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cover of episode Trump Makes MOST PSYCHOTIC APPOINTMENT ever of FOX host

Trump Makes MOST PSYCHOTIC APPOINTMENT ever of FOX host

2024/11/14
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Key Insights

Why did Donald Trump appoint Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense?

Trump cited Hegseth's lifelong commitment to the troops and country, describing him as tough, smart, and a true believer in 'America First.'

What qualifications does Pete Hegseth have for the role of Secretary of Defense?

Hegseth is an Army combat veteran with tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan, decorated with two bronze stars and a combat infantryman's badge. He also has degrees from Princeton and Harvard.

How has Pete Hegseth used his platform at Fox News?

Hegseth has used his Fox News platform to advocate for the military and veterans, as evidenced by his book 'The War on Warriors,' which topped the New York Times bestseller list.

What controversial statements has Pete Hegseth made?

Hegseth has claimed that Ivy League graduates are less trustworthy and that he hasn't washed his hands in 10 years, believing germs aren't real. He also criticized veterans for using their benefits, calling it a lack of personal integrity.

What challenges might Pete Hegseth face in Senate confirmation?

Jake Sherman suggests Hegseth's confirmation might be difficult, though it's unclear if Trump's MAGA supporters will rubber-stamp the appointment.

How does Pete Hegseth view the role of government in veterans' lives?

Hegseth believes veterans should not be overly dependent on government benefits and should maintain personal integrity, even if it means not fully utilizing available services.

What does Pete Hegseth think about the current state of American politics?

Hegseth believes that issues like crime, wokeness, inflation, and the southern border are more pressing concerns for Americans than international affairs like Ukraine.

How does Pete Hegseth view the situation in Iraq?

Hegseth suggests that if Iraqis don't want American presence, they should be left to handle their own affairs, even if it means internal conflict.

Chapters

The episode discusses Donald Trump's controversial appointment of Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, highlighting Hegseth's background and qualifications.
  • Pete Hegseth is a Fox News host with military experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  • Trump describes Hegseth as a 'warrior for the troops and for the country'.
  • Hegseth's appointment must be confirmed by the Senate.

Shownotes Transcript

This is serious folks. Donald Trump just announced that he is making Fox News host Pete Hegseth the next Pentagon chief. That's right. Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host, will be the Secretary of Defense. Donald Trump is appointing him to that position. Obviously it has to be confirmed by the Senate.

Here is Laura Ingraham announcing that Donald Trump has made this appointment. Here, play this clip. That our own Pete Hegseth

will be his secretary of defense. Pete, of course, has been a host here at Fox for a number of years. He's an army veteran where he served in Afghanistan, in Iraq. Trump saying, quote, Pete has spent his entire life as a warrior for the troops and for the country. He's tough, smart and a true believer in America first. With Pete at the helm, America's enemies are on notice. Our military will be great again and America will never back down.

down. Wow, that is pretty cool. Gosh, we're gonna miss him at Fox, but that's a game for the country. And just so we know who we're talking about here, this is Pete Hegseth previously on Fox.

in a segment called Is College Worth It? Here, play this clip. Alma mater. I have a new rule. The more elite the university and advanced that a graduate is, the more, the dumber they are, the less likely I am to trust them. If you went to the Ivy League, prove to me that you have any common sense at all. You went to the Ivy League, right? Yes, and I sent one of my degrees back for a reason.

And here, this is from 2019 Donald Trump's Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth saying that he never washes his hands and can't remember washing them once in the past 10 years. Play the clip. I don't think I've washed my hands for 10 years. Really, I don't really wash my hands ever.

No, I inoculate myself. It's just not germs are not a real thing. I can't see them. Therefore, they're not real. So you're becoming immune to all of the bacteria. Exactly. I can't get sick. So here's the official announcement from Donald Trump, just so you can see it for yourself right here. Statement from Donald Trump. I'm honored to announce that I have nominated Pete Hegseth to serve in my cabinet as the Secretary of Defense.

Pete has spent his entire life as a warrior for the troops in the country. Pete is tough, smart, and a true believer in America first. With Pete at the helm, America's enemies are on notice. Our military will be great again and America will never back down. Pete is a graduate of Princeton University and has a graduate degree from Harvard University. He is an Army combat veteran who did tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

For his actions on the battlefield, he was decorated with two bronze stars, so he did serve, as well as a combat infantryman's badge.

Pete has been the host of Fox News for eight years, where he used that platform to fight for our military and veterans. Pete's recent book, The War on Warriors, spent nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, including two weeks at number one. The book reveals the left-wing betrayal of our warriors and how we must return our military to meritocracy, lethality,

So you see Donald Trump announcing it there as well.

Jake Sherman says this is going to be a hard confirmation to get through. I'm not really sure if that's going to be the case. It seems like Donald Trump's MAGA will rubber stamp this. I don't know. What's next? Are you going to have Sean Hannity become the attorney general? Are you going to have...

Jesse Waters become, you know, I don't know, the CIA director. Anyway, this is at a time where Putin has not de-escalated. And Putin has also claimed that any news that he's had in conversations with Donald Trump, which Trump claims took place, is pure fiction. Trump had leaked to The Washington Post that he had told Putin to de-escalate. Putin has done anything but de-escalate.

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Pete Hegseth here in this segment was on Fox and Friends complaining that veterans who use the benefits they've earned are, quote, dependent on the government and lack personal integrity. Play this clip. Here's the hospital you use within this radius and you get this doctor as opposed to empowering the individual to say, I've got a knee issue. Dr. Jones down the street could help me with it and the dollars could follow me to get that. We're still getting on lists.

to get to see their doctors? Look at this. Veterans grant a disability compensation. If you compare after World War II, 1.5 million veterans. 2017, 4.5 million veterans. This is a really complicated discussion. This is about disability ratings, which isn't always necessarily tied to health care. But the idea that...

This the health care you get is about service connected disabilities. If you're if you go to war and you get injured, we'll take care of you. So when you come home, they try to rate what how much how disabled you are and that's how much care you get. Well, I could be rated for 50 percent right now if I wanted to be. I mean, just to have a totally and vets know this out there, I could do ear and ankle and knee and back and proportional because it's proportional for different injuries that you have.

groups out there, vets groups mostly, encourage vets to apply for every government benefit they can ever get after they leave the service. Because, well, why not, right? The government's giving it out. To me, the ethos of service is I serve my country because I love my country and I'm going to come home and start the next chapter of my life. And if I've got a chronic condition, mental, physical, otherwise, the government better be there for me. But otherwise,

Otherwise, I don't want to be dependent if I don't have to be. You've got to have personal integrity. And right now, a lot of groups are convincing vets to give, get, take more from the system as opposed to just what you need for the service you gave. And you compare the budget here. In 2007, the budget was over $72 billion.

over 9 million veterans using the VA. And now in 2017, $176.9 billion with just under 10 million. So just about a million more using the system. How does that happen? We did a big study. Now here's another recent segment of

Pete Hegseth questioning a Democratic voter from New Jersey. You could watch this again. This is now who's appointed secretary of defense. Play this clip. As a Democrat leading toward Biden, what is what would you like to see from from a president? Let's see. I'm going to pick

education and I'm going to say that education is a key issue in our society. So I want no books banned. I'm very anti anything being banned. You don't want your kid to read it. That's fine. I want my kid to read a little bit. What about like 2,500 books banned so far? Well, the trans advocacy, elementary school. She can read whatever she wants to read at an age appropriate to what she is. How about like the Bible? What if we wanted to teach the Bible?

I'm Catholic. I've already taught her about the Bible because I'm Catholic. What about in school? Oh, in school? Oh, no. Separation, separation of church. And then all history should be taught. That is African-American history, Native American history, Latino history, you know, Asian history, Caucasian history. All history should be taught in public schools. So I'm going to say I'm very pro education. It's so interesting because education will be a topic.

cutting in both directions. You described it differently than I think many of our other panelists would as well. Which means that DeSantis is a thumbs down because he doesn't want to educate people on black history and so I take that as a personal affront. Well, I think DeSantis would characterize that. That's a false statement. And he can, you can be anti-black and be black so his anti-blackness. You want to keep blacks on the school plantation. But you slip back in. But you slip

back in school choice. School choice is a civil rights issue. Separation of church and state. It's the Underground Railroad to give black and brown children an opportunity in this country. You're anti-black history. You just told me that. I don't think anyone is anti-black history. No, he was saying that before. That is a hyperbole on top of whether you want a radical Marxist theory and critical race theory being taught to kids that devise them. That doesn't make you anti-

black history. Here's just another clip of Pete Hegseth talking about being at CPAC and saying that people are more concerned with wokeness than Ukraine. Here, play this clip. Pete, we do know, at least from reports, that the president will shift in something in terms of bringing Ukraine into his comments at the State of the Union tomorrow night.

Yeah, he will. The problem is, and Lee Selden's right, I mean, I don't envy the White House speechwriter whose task it is to take the last year and a half and try to make it look rosy. I mean, look at that AP headline. That correctly depicts the state of America, both at home and abroad. If he wants to talk about what's happening in Ukraine, what will he say other than the things we told you would deter it didn't work? If he wants to talk about Afghanistan, he'll say what he said in the past, which is,

It was going to be this way no matter what, no matter who ended the war, which anyone who'd been there or who'd seen it knew that's not true. It certainly didn't have to end that way. And then here at home, he's what Lee Zeldin said is right. And I was at CPAC this weekend talking to conservatives and young people. And they said, yes, what's happening in Ukraine is important, but it pales in comparison to the crime I see in my streets, to the wokeness I see in my culture.

to the inflation I see at my pocketbook, to the real border I care about, which is the southern border, which is wide open. On every single issue, the quality of life of average Americans has gone down. I mean, the taxi driver I spoke to just yesterday said it costs me twice as much. He said, I didn't vote for Biden, but it costs me twice as much to fill up my tank every time I drive.

I feel it and I realize I was wrong. So the best thing Joe Biden could do on this grandest of stages with all eyeballs on him is admit some shortfallings, admit we aren't where we should be and then course correct. And here Pete Hegseth showing that he has, this is from 2020, showing that he has no sense of international affairs by saying that

Iran, the US can work with allies that are still there like the Kurds. Okay, here, play this clip. - Importantly, what the president will stay focused on is America's interests. That's why one of my favorite things about this was Trump's American flag tweet right afterwards. I mean, it's a reminder that this is an action taken in advance of American interests. We can't rely on Iraqi guards standing outside our embassy. Guess what? We've been training them for 16 years and they still let the Iranians through to trash our embassy. We can't rely on allies who've never been full partners

as much as we'd like them to be in the war against radical Islamic terrorism. If we're gonna defend ourselves, it's going to be us. As it pertains to Iraq and the future, I mean, we killed an Iranian general in Iraq trying to destabilize the country we've spent that much time, blood and treasure investing in. I say, I mean, listen, if the Iraqi parliament votes to say we don't want the Americans there anymore, as far as I'm concerned, fine. - Fine. - Fine. And I say, hand them all guns and let them shoot each other.

And I know that sounds sort of like barbaric and backwards, but I think there are a lot of people out there in America that say, if you're not satisfied yet, if you won't follow through and defend yourself yet, then at what point do we decide it's not in our interest? We can do some from further away and work with allies that are still there, like the Kurds.

But pouring money and pouring weapons and pouring investment into places where people don't want it or they're not capable of keeping it is something this president ran against. So this action should not pull us closer to war, but instead its weakness invites challenge. This is strength, which I think sends the signal, the right signals we want to run. So that's right. Donald Trump has officially appointed, uh,

Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host, to be the Secretary of Defense during these very, very critical times. Someone with zero experience doing anything like that.

You gotta take this very seriously, folks. This is probably Vladimir Putin's dream come true as frankly, Donald Trump is now just making, he always has been, but just making a mockery of our entire country and putting unqualified people in the most important positions. Well, anyway, thanks for watching. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 4 million subscribers. Love this video? Make sure you stay up to date on the latest breaking news and all things Midas by signing up to the Midas Touch newsletter

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