happened to be two white troops here. I don't think most folks were thinking it could be a woman. And I think when I was on CNN on Thursday night, I said to one of my colleagues, I said, you know, it's really going to be a surprise to people if it turns out to be a woman that one of these troops was a woman. Because they don't just, the country just doesn't think that way. Right. They always think it's going to be a white guy. And I think that that's gonna make it especially resonant with people and open to manipulation in ways it might not be. So the gender plays a factor here, too. But most importantly, we keep trying to find low points here, Charlie, and we keep going lower. I do think you have to hold Trump accountable for putting troops in harm's way and understand that every deployment, even if it's the National Guard on the streets of D.C. is dangerous and should be rigorously questioned, most of all by Congress and by the so called conservatives who say they care about congressional power and things like the Senate War Powers Act.
- [15:22]
Charlie
Let's come back to Congress because that has now become an active issue and a very, very interesting issue. So let's talk about the other story. The order was to kill everybody. Pete Hegseth, doing his thing, issued this blunt order, kill them all. It goes back to September 2nd. They blew up a boat. You know, we don't know. Maybe they were narcotics traffickers, we don't know. What we do know is the first missile blew up the boat, but it did not kill everybody. So smoke clears, there are two survivors clinging to the wreckage. The commander orders a second strike. According to the Washington Post account, in order to comply with Pete Hegset's order to leave no survivors, take no prisoners, kill everybody. Now, I am not a lawyer and I am not in the military. I have spent a lot of the weekend reading people like Jack Goldsmith looking through the Department of Defense Law of War manual, the various laws governing this. This seems to me to be a black and white case of if in fact it played out that way, of being either a war crime or flat out murder. What do you think? What was your reaction?
- [16:37]
Paul Rykoff
I think it's really important, Charlie, to underscore you don't have to be a lawyer. This is what's right and wrong in a modern American military. And it's been taught since World War II. Anybody who's seen a World War II movie or a Vietnam movie, right, you know that so called double tapping is not what Americans do and it's considered a war crime. Let me give you a different example of this. Yeah. Imagine the World War II scene where a Nazi soldier is wounded, right? Americans take them prisoner. You don't stand over them and put two more in their head. And this is the 20, 25 equivalent of putting two more in their head, right? And it's not just about being tough or being weak. It's also about a really important element that is often lost here, intelligence value. You get no intelligence value from a dead guy, Right? And if those two people were narco, whatever they want to call them, right? If they were, if they were some kind of assailant, yeah. Then their biggest value is to capture them. Right? In the same way, if they're bad enough to kill, they're bad enough to capture. So they let two more go back to Venezuela earlier and they just kind of let that blow by. But I think this is a really important point, Charlie, because if they really are serious about protecting the homeland or guarding us against any number of adversaries, you don't let them go. You get the two more and you take them prisoner and you interrogate them and you find out what they know, and then you find out how broad this goes and even explain to the American people, who are they? What were they doing? Just like the 911 conspirators, right? So I think this is a really important crossroads that most of us saw coming. We didn't know when it would come, we didn't know how it would come. We didn't know if it had already come. But there would be a case that would become this generation's Abu Ghraib, this generation's My Lai. And this boat strike, it looks like, will be that case. There should be investigations. We will find out who ordered the strike, who conducted the strike, who pulled the trigger, you know, whether it was literally or figuratively gonna have a reckoning here. And I think Trump's reaction to distance himself from Hegseth is his very deep understanding of the political waters. This might be the thing that he throws Hegseth out with. But the problem here is even if he throws Hegseth out and Dan Driscoll, seems like the odds on favorite, the army secretary who's been, you Know, kind of a rising star. I point folks to watch Dan Driscoll here. In the mix of all this, Hegseth doesn't just walk. I mean, even if he pardons him or tries to pull some kind of legal finagling, I would hope that Republicans and Democrats are still gonna conduct a thorough investigation here. Trump's putting the pedal down and might be dropping bombs on Venezuela by the time this airs.
- [19:13]
Charlie
Well, I want to get to that.
- [19:14]
Paul Rykoff
Situation where he's going to challenge the Democrats and his own party to see if they can even keep up with this. I mean, they're going to likely be trying to pass War Powers act while he's striking Venezuela and Hegseth's talking about something else. This will be a really critical time for the Senate and Congress to focus and ensure there's accountability on this issue in addition to others that might be happening.
- [19:38]
Charlie
So this seems to have woken up Congress. I mean, Congress has been behaving like a potted plant, you know, not insisting on authorization, the War Powers Act. And now immediately, you had the Senate Armed Services Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, say they will be investigating that. We seem to be moving closer and closer to a possible war with Venezuela. So I know predictions are always really, really tough. You know, you and I both know, of course Congress should become involved. Of course Congress needs to be consulted. Of course they need to authorize this. Will this wake up Congress? Do you see any signs that finally Congress is going, wait, wait, wait, wait. This is not what we signed up for here. We need to. We need to have a vote here. We need to have hearings. We need to have accountability. We need to have a vote?
- [20:21]
Paul Rykoff
I think so. And there's a really important reason why. Charlie, there's a videotape, right? There's a videotape. So, like, if there was no videotape for the whole world to pick through and reanalyze, and maybe there are other videotapes. I'm sure there are. There's probably additional satellite footage and drone footage, and they'll, you know, they'll call for all of that. When there's documentation, it's different. Right. And I think that makes it hard for any member of Congress to avoid. So I think there should be a reckoning. You've already obviously heard from folks like Rand Paul and others who I think can be relied on this as conservatives, libertarians. Right. But now you're hearing from more moderates, and it's happening on another parallel track, which is the attacks on Senator Kelly and the five other Democrats where you also saw folks like Lisa Murkowski, Republicans speak out right now, and they have to be separate, but they have to try to get to all of them. Right? And then you've got Venezuela, where, yes, I think that you're more likely than not to have an escalation of Venezuela this month, in part, because I think Congress is only in session for 13 days. So he can ask for forgiveness, not for permission. He can strike now and then force Congress to come back over Christmas and kind of take advantage of a time when nobody wants to be there. And he can continue to escalate and flood the zone on what is essentially kind of three separate issues that they're gonna morph together. And that's the real challenge of facing Trump when he owns the narrative. He's still trying to hold the narrative together. And I think he's pushed off Epstein for a little while now. And there's no better way to focus your team than a war. And it's a way for them to very dastardly and manipulatively kind of weave it all together. And that's why I think, like, vigilance is going to be so important. Clear voices are going to be so important. And this is also why they're interconnected. Right? Because who would be a really strong voice now opposing Venezuelan strikes? Who would be a really strong voice urging caution on drug boats? It would be someone like Mark Kelly. It would be someone like Slotkin. Right? And if you, if you muddle them and you ruin their reputations, you take them out of the way and you continue to go full speed ahead on taking out moderno and, and pushing regime change, which I've called. You know, it's like the Chicken Hawks 2.0. Charlie, you and I remember Iraq. We remember after 9, 11. This is the reimagining of the chicken hawks who want to have an easy regime change and send other kids, other people's kids to war. And it could get very messy very fast.
- [22:48]
Charlie
Okay, so let's talk about this. You know, Trump owning the narrative. I'm not totally convinced that he does own the narrative. You know, the polls would suggest that people are very, very skeptical about Venezuela. He's arguing that we, that Maduro is a drug kingpin, therefore we have to take him out. And yet the same day, the same day, you can't make this stuff up. He gives a pardon to the drug kingpin who used to be the president of Hong Kong, Honduras. I mean, a really, really bad guy, a guy who took, you know, a million dollar bribe from El Chapo. You know, his people have been killed in prison to protect him. He was convicted by an American jury of, you know, running cocaine and being a. He's a guy that bragged about, you know, shoving cocaine up the noses of the gringos. So if this is really about. If the narrative is we need to fight drugs, Trump seems confused also. If his goal was to mess up the reputations of Mark Kelly and Alyssa Slotkin, didn't this whole story about the war crime, the, you know, kill them all, doesn't that sort of underline and put an exclamation point behind why they issued that video telling members of the military that they did not have to follow illegal orders? I mean, in many ways, he has elevated them beyond anything they could have done themselves.
- [24:03]
Paul Rykoff
I think, you know, yeah, I think it's a really, really important kind of, you know, spectrum to pull apart. And when I say he's owning the narrative, I do think he's continuing to own the narrative with his base and with the folks that are kind of like peripheral political watchers. Like, yes, you and I can sit here and put down the timeline of when Slotkin and Kelly released the video versus the strikes. But what he did, you know, at least among Fox News viewers, is he's, like, ruined Kelly's reputation. Right. He's turned him into Nancy Pelosi or aoc. Right. And that's part of what he wants. But I think more importantly, what's happening, Charlie, is nothing's really slowing him down. And I continue to say this, like the most important story in the world is that Trump can do whatever he wants with the most powerful military the world has ever seen, and nothing's stopping him. So, yes, and they are obeying his muddling it a little bit. Are they slowing him down? Maybe. But what if they stopped him from doing? He's still putting basically a quarter of our Navy off the coast of Venezuela. He's striking drug boats, he's deploying National Guard. The courts have ruled that some of the National Guard deployments are illegal, but he's asking for a stay. So now he's still got national guard troops in D.C. for longer than expected. So really, the only place they've been able to stop him or slow him down, they take Comey and put it in a different category and Letitia James in a different category when it comes to military operations, the only thing they've done is he's been ruled that National Guard are illegal in some places, but he keeps working the refs and getting an extension and he keeps throwing him into new places. So at the end of the day, what I worry, Charlie, is that he's continuing to just put the pedal down and say, catch me if you can, stop me if you can.
- [25:44]
Charlie
Yeah, well, that has been his. Yeah, that's been the shock and awe of the last nine months.
- [25:48]
Paul Rykoff
And he's gonna continue to do that. Right. Like, even if. Even if Hegseth goes down. Right. You can make the argument, oh, now he's gonna make the argument, oh, we can't change Secretary of Defense because we're in the middle of a war. Or, you know, even if we do, don't worry about Hegseth now we're focus Venezuela, and he wants to spike the ball in Ukraine before Christmas. He's trying to get a win there. So I think what he's doing is just continuing to surge ahead and making everyone react to what he does. And in that regard, he's still successful because this week, we're not talking about Epstein a lot. And I don't think it's necessarily something that he wants to. That they're doing because they want to avoid Epstein. But you're not going to hear a lot about Epstein. Epstein this week if he starts striking Venezuela.
- [26:30]
Charlie
Well, that's true. Now, look, I don't think Epstein's going away, but the striking of Venezuela is one of those. And again, I agree with what you're saying. In terms of the aggressiveness of his agenda, he's clearly at ramming speed. On the other hand, you do get the sense that he's hitting one speed bump after another. I mean, his retribution. Prosecution of Jim Comey and Letitia James up in smoke in an embarrassing way. Kristi Noem on Meet the Press over the weekend, basically saying, yeah, it was me saying that we should, you know, defy, you know, quarters, you know, again, very, very tricky about her legal standing. Kash Patel sort of imploding war is one of those things that is within his power. It looks easy at the beginning, and this is something that, I mean, we've watched before at the beginning of every war. It looks easy, it looks popular, it looks like a winner. And then once that first shot is fired, that fog settles in and nobody controls the narrative anymore. And this is the problem, especially with Trump and the people he has around him. So I want to go back to the boat strike there.
- [27:38]
Paul Rykoff
Can I ask. Can I make a point on that? Yeah, go ahead.
- [27:40]
Charlie
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [27:40]
Paul Rykoff
Because I do think it's important to note he's starting out with only 29% support from the American public on the drug boat strikes. Nobody really supports Venezuela. But what he has now that he can count on is a propaganda machine.
- [27:55]
Charlie
Right?
- [27:55]
Paul Rykoff
If you look at the spectrum of own Newsmax, Fox, Twitter, right, bolstered now by removing the Pentagon press corps and replacing them with Laura loomer and the MyPillow guy, he's got a base of a narrative that he can always feed to, right? And they love this shit. They love the drug boats, they love Hegseth. And I think when you look at Comey and you look at Tish James, I actually, you know, you could argue that's a push because he's still intimidating people. He's still intimidating and chilling more people outside of the political sphere. And nobody in the Cabinet's going down. I mean, he put up the most radical bunch of people we've ever seen. And Cash Patel, we can say, yeah, he's banged up, or Kristi Noem is banged up, or Kennedy is banged, but they're all still there, right? We're almost at a year now, and he hasn't lost secretary in scandal. So if you really want to hold him accountable, like, I think we can start keeping score once somebody leaves office, because he hasn't even had a single one of them. Despite all these scandals, the Democrats and the moderate Republicans haven't been able to remove any of them or impeach any of them.
- [28:57]
Charlie
Yeah, and they probably won't be able to. We do know, though, that Donald Trump's loyalty only goes one way. He expects absolute loyalty, but the moment he feels that somebody is a liability, he will get rid of them. Okay, so I want to go back to the Boat strikes again and connecting the dots. And a lot of this is speculative. This took place on September 2nd. After September 2nd, we had the admiral in charge of the whole operation abruptly resigning, clearly signaling some discomfort. Then you have the six Democrats putting out that video rather urgently telling people you have a duty not to follow illegal orders. Are these things connected or is it just sort of an understanding of the overall environment that this was. If the Democrats didn't know about this, they made the judgment that something like this was inevitable. What do you think?
- [29:52]
Paul Rykoff
Do you think that because it actually.
- [29:54]
Charlie
Played out, rather, you know, it felt like kind of a straight line, you.
- [30:00]
Paul Rykoff
Know, on either side. You can connect them if you want, but I think if what you're concerned about is protecting the Constitution, our national security, justice, I think it actually behooves us to separate them. And let me tell you specifically what I'm talking about Admiral Halsey resigned. Why did Admiral Halsey resign? Focus on that. Right? Like, don't follow the bouncing ball, right? Congress should pull Halsey if they haven't already in right now and say, tell the American people and tell us, why did you resign? Let's not speculate, right? Let's find out. Let's go down the chain of command. Anyone else who resign? Let's pull all of them out and find out why they resigned. Cuz I think the Democrats especially and the opposition to Trump do themselves no favors by assuming that everything is all connected, like it's all part of a broader concern. There's lots of people who are raising flags, but I think the most damning and the most important things are, for example, why did the SOCOM commander resign? Let's find out the answer to that. Right? Because that may be the critical piece that changes everything. We know when General Milley spoke about his clashes with Trump, that was a defining point, right? When Mark Esper, the former Secretary of Defense, in his book talked about Trump requesting that they just shoot the protesters in the legs. Those insiders who were there, who can testify, who can explain what happened are the most important. Because maybe there are articles of impeachment necessary here, maybe there are war crimes. And if those things are gonna get pushed forward with clarity, you need that Admiral to tell us what the fuck happened. Right? And I do think what the Democrats were doing, and they may not say it out loud. I don't know this for a fact. Kelly's been on my show before. I hope he comes out again. His brother's been on my show. I think what Slatkin and Kelly may have been doing is kind of fishing. They may have been saying, hey, our offices are out here. If you have evidence of a war crime, if you are concerned you've been asked to commit a war crime or an illegal order, contact our officers in confidence, we will protect you, we will give you whistleblower stat, whatever it is. Because I think that their message was actually a bit clumsy. They weren't clear about their intentions. They didn't lay out a strategy. I think all that is valid. Trump's response is absolutely over the top, unnecessary, shameful, damaging. But the Democrats may have been looking for their Vindman, looking for their Chelsea Manning, looking for their Lieutenant Cali, who is the person. Cuz we still haven't had that person, Charlie. And we will, we will have a colonel or it might be a lieutenant who stands up and says, I feel I was given an illegal order and that person will be, I don't know, the John Kerry of this moment. Right. They will be put in 60 minutes. They will be before Congress, and they will become the face of this. Now, will they become the only face or it will become all of SEAL Team Six? We'll find out. But I think we're quickly moving toward that place where, I wouldn't be surprised before Christmas, Charlie, we get a name, a whistleblower. Someone either feels an obligation or wants to be out in the spotlight and says, I was on this mission. Whether they were central to it or not, they want to get whistleblower protection. And that will be a very important but somewhat predictable moment that I think we're careening toward.
- [33:12]
Charlie
Okay, I agree with you. And I guess I have a couple of contrarian responses to that. Number one, we have had so many of those moments of insiders coming forward and testifying, you know, absolutely riveting testimony, you know, Vindman being one of them. And then you had a lot of the January 6th White House aides. You've had the former chief of staff of the president, you know, trying to warn the American people, and none of it's worked. And this is one of the puzzles of our time. Some of the people who've worked the most closely with Donald Trump who said, yeah, we know this guy, don't put him back into power, including his former vice president. I'm also concerned that, you know, thinking about these, these hearings, I can sort of imagine that hearing or the whistleblower coming forward. I can also imagine. And I talked to Matt Lewis on, on our live stream about this yesterday. The, just remembering the kind of the Oliver north moment when he was caught up in Iran Contra and he goes into the Senate, you know, they were breaking the law. I mean, they, they had committed crimes. And he came in full uniform and, and he gave that performance where he ended up becoming the hero of all this. You know, that Pete Hegseth wants to do that. He wants. Who says, you know, you can't handle the truth and have everybody rally around. And we know that Donald Trump likes members of his cabinet to come in and insult members of the Senate, fight, be feisty, yells, screams, you know, fling spittle, you know, do you know, I mean, whether it's a Supreme Court nominee or whether it's, it's Pam Bondi. And my real fear is that at the end of the day, Donald Trump, who has moved that Overton window so many times, is going to go, okay, you know what? We're going to be all in on war Crimes. Yeah, we did it. And we want MAGA to think this is a good thing, that despite all of the international laws, all the laws of war, everything, he'll move the needle. So, I mean, that's certainly Charlie.
- [35:05]
Paul Rykoff
I mean, look, I wrote an op ed the New York Times. I forgot what year it was explaining why torture was bad. I worked with John McCain's office and others explaining John McCain explaining why torture is bad. Torture is wrong. Torture is un American. But there are some who said, yeah, torture is fine. We need to get torture. We need to torture people so we can find out about the next.
- [35:24]
Charlie
Trump is one of those.
- [35:25]
Paul Rykoff
Yeah, that was the central debate that I think we're gonna have. Again, we don't have a John McCain in a moment like this. You know, they're getting ahead of it in trying to damage someone like Mark Kelly, who can be a John McCain in a moment like this. But I do think that this moment of saliency, it may be coming quickly. And I think there's. This is a question of courage for the Democrats and the Republicans because they also have a defense bill they have to authorize. And I saw Senator Schatz from Hawaii yesterday saying, what about holding the defense bill until we get answers on this strike? Right now, this is going to be another game of chicken. Do they want to shut down the military now instead of shutting down the government? Do you want to deny the military funding? Do you want Trump to brand you as traitors because you won't fund the military and you're gonna get it. But this is a point where they may wanna hold the line and say, we're gonna hold the defense budget until we get answers on this. And that's a budget that traditionally goes through at the end of the year. Right. And is usually bipartisan support. It's usually a Christmas tree where you throw everything on the ndaa. We'll see if any Republicans have the spine to use that as a pivot point. But that. And then there's always. I don't think this is radical, Charlie. Say there's the option of articles of impeachment. And I saw a populist congressional candidate, I forgot his name, who's been getting a ton of support because he says, I'm running for one reason to impeach Donald Trump. I think there's an appetite for that. I think there's a lot of people.
- [36:46]
Charlie
Well, there will be after the midterms.
- [36:48]
Paul Rykoff
Someone pushed that. Right. But that's not gonna happen before the midterms. Assuming he doesn't have knowledge. But if he had knowledge of war crimes, if he authorized war crimes would be one of them, that's valid grounds for impeachment. So I do think those two pieces are still in the arsenal for legislators. And we'll see if any member of Congress and any member of the Senate wants to be the champion. It might be somebody unlikely like Rand Paul. Rand Paul has held up budgets before. He might do it again. So I would like to, Randall, to be the guy to potentially slow it down.
- [37:18]
Charlie
I could definitely see him doing it. Okay, so let's go back to the military culture that you and I have talked about before, because now this debate is out there. It is unavoidable. The question of, you know, of illegal orders. We know that there are illegal orders. We have the Democrats who remind people. And again, just holding up all of the rules and say, yeah, the Nuremberg defense does not work. No quarter, you know, I mean, you know this better than I do. Prohibition against declaring that no quarter be given. It is forbidden to declare the quarter that no quarter will be given. This means it is prohibited to order, that legitimate offers of surrender will be refused or that detainees, such as unprivileged belligerents, will be summarily executed. And it goes on and on and on. You know, so I had a conversation with General Hertling about this last month, and he was talking about how, you know, everybody in the, in the, in, you know, the admirals and the generals all understand what their duties are and what they are prohibited from doing. And I guess my question to him at the time was, and yet we are seeing these boat strikes in the Caribbean, which means that the orders are being followed. Do you have any sense of what the conversation is now among those generals and among those admirals? We had one admiral who resigned, which is the appropriate thing to do if you think that you're being ordered to do something. Is it, is this going to create a. I mean, how will the US Military and the US Military is now faced with understanding exactly what Donald Trump is prepared to order them to do. They know what the laws and the rules are, what's going on in their heads right now, do you think?
- [38:56]
Paul Rykoff
I think that this is a forcing function. This September 2nd strike and the Washington Post story, Right. That's now been corroborated by others, you know, and there may be others. Right. But I think what it is, is a forcing function. These conversations have been having happening internally. The flag grade officers and everybody's been pushing back in the spots that they can. We'll find out over time. Time when they pushed back and how they pushed back. But the problem with what the Democrats did was they weren't specific. Right? Now if they had said, if you were given an illegal order to double tap on a suspected narco boat, you have a right to refute, you should refuse that order. Right? And I was one of many who said, okay, I get what they're saying. What they're saying is kind of basic, we all know that. But for the average enlisted soldier, what they were saying is, I know this shit. But what order are you talking about specifically is my deployment to the National Guard? If I go with my National Guard unit, am I breaking the law by following any legal order? If I participate in a drug boat strike, am I following an illegal order? If I double tap, is it an illegal order? If I'm on the boat that double tapped, is it illegal? And that's where the nuance is really important. And I hear these civilians saying, you know, especially folks on the far left, just resist the orders. They're all illegal. The truth is they're not. Right? Like right now, if you're in that National Guard unit in West Virginia that the court ruled is illegal, they have a stay. So although that deployment's been ruled illegal, they are legally okay to be there. So that's not an illegal order. If you go deploy with your, with your West Virginia National Guard unit, this example is the one that we've needed, right? And what they can say now is if you participated in the mission and you had a, you know, a definitive decision that was made that supported this known act of a double tap, right? Then that's a war crime, right? Or that's a possible war crime.
- [40:43]
Charlie
So we're shooting protesters in the legs.
- [40:45]
Paul Rykoff
Pull apart that mission, right? And we're going to pull apart the drone operator, the SEAL team operators, the commander of that unit, and they're going to try to pull them forward and Hegset's going to say, oh, they're all classified. You can't talk about that. You can't have this conversation. And that's going to be the battle is over this specific incident and maybe others that may come to light. But this is really, really important, Charlie, because the most basic 18 year old, 17 year old private knows you don't kill wounded, period. And that's what this is. Yes. Don't call it a truck boat thing. Do you or do you not kill wounded? And you know, you don't unarmed wounded, unless they're laying on a grenade or they're going to shoot you or you're under. Everybody who's watched 24 or any war movie could kind of, you know, scenario this. But the question at hand is, did you participate in killing a person that was wounded, that you knew was wounded? Right. And were you given an order to kill them? And that's where we're going to be weighing the nuance, whether Hegseth gave that order, whether it was an interpretation of that order. But I do think that this incident is going to be the most effective forcing function until we get a whistleblower, which could be very soon.
- [41:56]
Charlie
So do you think we're going to war with Venezuela?
- [42:00]
Paul Rykoff
I think you could argue we already are. I mean, right. This is. The question is like, are we already at war with Russia, given the cyber attacks? I mean, this is the conversation I have with so many friends on my podcast. It's like the definition of war has evolved so much. Right. I would argue that when the Russians attacked our elections, that was essentially an act of war. So are we, you know, what do we call war? Right. But are we going to strike on the sovereign land of Venezuela? I think more likely than not right now, because all the ships are in place. I had Tom Bowman, the great NPR reporter, on my show. We've had other folks on my show, Hertling and others. The pieces are set. The ships are all there. I think Trump has been waiting for the right window, waiting for the right instigation. He may create one. He's looking for his Gulf of Tonkin moment or whatever it is. I don't know what his rationale is, is, but the table is set, and it's been set for a couple weeks now. I think I said this on Nicole Wallace's show two weeks ago. I said, he can go now. He can go a month from now. He can go two months from now. But I think they probably will at least do strikes of some kind near Venezuela. You know, on Venezuela, how far that goes, there's no telling with Trump. But the important thing for folks to know is the pieces are absolutely set. They can go right now. They are ready to go. And the amount of naval assets, you know, aircraft carriers, SEAL teams, everything else are all there and have been there for a while. And even General Kane was in Puerto Rico last week. So if you look underneath the hood and see not just the messaging, but the actual troop movements, it's all set. Now, they may. They may stand down, but I think more likely than not, they're hitting something before Christmas.
- [43:41]
Charlie
I know. I think that seems. That seems more likely than not. And I think your point about Congress, you know, asking for forgiveness rather than permission, I don't even think he'll ask for forgiveness, but what a mess that is. And of course, we don't have a lot of time left, but the sellout of Ukraine, it feels like we keep, you know, talking about this over and over and over again. You know, how, you know, how, how much has Donald Trump decided to carry water for Russia? And, you know, we've learned over the weekend that not only was he, you know, pushing Ukraine to basically surrender its sovereignty, but he was doing it as a result of this negotiation that would have benefited so many of Trump's own business cronies. I mean, the cynicism behind it should not shock us, but it's still kind of shocking to realize, I mean, just the amorality of all this, your sense of where we're at right now, whether or not we're going to be getting, we're going to be getting a Nobel Peace Prize worthy settlement from Russia and Ukraine.
- [44:43]
Paul Rykoff
I'm going to answer this in a way that might surprise people. When you look at 20, 25, who's the biggest winner? China, who sat on the side and just watched lose a third of its military. Watch Europe be consumed. Watch America be ripped in half. Watch now potentially moving all these assets away from the Middle east, away from Asia, into Venezuela and into South America. And discussions around Mexico, Japan is arming themselves now. I mean, if you look at all of, in the economic destruction and tumult that's happening, China's just sitting there, licking their chops, going, man, it was a good year for us. And I think that's how you have to look at this, because that's the long game. And when it comes to Ukraine, I think we have to also understand that China is okay to let Russia punch themselves out a little bit on this, too. And what Trump has done is despicable. It's dastardly. But it's also just incompetent, and it's amateur. And the way that they are trying to misrepresent America's position and values is most egregious. And the Ukrainians are just continuing to get bombed and killed and fighting it out in the mud and the cold right now as we enjoy our Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I think there's actually this. If there's a silver lining, Charlie, it's like, holy shit, can we give some props to the Ukrainians? Like, Zelenskyy was supposed to be dead two years ago. Kyiv was supposed to fall two years ago. And despite all of this, they're still hanging on and they're still fighting it out. And even this political tumult that Zelenskyy is navigating now at home, I mean, they're still standing. And that in and of itself is a testament to democracy. But what Trump has done with Ukraine is ridiculous. I think that Zelensky deserves tremendous credit for holding the line and his people for holding the line and saying fuck you to this ridiculous 28 point plan. That would be concessions the likes of which we would never accept. And maybe I would just end it by saying, Charlie, when people get twisted around this, just ask yourself if you were living in Ukraine and your city was, let's say it was America. Let's say D.C. and New York are getting bombed every day and the French or someone are saying, you know, just give them, just give them, just give them Alaska, just give them Maine, just give them Texas. You know, it's not really yours. Like we go back to the drawing board from the 1800s and say it's not really yours and just give them your people too. You know, you guys still have Ohio and you still have Pennsylvania. Just the other ism that Trump has allowed people to entertain, I think is maybe most concerning to me, Charlie. And I think at this time around the holidays, especially like, have some humanity and understand that last night Ukraine killed more. I mean, Russia killed more Ukrainian children and they're having Christmas in bomb shelters because every day is like that. And we gotta keep rooting for them. And we have to tell the world that Trump does not speak for us. Especially on Ukraine.
- [47:44]
Charlie
Absolutely.
- [47:44]
Paul Rykoff
Yes, especially on Ukraine.
- [47:46]
Charlie
I think that is an important message that Donald Trump does not speak for all Americans. Paul Rykoff, thank you so much for joining me. I always appreciate your contributions. Paul is the founder of Independent Vets of America, the host of the India is the Independent Americans podcast. We can find it there on YouTube.
- [48:05]
Paul Rykoff
That's it. And one thing I want to point folks to Charlie too. There's a special election happening tomorrow in Tennessee. Seventh. This is below the radar, but this is going to be a critical one where you've got a MAGA Republican against a pretty far left Democrat. And there's also an independent veteran running in that race named John Thorpe. And I think that these congressional races are important because John Thorpe is a moderate option that most people don't know about. We have endorsed him at Independent Veterans American America. But we're seeing more and more of these folks step up and I think we could have 100 going into 2026, Charlie, including as many as six for the Senate. And when you talk about things like War Powers act, you talk about things like budgets around defense. If we have one independent in the Senate, someone like Dan Osborne from Nebraska, someone like Todd Achilles from Idaho, it changes the whole game and that person becomes a fulcrum to slow down or at least force hard questions on a lot of what we're talking about. So keep an eye on that space. And if folks want to run, we are continuing to recruit independent men and women who are veterans who wanna run from school board all the way up to the Senate in 2026 and beyond.
- [49:09]
Charlie
Well, thank you so much and thank you all for listening to this episode of to the Contrary podcast. We do this. We will continue to do this. We are in this for the duration because it is so important to continually remind ourselves and our friends we are not the crazy want. Thank you.
- [49:41]
Boost Mobile Representative
If you're a smoker or vaper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason. But with Zyn Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons. Zyn is America, America's number one nicotine pouch brand. Plus Zynn offers a robust rewards program. There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zyn. Check out zyn.com find to find Zyn at a store near you. Warning this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.
- [50:10]
Ryan Reynolds
Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means a half day. Yeah. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
- [50:34]
Boost Mobile Representative
$45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed Flowouter 35 gigabytes of network's busy taxes and fees extra. See mint mobile.com.
- [50:45]
Charlie
Knock knock.
- [50:46]
Paul Rykoff
Ooh, who's there?
- [50:47]
Boost Mobile Representative
A Boost Mobile expert here to deliver and set up Your all new iPhone 17 Pro. Designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever.
- [50:53]
Paul Rykoff
You called that a knock knock joke?
- [50:55]
Boost Mobile Representative
This isn't a joke. Boost Mobile really sends experts to deliver.
- [50:58]
Paul Rykoff
And set up your phone at home or work. Okay. It's just that when people say knock knock there's usually a joke to go with it.
- [51:03]
Boost Mobile Representative
Like I said, this isn't a joke.
- [51:04]
Paul Rykoff
So the knock knock was just you knocking?
- [51:07]
Boost Mobile Representative
Yeah, that's how doors work.
- [51:08]
Paul Rykoff
Get the new iPhone 17 Pro delivered and set up by an expert wherever you are. Delivery available for select devices purchased@boostmobile.com terms apply.
- [51:15]
Charlie
Here's how to stay alive longer so you can enjoy Boost Mobile's unlimited plan with a price that never goes up. Do not mistake a wasp nest for a pinata. Stay alive and switch now at boost mobile. After 30 gigs, customers may experience lower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan.
- [51:32]
Boost Mobile Representative
Hear that? It's holiday cheer arriving at Ulta Beauty with gifts for everyone on your list. Treat them to fan favorite gift sets from Charlotte Tilbury and Peach and Lily. Go all out with timeless fragrances from ysl, Ariana Grande and Carolina Herrera, and you can never go wrong with an Ulta Beauty gift card. Head to Ulta Beauty for gifts that make the holidays brighter and even more beautiful. Ulta Beauty gifting happens here.