May 12, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode of One Thing Trump Did, we discuss Signalgate, shakeups in the Defense Department and some of the major headlines in National Security. Jeremy is joined by Courtney Kube, an NBC News Correspondent who covers National Security and the Military. #DoD #Signalgate #Signal #Yemen #military #recruitment #Trump #Hegseth #Waltz
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to One Thing Trump Did, available exclusively on the
Middle podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson, and if you haven't already,
by the way, please rate this podcast and write us
a review. So if you're struggling to keep up with
the torrent of headlines coming out of the Trump White House,
join the club. That is why each week we picked
just one thing for this podcast and focus on it,
break it down in a non partisan way. Our one
(00:37):
thing this week is the US government group chat leaks
that have come to be known as Signal Gate because
of the app Signal that's being used for some of
these chats. The fallout from it, some of the bigger
issues that are going on at the Pentagon will also
be part.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Of this discussion.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
So to recap, Jeffrey Goldberg, who's editor in chief of
the Atlantic, was mistakenly added to a group chat of
national secure leaders on the messaging app Signal, and that
group chat, which included the Defense Secretary, the Vice President,
the National Security Advisor, and others, was discussing imminent military
action against Huti forces in Yemen.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
The man who was National.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, has since been removed from that post,
although he's also been nominated now by President Trump to
serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations, but everyone
else remains in their positions. Trump's Director of National Intelligence,
Telsea Gabbard, who was on that group chat, spoke recently
in an interview with Megan Kelly about the scandal.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
It shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
There are sensitive conversations that occur in these signal chats,
but ultimately it was not.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
At all what.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Those who are opposing the president's policies and those in
the media made it out to be. And I can
tell you that there are some of the most vocal
critics of that whole situation who also used signal and
communicate them that they would not want released publicly as well.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And to that point, The Wall Street Journal has reported
that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has discussed official Pentagon business
on at least twelve signal chat groups. Joining me now
with more is NBC National Security and Defense correspondent Courtney QB.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Courtney's great to have you on.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Thank you so much for including me.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Jeremy, So, first of all, explain why it is such
a no no to use something like signal to discuss
highly classified military information.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
There's different levels of classification for US intelligence and specifically military.
What we are talking about here, the original Signal chat that,
as you mentioned, Jeffrey Goldberg was added into that had
information about an imminent military operation. So the very top
of the chat you see the Secretary of Defense Pete
(02:51):
Haigseth writing that the mission is a go. Well, as
soon as the mission is approved, the information even becomes
more highly classified. And that's because because you're talking about
aircraft that are getting ready to take off or maybe
you are already in the air headed towards their target.
These are men and women whose lives could be on
the line, flying over a hostile area to conduct an operation.
(03:13):
So that kind of information, so an imminent military operation
would generally be transmitted over something called jawis. That is
a very secure server that allows the military and top
intelligence officials to provide information that they want. They want
to make sure no one else gets access to. So
Signal it's a commercial app. Yes, it is encrypted. Yes,
(03:38):
people in the government and journalists and people all over
the world use it because it's relatively secure. But it
would never be approved for something at the level of
something that would be transmitted via jaywis again like specific
information about aircraft being used, times that bombs would be
dropping over all hostile area. And just to add, just
(03:58):
to add to how potentially dangerous this could have been.
These were air strikes that the US was about to
conduct against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Since those air
strikes began on that same day, March fifteenth, the Houthis
have shot down at least seven US drones. What that
means is the airspace is contested now. Fortunately those are
(04:20):
unmanned drones. The day of this signal chat, we had
manned aircraft going in the air. If the Houthis or
any adversary had somehow been able to infiltrate that chat,
we could have seen aircraft with men and women flying
them potentially shot down.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
And if an ordinary service member had done what these
national security officials were doing and used a signal chat
to talk about an imminent air strike, they would have
been in very big trouble.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Most likely, they definitely would have been fired, and they
most likely would have been brought up on charges. I mean,
I will say signal is used in the military, in
fact by special operation in the field, but not for
this kind of information you know, we keep hearing about.
It's for talking about logistics, it's for talking about you know,
movements and things, not for something as again as highly
(05:12):
sensitive as an imminent military operation.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So here's a.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Question, if they have access to this jawix system, why wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
They use that.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
So, just to put it bluntly, Jaywicks is a pain.
It's a pain to use for them because number one,
you have to be in what's what's known as a skiff.
It's a secure compartmentalized information facility, so a place where
there's no phones, there's no Apple watches, there's no no
nothing that can transmit jwix. From what I understand, I've
never been on it, but from what I understand, it
can take like eight to fifteen minutes just to get
(05:44):
the system up and running or to get your essentially
your like your version of email of jwix up and loading.
It's not easy to share information via jaywix because you
have to have somebody who can receive it on the
same system that you want to send it to. So
when we're talking about something like the signal chat that
had Mike Waltz, leaders of the National security opera intelligence
(06:07):
community in the United States, they would have access to
be able to get this information, but not so easily
as as sending it to them on a phone on
a text message.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So then the next question I guess is, why wouldn't
they use some sort of code language at least if
they're going to do this on signal and say, you know,
we're gonna do the why in the h and the
you know, like, instead of just literally spelling out exactly
what they're doing in what time.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And I think before the Atlantic exposed the signal chat,
we all sort of assumed there was a piece of that,
you know, so maybe the signal chat would be, hey, everyone,
get to your skiff or everyone. You know, in the
military they often call it the high side. That's the
sipper or the more secure servers. You know, hey, everyone
check your high side. Action is beginning. So, you know,
(06:51):
you would expect something like that, but actually putting in
the detail that is why this has so many people
in the US military and the intelligence community just absolutely flabbergasted.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So has it stopped? Do you think are they still
using signal for other chats?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
We know that they are still using signal for chats
for imminent military operations we don't know, but definitely for
other information.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And why hasn't the president, who loves to fire people,
as we know, fired Pete Hegseth over this.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So, I mean, there's a couple of schools of thought.
One could just be the media are have been amplifying
what happened here. I think because you know, I've covered
the Pentagon in the military for just about twenty years now,
and I've never seen anything like this from a leader.
And when I look back at the secretaries of Defense
who've covered since Donald Rumsfeld, I can't envision a scenario
(07:44):
in which another secretary would have done something like this.
So because it's so unprecedented and uncommon, we gave it
a lot of attention, And frankly, I think that that's
one of the reasons that Donald Trump doesn't want to
fire him or to really reprimand him publicly, because he
doesn't want to give them media that's sort of a
win when the reality is it's not reporters and media
(08:05):
who are calling for anyone to be fired or reprimanded.
We're just discussing the situation and giving the facts of
what unfolded here. So I mean, that's one school of thought.
Another is when you hear President Trump talk about the
signal chat, it's not really clear whether he actually understands
what happened here. I mean, at one point he even
(08:26):
said something like, well, we don't even know if this signal,
the signal was any good. Well it's not a signal,
you know, signal is the name of the app So
so I mean those are just my my personal guesses
on what could have happened here. And then the next
question is always, well, what is going to happen? Is
there going to be any sort of a reprimand? And
I got to tell you, Jeremy, I have absolutely no
(08:48):
idea the way that this has unfolded and how more
and more information has come forward and there doesn't seem
to be any real accountability. I don't know how this
is going to continue to unfold.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I've read that Mike Waltz, who was fired as National
Security Advisor, may have been removed from that position not
because of signal, but because he's more hawkish on things
like Iran than others in the administration. He just didn't
fit in with Trump's idea or people in the administration's
idea of what the national security policy should be.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Is there truth to that?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
So there is absolutely truth to the fact that there
is a big divide over Iran right now. So you
have the people who are very close to Israel. Israel
wants to continue to strike against Iran. You know, they
had some really effective, really successful strikes back in October.
They essentially crippled all of Iran's strategic air defenses. So
(09:43):
they tend to use this air defense system called an
S three hundred. The radars are pretty much all busted
and it's months and months and months before they get
them allline all back online. When you have an adversary
whose air defenses are down, just the fact is it's
easier for you to conduct strikes. It's less danger to
(10:05):
dermanned aircraft who would be going into this potentially hostile
area to conduct a strike. We know that Israel wants
to do more strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. They feel
that that is an existential threat to their nation. But
President Trump and some people around him are completely against that.
(10:25):
They feel they are concerned about a larger war, this
escalating into a regional conflict that the US would almost
certainly get pulled into. I think there are a lot
of people around President Trump who look back to October
seventh and say they don't want to give the Biden
administration any credit. But it didn't extend into a larger
regional war that the US got pulled into, and strikes
(10:45):
against Iran would really threaten that balance.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Do you think that the signal gate scandal is now
over or is there more to come and potentially more
shoes to drop, more heads to roll in the administration.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I think it is absolute possible that some of the
excellent reporting that we have gotten about signal and the
use of signal in the administration, I think that there's
always the possibility that reporters will come up with more. Look,
I hope it's me, you know. I think that some
of my colleagues are just doing unbelievable work over the
last several weeks and months on that one definite thing
(11:21):
that is going to get headlines is the Inspector General's
work out of the Department of Defense. So they have
this personnel evaluation that they're looking into the use of
signal and the information that was put in there. Now,
the huge, huge caveat to that is this is there's
a little known policy in the United States where the
Secretary of Defense, in the name of national security can
(11:44):
essentially not so much cancel but long term postpone and
inspector general action. The Secretary of Defense has not done this.
This was an ig action that was called that the
members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, leaders, and Senator services
called for. So that would be a huge point of
(12:04):
contention if you were to do that, But it is
a possibility, so candidly, I've been watching to see if
there's any movement on that. If not, if this goes
forward in an expedited manner as the Hill is called for,
that will definitely be a big headline when that comes out.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Courtney, you mentioned the reporting that you and others are
doing at the Pentagon. We should note that NBC was
one of the news outlets that was kicked out of
the Pentagon at the beginning of the Trump administration the
second time around to put in, you know, more right
leaning news organizations or right wing news organizations like one
American News Network. How is it affecting you to not
have the Pentagon office that you've had for so long?
Speaker 3 (12:44):
You know, I Jeremy it's look, it stinks, if I'm
being honest, it stinks not to have the We called
it a booth, And I think what people don't realize
is this isn't just that they kicked us out of
a desk. We had these little They were essentially closets
that we worked out of. We had a lot of equipment,
We had our own lines and a robotic camera and
(13:06):
there we did live shots out of there all day long.
And NBC News has had a presence at the Pentagon
in a booth like that for at least fifty years.
We actually can't find anyone alive who can tell us
exactly when it started, but it's been decades. I was
there for twenty years in that booth. Logistically it's harder,
but every single day we are still showing up and
(13:28):
working in the Pentagon, and we're not giving up on
an important building and the issues there are critical to
the American people and critical to the world, and a
free press having the ability to tell those stories and
to hold the leaders responsible for the decisions that they
are making is so important. So we're there every single
(13:50):
day still, no matter even if we don't have a
place to work.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
We'll stay with us, because in a moment we're going
to talk about what's been happening at the Pentagon aside.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
From Signal Gate.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
One Thing Trump did with NBC see National Security and
Defense Corresponding Courtney qub.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Welcome back to One Thing Trump did on the Middle
Podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. This episode, we're talking about
signal Gate and what it means for US national security.
I'm joined by NBC National Security and Defense Corresponding Courtney QB.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So, Courtney Pete.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, famously came from Fox News, where
he was a weekend anchor, and after the signal Gate
scandal broke, he fired a number of his top aides,
who then said things at the Pentagon were a total
mess under Hegseth.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
What do we know about those firings.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
At this point now it's been a few weeks, and
what have these people said about Hegseth.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah, I mean, we've heard extensively from Dan Caldwell. He
was one of the senior advisors to Secretary Hegseth and
frankly a longtime friend of the Secretary before even before
he was at Secretary Hegseth was at Fox News. Dan
Caldwell and he knew each other from these veterans organizations.
We heard from him in an extensive interview with Tucker Carlson.
(15:19):
We also heard from Colin Carroll, who was the deputy
chief or the chief of staff to the Deputy Secretary
of Defense Steve Feinberg. He was also fired that same week.
He gave a long interview to Megan Kelly, and as
you said, they both laid out problems and how the
Pentagon is being managed under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsath. Now,
in both cases, they were accused by the Secretary of
(15:44):
leaking classified information. And while we have since heard a
number of different stories that they may have been involved in,
there have been no official charges. We're not aware of
any investigation. We know that there was one sort of
administrative investstigation that was closed, but they both are now
saying that there is a side investigation or sort of
(16:06):
like almost a rogue investigation against them that's being carried
out by people close to Secretary Higgseth looking for any
kind of information about them having been leakers of classified information.
It's been several weeks and you know, as of today,
we still aren't aware of anything to substantiate those allegations,
but they were fired over it.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
One person that was not fired is the Deputy Defense Secretary,
who is heag sets I guess number two, who is
a billionaire. By the way, Stephen Finberg, how much power
does he have in the Pentagon?
Speaker 3 (16:39):
You know, it's fascinating how sort of the roles and
responsibilities have equalled out here between him and Secretary Hegseth.
Secretary Higgseth definitely is more of the face of the Pentagon, right.
He likes to go out and work out with troops
and loves to do a video, a very dramatic video
where he signs a memo, talks about it, and they
(17:01):
tend to be about, you know, about three different topics
for the most part. Stephen Feinberg, as you mentioned, he
is a rich billionaire. He doesn't have any experience in government,
and everyone around him him tells me that he's more
interested in sort of sitting in his office working through
the numbers, the day to day administrative business of the Pentagon,
(17:26):
and that he doesn't want to be in front of
a camera. He doesn't want to talk to the media.
He is more than happy to be the one who
runs the building. He's had a huge part in the cuts.
He seems to be one of one of the main,
if not the main liaison with the DOGE personnel who
are are trying to cut contracts and programs in personnel
and staff, and he definitely seems to be sort of
(17:48):
the budget guy for the Pentagon. So it's interesting how
the two of them have sort of their roles have
really like leveled out.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
It's for so long been notoriously difficult for anybody to
cut any money out of the Pentagon. Are they actually
going to come up with some cuts that will make
a difference in the budget.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
That is a trillion dollar question right now among the
press corps, because you know, they keep telling they'll come
forward and say, well, we just cut another so many
hundreds of millions of dollars out. There's a number that
they've been throwing around, and that is Secretary Hegsat that
has been throwing around of five, you know, five billion
dollars or maybe maybe six billion dollars that they've been
(18:25):
able to cut. But we the Press Corps has been
asking and asking for any specifics on that, and we
don't have them. They have given us some information about
a couple of contracts that have been cut. Now so far,
all of the contracts that we're aware of were ones
that had already been paid out, so they essentially were
ending them so they wouldn't put more money out. But
(18:47):
it's also not clear that all of them would have
been re upped anyway. But that has amounted to, you know,
hundreds of millions of dollars. Most of those contracts have
had something to do with diversity initiae initiatives or maybe
climb it. There will be some savings because of you know,
we know of at least twenty two thousand individuals who
have taken the fork in the road and are leaving.
(19:08):
So there'll be some personnel cuts. They're making some cuts
to some other programs, but for the most part, there
is very very little transparency and exactly where this alleged
trillions of dollars and cuts have come from.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Now, Heigksas says he wants to cut the number of
for star generals across the military by twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Why does he want to do that? What kind of
an effect will that have?
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, so this is something that he talked about even
before he became the secretary, he has this sort of
grand plan for the military about if you think of
the military as a triangle and you have general officers
and flag officers at the top, and you have the
military the sort of rank and file men and women
towards the bottom. Yes, they make up a huge a
bigger proportion, but he wants to make that triangle even flatter.
(19:50):
He wants to have more people out in the field,
you know, again, like the rank and file, people who
could potentially be sent to the front lines on a
moment's notice, and fewer people back in the headquarters who
are telling them what to do. The reality is this,
He's not alone in thinking that this is a problem,
but there has been some criticism about the way he's
going about it by sort of putting this twenty percent.
(20:13):
You're going to cut twenty percent. The military is not
a monolith, and the services are very different. You know,
the size of the Marine Corps is very different than
the size of the active duty Army. So there has
been some criticism about just this hatchet cut with a
somewhat arbitrary number, and we'll see how that actually plays out.
(20:34):
I mean, one simple way that I think that we're
going to see some of these cuts is consolidating some
of the combatant commands. We're already seeing a little bit
of that, consolidating Futures Army Futures Command with Training and
Doctrine Command. You could take two four stars and cut
that into one four star and maybe a two star
sub commander. That's an easy way to potentially get rid
of a three star and a four star right there.
(20:56):
But we'll see how this actually plays out. I think
he's going to meet more resistance to this than he realizes.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Some of the people who've been removed from their positions
within the military at the highest levels are the first
woman to run the Navy, the first African American chairman
of the Joint chiefs of Staff. From your reporting is
that because the administration considers them DEI hires just because
they're not white men.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
So we've gotten different stories on that. Yes, they people
around the Secretary of said, yeah, they're DEI hires, but
there's also been, you know, arguments about how they were
just too focused on DEI initiatives, so it's less about
the fact that they were, you know, a woman or
a man of color or Hispanic or whatever it is,
(21:44):
and more about some of the priorities that they placed
while they were in their leadership position. But you know,
we got to remember here there is civilian control of
the military. So keep in mind something like the Chairman
of the Joint Chief c Q. Brown, who was fired
back in February. One of the things that the Secretary
and many people around him were upset about was he
(22:05):
signed this memo that they said was assigning quotas for
the Air Force when he was the Air Force chief
of Staff. Well, the Secretary of the Air Force was
setting those conditions that the chief of Staff of the
Air Force basically you know, can give his best military advice.
At the end of the day, there's civilian control. He
has to carry out the commands and the plans and
the policies of the civilian leaders and that was what
(22:28):
he was doing he was then. That was one of
the big issues that Secretary Hegseth and some of the
people who are sort of the more maga parts of
the Pentagon and the administration had with Seq.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Brown gig.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
But what you're saying is like they they have to
follow orders, and those were the orders that they were
given from the civilian leadership.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Exactly, and by and by following, and then they were
later punished, and Jeremy, we've not seen the end of that.
We will see more senior military officers removed from their
positions or fired, their careers ended because of their carrying
out policies under the Bide administration.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
There's another thing that's happening.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
The Supreme Court is now allowing the administration to ban
transgender service members. There are at least four thousand of them.
What's been the reaction to that?
Speaker 3 (23:13):
So I still don't think. I think there's going to
be more fighting on this in the courts. You know,
Secretary Hegseth put out a memo saying, you know, he
likes to say that they're no more trans there's no
room for trands in the military. I just don't believe
that that the memo that he put out saying that
everyone either has to self identify if they are transgender,
(23:36):
or even more specifically, if they either have been diagnosed
with gender dysphoria or they have been treated for gender
dysphoria in some sort of a medical capacity in their
time in uniform, than they have to self identify. By
June sixth, or they will be identified. I don't know
exactly what that means. How are we going to have
(23:57):
like essentially a witch hunt here where people are identifying
someone in their unit as being a transgender service member?
And also there's very little fidelity about what about someone
who transitioned when they were in high school and then
joined or before that and then join the military, So
their entire time in the military, they've identified as one
(24:17):
as being a male or a female, even if that's
not the sex that they were born, Well, what happens
to them? Are they then kicked out? There are so
many questions, and we've been pressing the Department of Defense
about this four months since the executive Order was first signed,
and it seems as if the services are still working
out the specifics on this. But I personally would be
(24:38):
shocked to see thousands of service members forced out of
the military over this, in part because if they don't
self identify, at what point do their HIPO writes? Do
their privacy rights for their healthcare kick in? And they
can't be identified by a commander. These are questions that
we all have.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Though interesting that we've gotten a Supreme Court ruling allowing
the administration to do this.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
You think it's not the last word.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
I don't. I still believe there will be more legal
challenges to this.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So, the Trump administration has been touting strong military recruitment
since Trump took office. It looks like that did start
before he came in, but it has accelerated since he's
been president.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
What can you tell us about that? Is that? Is
that a good news story out of the Pentagon?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yeah, I mean it's definitely recruiting is up. It was
pretty consistently up in twenty twenty four, and that was
in large part due to these pretty aggressive measures that
the services took, particularly that the Army took to try
to bring more service members in. Now, they also lowered
the total number of recruits they had to bring in,
so the threshold or the number that they had to meet,
(25:49):
is lower, but it was lower in twenty twenty four
as well. The Army is really the outlier in this.
The other services were about they were meeting their goals
for the most part throughout twenty twenty four. They're still
at about one hundred percent, maybe a little bit over that,
but we haven't seen giant jumps. Active duty Army, though
their numbers have gone up here. But there is one
(26:10):
other thing to keep in mind. As part of this
recruiting effort, and this effort to try to bring more
service meant more people into the military. When recruiting numbers
were pretty bad for several years, the army basically created
sort of a pool of recruits. So when they were
meeting their numbers in twenty twenty four, they delayed the
(26:32):
shipping people to basic training so that they would have
sort of a pool, a reserve of people to send.
That has kept their numbers pretty consistent. But it is
definitely accurate to say that in twenty twenty five, since
the inauguration, the active duty Army has seen even more
people join.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
We're talking all here about these sort of inner workings
at the Pentagon, all your amazing reporting about all these
various aspects of how the Defense Department works. At the
end of the day, what they're doing is about the
defense of the US, the wars that the US fights oversees.
Where is the focus right now? If you can say
there is a focus, is it on Russia and Ukraine,
(27:12):
Is it on Israel and Gaza? Is it on what's
happening now India and Pakistan? Or on potential threat from China,
maybe invading Taiwan. Where are people focused? When it comes
to what the Defense Department is actually working on.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
The biggest focus by far is the southern border and immigration.
By far, it is the biggest, I mean, and they
are very proud of the efforts. The Department of Defense
is very proud of the efforts that they have made there.
How they've been able to curb They claim that it's
the military presence and the military action that has been
able to dramatically curb the flow of immigrants across the
(27:48):
border into the United States. They have sent about about
eleven thousand US troops are now along the border in
some capacity. They've some strikers, they've created this new buffer
zone is by far the biggest, bye, by far, the
biggest focus of the Department of Defense. Under Secretary HeiG Seth,
if I had to say one sort of foreign policy thing,
(28:09):
they're very focused on China as well and the concern
about China. But what's fascinating is despite that being such
a focus, they are doing things that don't seem strategically
aligned with that concern. So, for instance, moving air defense
systems out of the Asia Pacific out of the Endo
Pacific to the Middle East. This huge offensive that they
(28:32):
took against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, that doesn't seem
to be aligned with the priority of China, but that is, Yeah,
that's been one of their big offensives, the big one.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Well, you could say also putting tariffs on all your
friends as well would not necessarily align with trying to
be tough on China when you're also putting big tariffs
on you know, Canada and Europe and the United Kingdom
until I guess this trade agreement. One more thing, Courtney,
You've been there for a very how many years have
you been covering the Pentagon.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
It'll be twenty in about a month.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Twenty years, okay, So like coming right after nine to
eleven was the beginning for you and the war in Afghanistan,
the war in Iraq. You've been there during real wartime
when the US has you know, tens of thousands, even
more than one hundred thousand troops serving in war zones
around the world.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
How does it feel right now compared.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
To that, because it does feel, just from the torrent
of stuff coming out of the Pentagon that there's a
lot going on right now, but we're not at war
the way that we were back then.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, I have never experienced a time in the Pentagon
where I have felt so much upheaval in the building.
And keep in mind, you know, when right before and
about the time that that second day Rumsell was about
to be fired, there was a lot of uneasiness in
the building. You know. I was there through the surge
in Iraq, which was extremely controversial, and we were watching
(29:55):
service members die on almost daily basis in Iraq, the
beginning of US strikes and Liby, the beginning of the
US efforts in Syria, the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
I mean, you name it. I have been there through
some difficult, controversial and Candilly's scary times at the Pentagon,
And I think what's so different now is there's never
(30:16):
been a time where I have felt there is so
much upheaval in the front office. So in Secretary the
Secretary of Defense's office, it feels as if they are
struggling on a day to day basis just to kind
of keep the wheels turning. And that's unlike any time
I've ever felt.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Courtney QB NBC's National Security and Defense correspondent Courtney. Thank
you so much for your great reporting and for sharing
it with us.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I enjoyed it, and thanks to you for listening to
One Thing Trump did. It was produced by Harrison Patino.
Our next middle episode will be in your podcast feed
later this week. Will be asking you how the tariffs
are affecting you if you're feeling that yet. Our theme
music was composed by Noah Haidu. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Talk to you soon
Welcome to One Thing Trump Did, available exclusively on the
Middle podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson, and if you haven't already,
by the way, please rate this podcast and write us
a review. So if you're struggling to keep up with
the torrent of headlines coming out of the Trump White House,
join the club. That is why each week we picked
just one thing for this podcast and focus on it,
break it down in a non partisan way. Our one
(00:37):
thing this week is the US government group chat leaks
that have come to be known as Signal Gate because
of the app Signal that's being used for some of
these chats. The fallout from it, some of the bigger
issues that are going on at the Pentagon will also
be part.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Of this discussion.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
So to recap, Jeffrey Goldberg, who's editor in chief of
the Atlantic, was mistakenly added to a group chat of
national secure leaders on the messaging app Signal, and that
group chat, which included the Defense Secretary, the Vice President,
the National Security Advisor, and others, was discussing imminent military
action against Huti forces in Yemen.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
The man who was National.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, has since been removed from that post,
although he's also been nominated now by President Trump to
serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations, but everyone
else remains in their positions. Trump's Director of National Intelligence,
Telsea Gabbard, who was on that group chat, spoke recently
in an interview with Megan Kelly about the scandal.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
It shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
There are sensitive conversations that occur in these signal chats,
but ultimately it was not.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
At all what.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Those who are opposing the president's policies and those in
the media made it out to be. And I can
tell you that there are some of the most vocal
critics of that whole situation who also used signal and
communicate them that they would not want released publicly as well.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And to that point, The Wall Street Journal has reported
that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has discussed official Pentagon business
on at least twelve signal chat groups. Joining me now
with more is NBC National Security and Defense correspondent Courtney QB.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Courtney's great to have you on.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Thank you so much for including me.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Jeremy, So, first of all, explain why it is such
a no no to use something like signal to discuss
highly classified military information.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
There's different levels of classification for US intelligence and specifically military.
What we are talking about here, the original Signal chat that,
as you mentioned, Jeffrey Goldberg was added into that had
information about an imminent military operation. So the very top
of the chat you see the Secretary of Defense Pete
(02:51):
Haigseth writing that the mission is a go. Well, as
soon as the mission is approved, the information even becomes
more highly classified. And that's because because you're talking about
aircraft that are getting ready to take off or maybe
you are already in the air headed towards their target.
These are men and women whose lives could be on
the line, flying over a hostile area to conduct an operation.
(03:13):
So that kind of information, so an imminent military operation
would generally be transmitted over something called jawis. That is
a very secure server that allows the military and top
intelligence officials to provide information that they want. They want
to make sure no one else gets access to. So
Signal it's a commercial app. Yes, it is encrypted. Yes,
(03:38):
people in the government and journalists and people all over
the world use it because it's relatively secure. But it
would never be approved for something at the level of
something that would be transmitted via jaywis again like specific
information about aircraft being used, times that bombs would be
dropping over all hostile area. And just to add, just
(03:58):
to add to how potentially dangerous this could have been.
These were air strikes that the US was about to
conduct against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Since those air
strikes began on that same day, March fifteenth, the Houthis
have shot down at least seven US drones. What that
means is the airspace is contested now. Fortunately those are
(04:20):
unmanned drones. The day of this signal chat, we had
manned aircraft going in the air. If the Houthis or
any adversary had somehow been able to infiltrate that chat,
we could have seen aircraft with men and women flying
them potentially shot down.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
And if an ordinary service member had done what these
national security officials were doing and used a signal chat
to talk about an imminent air strike, they would have
been in very big trouble.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Most likely, they definitely would have been fired, and they
most likely would have been brought up on charges. I mean,
I will say signal is used in the military, in
fact by special operation in the field, but not for
this kind of information you know, we keep hearing about.
It's for talking about logistics, it's for talking about you know,
movements and things, not for something as again as highly
(05:12):
sensitive as an imminent military operation.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So here's a.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Question, if they have access to this jawix system, why wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
They use that.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
So, just to put it bluntly, Jaywicks is a pain.
It's a pain to use for them because number one,
you have to be in what's what's known as a skiff.
It's a secure compartmentalized information facility, so a place where
there's no phones, there's no Apple watches, there's no no
nothing that can transmit jwix. From what I understand, I've
never been on it, but from what I understand, it
can take like eight to fifteen minutes just to get
(05:44):
the system up and running or to get your essentially
your like your version of email of jwix up and loading.
It's not easy to share information via jaywix because you
have to have somebody who can receive it on the
same system that you want to send it to. So
when we're talking about something like the signal chat that
had Mike Waltz, leaders of the National security opera intelligence
(06:07):
community in the United States, they would have access to
be able to get this information, but not so easily
as as sending it to them on a phone on
a text message.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So then the next question I guess is, why wouldn't
they use some sort of code language at least if
they're going to do this on signal and say, you know,
we're gonna do the why in the h and the
you know, like, instead of just literally spelling out exactly
what they're doing in what time.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And I think before the Atlantic exposed the signal chat,
we all sort of assumed there was a piece of that,
you know, so maybe the signal chat would be, hey, everyone,
get to your skiff or everyone. You know, in the
military they often call it the high side. That's the
sipper or the more secure servers. You know, hey, everyone
check your high side. Action is beginning. So, you know,
(06:51):
you would expect something like that, but actually putting in
the detail that is why this has so many people
in the US military and the intelligence community just absolutely flabbergasted.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So has it stopped? Do you think are they still
using signal for other chats?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
We know that they are still using signal for chats
for imminent military operations we don't know, but definitely for
other information.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
And why hasn't the president, who loves to fire people,
as we know, fired Pete Hegseth over this.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
So, I mean, there's a couple of schools of thought.
One could just be the media are have been amplifying
what happened here. I think because you know, I've covered
the Pentagon in the military for just about twenty years now,
and I've never seen anything like this from a leader.
And when I look back at the secretaries of Defense
who've covered since Donald Rumsfeld, I can't envision a scenario
(07:44):
in which another secretary would have done something like this.
So because it's so unprecedented and uncommon, we gave it
a lot of attention, And frankly, I think that that's
one of the reasons that Donald Trump doesn't want to
fire him or to really reprimand him publicly, because he
doesn't want to give them media that's sort of a
win when the reality is it's not reporters and media
(08:05):
who are calling for anyone to be fired or reprimanded.
We're just discussing the situation and giving the facts of
what unfolded here. So I mean, that's one school of thought.
Another is when you hear President Trump talk about the
signal chat, it's not really clear whether he actually understands
what happened here. I mean, at one point he even
(08:26):
said something like, well, we don't even know if this signal,
the signal was any good. Well it's not a signal,
you know, signal is the name of the app So
so I mean those are just my my personal guesses
on what could have happened here. And then the next
question is always, well, what is going to happen? Is
there going to be any sort of a reprimand? And
I got to tell you, Jeremy, I have absolutely no
(08:48):
idea the way that this has unfolded and how more
and more information has come forward and there doesn't seem
to be any real accountability. I don't know how this
is going to continue to unfold.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I've read that Mike Waltz, who was fired as National
Security Advisor, may have been removed from that position not
because of signal, but because he's more hawkish on things
like Iran than others in the administration. He just didn't
fit in with Trump's idea or people in the administration's
idea of what the national security policy should be.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Is there truth to that?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
So there is absolutely truth to the fact that there
is a big divide over Iran right now. So you
have the people who are very close to Israel. Israel
wants to continue to strike against Iran. You know, they
had some really effective, really successful strikes back in October.
They essentially crippled all of Iran's strategic air defenses. So
(09:43):
they tend to use this air defense system called an
S three hundred. The radars are pretty much all busted
and it's months and months and months before they get
them allline all back online. When you have an adversary
whose air defenses are down, just the fact is it's
easier for you to conduct strikes. It's less danger to
(10:05):
dermanned aircraft who would be going into this potentially hostile
area to conduct a strike. We know that Israel wants
to do more strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. They feel
that that is an existential threat to their nation. But
President Trump and some people around him are completely against that.
(10:25):
They feel they are concerned about a larger war, this
escalating into a regional conflict that the US would almost
certainly get pulled into. I think there are a lot
of people around President Trump who look back to October
seventh and say they don't want to give the Biden
administration any credit. But it didn't extend into a larger
regional war that the US got pulled into, and strikes
(10:45):
against Iran would really threaten that balance.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Do you think that the signal gate scandal is now
over or is there more to come and potentially more
shoes to drop, more heads to roll in the administration.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
I think it is absolute possible that some of the
excellent reporting that we have gotten about signal and the
use of signal in the administration, I think that there's
always the possibility that reporters will come up with more. Look,
I hope it's me, you know. I think that some
of my colleagues are just doing unbelievable work over the
last several weeks and months on that one definite thing
(11:21):
that is going to get headlines is the Inspector General's
work out of the Department of Defense. So they have
this personnel evaluation that they're looking into the use of
signal and the information that was put in there. Now,
the huge, huge caveat to that is this is there's
a little known policy in the United States where the
Secretary of Defense, in the name of national security can
(11:44):
essentially not so much cancel but long term postpone and
inspector general action. The Secretary of Defense has not done this.
This was an ig action that was called that the
members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, leaders, and Senator services
called for. So that would be a huge point of
(12:04):
contention if you were to do that, But it is
a possibility, so candidly, I've been watching to see if
there's any movement on that. If not, if this goes
forward in an expedited manner as the Hill is called for,
that will definitely be a big headline when that comes out.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Courtney, you mentioned the reporting that you and others are
doing at the Pentagon. We should note that NBC was
one of the news outlets that was kicked out of
the Pentagon at the beginning of the Trump administration the
second time around to put in, you know, more right
leaning news organizations or right wing news organizations like one
American News Network. How is it affecting you to not
have the Pentagon office that you've had for so long?
Speaker 3 (12:44):
You know, I Jeremy it's look, it stinks, if I'm
being honest, it stinks not to have the We called
it a booth, And I think what people don't realize
is this isn't just that they kicked us out of
a desk. We had these little They were essentially closets
that we worked out of. We had a lot of equipment,
We had our own lines and a robotic camera and
(13:06):
there we did live shots out of there all day long.
And NBC News has had a presence at the Pentagon
in a booth like that for at least fifty years.
We actually can't find anyone alive who can tell us
exactly when it started, but it's been decades. I was
there for twenty years in that booth. Logistically it's harder,
but every single day we are still showing up and
(13:28):
working in the Pentagon, and we're not giving up on
an important building and the issues there are critical to
the American people and critical to the world, and a
free press having the ability to tell those stories and
to hold the leaders responsible for the decisions that they
are making is so important. So we're there every single
(13:50):
day still, no matter even if we don't have a
place to work.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
We'll stay with us, because in a moment we're going
to talk about what's been happening at the Pentagon aside.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
From Signal Gate.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
One Thing Trump did with NBC see National Security and
Defense Corresponding Courtney qub.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Welcome back to One Thing Trump did on the Middle
Podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. This episode, we're talking about
signal Gate and what it means for US national security.
I'm joined by NBC National Security and Defense Corresponding Courtney QB.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So, Courtney Pete.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, famously came from Fox News, where
he was a weekend anchor, and after the signal Gate
scandal broke, he fired a number of his top aides,
who then said things at the Pentagon were a total
mess under Hegseth.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
What do we know about those firings.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
At this point now it's been a few weeks, and
what have these people said about Hegseth.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah, I mean, we've heard extensively from Dan Caldwell. He
was one of the senior advisors to Secretary Hegseth and
frankly a longtime friend of the Secretary before even before
he was at Secretary Hegseth was at Fox News. Dan
Caldwell and he knew each other from these veterans organizations.
We heard from him in an extensive interview with Tucker Carlson.
(15:19):
We also heard from Colin Carroll, who was the deputy
chief or the chief of staff to the Deputy Secretary
of Defense Steve Feinberg. He was also fired that same week.
He gave a long interview to Megan Kelly, and as
you said, they both laid out problems and how the
Pentagon is being managed under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsath. Now,
in both cases, they were accused by the Secretary of
(15:44):
leaking classified information. And while we have since heard a
number of different stories that they may have been involved in,
there have been no official charges. We're not aware of
any investigation. We know that there was one sort of
administrative investstigation that was closed, but they both are now
saying that there is a side investigation or sort of
(16:06):
like almost a rogue investigation against them that's being carried
out by people close to Secretary Higgseth looking for any
kind of information about them having been leakers of classified information.
It's been several weeks and you know, as of today,
we still aren't aware of anything to substantiate those allegations,
but they were fired over it.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
One person that was not fired is the Deputy Defense Secretary,
who is heag sets I guess number two, who is
a billionaire. By the way, Stephen Finberg, how much power
does he have in the Pentagon?
Speaker 3 (16:39):
You know, it's fascinating how sort of the roles and
responsibilities have equalled out here between him and Secretary Hegseth.
Secretary Higgseth definitely is more of the face of the Pentagon, right.
He likes to go out and work out with troops
and loves to do a video, a very dramatic video
where he signs a memo, talks about it, and they
(17:01):
tend to be about, you know, about three different topics
for the most part. Stephen Feinberg, as you mentioned, he
is a rich billionaire. He doesn't have any experience in government,
and everyone around him him tells me that he's more
interested in sort of sitting in his office working through
the numbers, the day to day administrative business of the Pentagon,
(17:26):
and that he doesn't want to be in front of
a camera. He doesn't want to talk to the media.
He is more than happy to be the one who
runs the building. He's had a huge part in the cuts.
He seems to be one of one of the main,
if not the main liaison with the DOGE personnel who
are are trying to cut contracts and programs in personnel
and staff, and he definitely seems to be sort of
(17:48):
the budget guy for the Pentagon. So it's interesting how
the two of them have sort of their roles have
really like leveled out.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
It's for so long been notoriously difficult for anybody to
cut any money out of the Pentagon. Are they actually
going to come up with some cuts that will make
a difference in the budget.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
That is a trillion dollar question right now among the
press corps, because you know, they keep telling they'll come
forward and say, well, we just cut another so many
hundreds of millions of dollars out. There's a number that
they've been throwing around, and that is Secretary Hegsat that
has been throwing around of five, you know, five billion
dollars or maybe maybe six billion dollars that they've been
(18:25):
able to cut. But we the Press Corps has been
asking and asking for any specifics on that, and we
don't have them. They have given us some information about
a couple of contracts that have been cut. Now so far,
all of the contracts that we're aware of were ones
that had already been paid out, so they essentially were
ending them so they wouldn't put more money out. But
(18:47):
it's also not clear that all of them would have
been re upped anyway. But that has amounted to, you know,
hundreds of millions of dollars. Most of those contracts have
had something to do with diversity initiae initiatives or maybe
climb it. There will be some savings because of you know,
we know of at least twenty two thousand individuals who
have taken the fork in the road and are leaving.
(19:08):
So there'll be some personnel cuts. They're making some cuts
to some other programs, but for the most part, there
is very very little transparency and exactly where this alleged
trillions of dollars and cuts have come from.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Now, Heigksas says he wants to cut the number of
for star generals across the military by twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Why does he want to do that? What kind of
an effect will that have?
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, so this is something that he talked about even
before he became the secretary, he has this sort of
grand plan for the military about if you think of
the military as a triangle and you have general officers
and flag officers at the top, and you have the
military the sort of rank and file men and women
towards the bottom. Yes, they make up a huge a
bigger proportion, but he wants to make that triangle even flatter.
(19:50):
He wants to have more people out in the field,
you know, again, like the rank and file, people who
could potentially be sent to the front lines on a
moment's notice, and fewer people back in the headquarters who
are telling them what to do. The reality is this,
He's not alone in thinking that this is a problem,
but there has been some criticism about the way he's
going about it by sort of putting this twenty percent.
(20:13):
You're going to cut twenty percent. The military is not
a monolith, and the services are very different. You know,
the size of the Marine Corps is very different than
the size of the active duty Army. So there has
been some criticism about just this hatchet cut with a
somewhat arbitrary number, and we'll see how that actually plays out.
(20:34):
I mean, one simple way that I think that we're
going to see some of these cuts is consolidating some
of the combatant commands. We're already seeing a little bit
of that, consolidating Futures Army Futures Command with Training and
Doctrine Command. You could take two four stars and cut
that into one four star and maybe a two star
sub commander. That's an easy way to potentially get rid
of a three star and a four star right there.
(20:56):
But we'll see how this actually plays out. I think
he's going to meet more resistance to this than he realizes.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Some of the people who've been removed from their positions
within the military at the highest levels are the first
woman to run the Navy, the first African American chairman
of the Joint chiefs of Staff. From your reporting is
that because the administration considers them DEI hires just because
they're not white men.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
So we've gotten different stories on that. Yes, they people
around the Secretary of said, yeah, they're DEI hires, but
there's also been, you know, arguments about how they were
just too focused on DEI initiatives, so it's less about
the fact that they were, you know, a woman or
a man of color or Hispanic or whatever it is,
(21:44):
and more about some of the priorities that they placed
while they were in their leadership position. But you know,
we got to remember here there is civilian control of
the military. So keep in mind something like the Chairman
of the Joint Chief c Q. Brown, who was fired
back in February. One of the things that the Secretary
and many people around him were upset about was he
(22:05):
signed this memo that they said was assigning quotas for
the Air Force when he was the Air Force chief
of Staff. Well, the Secretary of the Air Force was
setting those conditions that the chief of Staff of the
Air Force basically you know, can give his best military advice.
At the end of the day, there's civilian control. He
has to carry out the commands and the plans and
the policies of the civilian leaders and that was what
(22:28):
he was doing he was then. That was one of
the big issues that Secretary Hegseth and some of the
people who are sort of the more maga parts of
the Pentagon and the administration had with Seq.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Brown gig.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
But what you're saying is like they they have to
follow orders, and those were the orders that they were
given from the civilian leadership.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Exactly, and by and by following, and then they were
later punished, and Jeremy, we've not seen the end of that.
We will see more senior military officers removed from their
positions or fired, their careers ended because of their carrying
out policies under the Bide administration.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
There's another thing that's happening.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
The Supreme Court is now allowing the administration to ban
transgender service members. There are at least four thousand of them.
What's been the reaction to that?
Speaker 3 (23:13):
So I still don't think. I think there's going to
be more fighting on this in the courts. You know,
Secretary Hegseth put out a memo saying, you know, he
likes to say that they're no more trans there's no
room for trands in the military. I just don't believe
that that the memo that he put out saying that
everyone either has to self identify if they are transgender,
(23:36):
or even more specifically, if they either have been diagnosed
with gender dysphoria or they have been treated for gender
dysphoria in some sort of a medical capacity in their
time in uniform, than they have to self identify. By
June sixth, or they will be identified. I don't know
exactly what that means. How are we going to have
(23:57):
like essentially a witch hunt here where people are identifying
someone in their unit as being a transgender service member?
And also there's very little fidelity about what about someone
who transitioned when they were in high school and then
joined or before that and then join the military, So
their entire time in the military, they've identified as one
(24:17):
as being a male or a female, even if that's
not the sex that they were born, Well, what happens
to them? Are they then kicked out? There are so
many questions, and we've been pressing the Department of Defense
about this four months since the executive Order was first signed,
and it seems as if the services are still working
out the specifics on this. But I personally would be
(24:38):
shocked to see thousands of service members forced out of
the military over this, in part because if they don't
self identify, at what point do their HIPO writes? Do
their privacy rights for their healthcare kick in? And they
can't be identified by a commander. These are questions that
we all have.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Though interesting that we've gotten a Supreme Court ruling allowing
the administration to do this.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
You think it's not the last word.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
I don't. I still believe there will be more legal
challenges to this.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So, the Trump administration has been touting strong military recruitment
since Trump took office. It looks like that did start
before he came in, but it has accelerated since he's
been president.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
What can you tell us about that? Is that? Is
that a good news story out of the Pentagon?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yeah, I mean it's definitely recruiting is up. It was
pretty consistently up in twenty twenty four, and that was
in large part due to these pretty aggressive measures that
the services took, particularly that the Army took to try
to bring more service members in. Now, they also lowered
the total number of recruits they had to bring in,
so the threshold or the number that they had to meet,
(25:49):
is lower, but it was lower in twenty twenty four
as well. The Army is really the outlier in this.
The other services were about they were meeting their goals
for the most part throughout twenty twenty four. They're still
at about one hundred percent, maybe a little bit over that,
but we haven't seen giant jumps. Active duty Army, though
their numbers have gone up here. But there is one
(26:10):
other thing to keep in mind. As part of this
recruiting effort, and this effort to try to bring more
service meant more people into the military. When recruiting numbers
were pretty bad for several years, the army basically created
sort of a pool of recruits. So when they were
meeting their numbers in twenty twenty four, they delayed the
(26:32):
shipping people to basic training so that they would have
sort of a pool, a reserve of people to send.
That has kept their numbers pretty consistent. But it is
definitely accurate to say that in twenty twenty five, since
the inauguration, the active duty Army has seen even more
people join.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
We're talking all here about these sort of inner workings
at the Pentagon, all your amazing reporting about all these
various aspects of how the Defense Department works. At the
end of the day, what they're doing is about the
defense of the US, the wars that the US fights oversees.
Where is the focus right now? If you can say
there is a focus, is it on Russia and Ukraine,
(27:12):
Is it on Israel and Gaza? Is it on what's
happening now India and Pakistan? Or on potential threat from China,
maybe invading Taiwan. Where are people focused? When it comes
to what the Defense Department is actually working on.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
The biggest focus by far is the southern border and immigration.
By far, it is the biggest, I mean, and they
are very proud of the efforts. The Department of Defense
is very proud of the efforts that they have made there.
How they've been able to curb They claim that it's
the military presence and the military action that has been
able to dramatically curb the flow of immigrants across the
(27:48):
border into the United States. They have sent about about
eleven thousand US troops are now along the border in
some capacity. They've some strikers, they've created this new buffer
zone is by far the biggest, bye, by far, the
biggest focus of the Department of Defense. Under Secretary HeiG Seth,
if I had to say one sort of foreign policy thing,
(28:09):
they're very focused on China as well and the concern
about China. But what's fascinating is despite that being such
a focus, they are doing things that don't seem strategically
aligned with that concern. So, for instance, moving air defense
systems out of the Asia Pacific out of the Endo
Pacific to the Middle East. This huge offensive that they
(28:32):
took against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, that doesn't seem
to be aligned with the priority of China, but that is, Yeah,
that's been one of their big offensives, the big one.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Well, you could say also putting tariffs on all your
friends as well would not necessarily align with trying to
be tough on China when you're also putting big tariffs
on you know, Canada and Europe and the United Kingdom
until I guess this trade agreement. One more thing, Courtney,
You've been there for a very how many years have
you been covering the Pentagon.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
It'll be twenty in about a month.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Twenty years, okay, So like coming right after nine to
eleven was the beginning for you and the war in Afghanistan,
the war in Iraq. You've been there during real wartime
when the US has you know, tens of thousands, even
more than one hundred thousand troops serving in war zones
around the world.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
How does it feel right now compared.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
To that, because it does feel, just from the torrent
of stuff coming out of the Pentagon that there's a
lot going on right now, but we're not at war
the way that we were back then.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, I have never experienced a time in the Pentagon
where I have felt so much upheaval in the building.
And keep in mind, you know, when right before and
about the time that that second day Rumsell was about
to be fired, there was a lot of uneasiness in
the building. You know. I was there through the surge
in Iraq, which was extremely controversial, and we were watching
(29:55):
service members die on almost daily basis in Iraq, the
beginning of US strikes and Liby, the beginning of the
US efforts in Syria, the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
I mean, you name it. I have been there through
some difficult, controversial and Candilly's scary times at the Pentagon,
And I think what's so different now is there's never
(30:16):
been a time where I have felt there is so
much upheaval in the front office. So in Secretary the
Secretary of Defense's office, it feels as if they are
struggling on a day to day basis just to kind
of keep the wheels turning. And that's unlike any time
I've ever felt.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Courtney QB NBC's National Security and Defense correspondent Courtney. Thank
you so much for your great reporting and for sharing
it with us.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I enjoyed it, and thanks to you for listening to
One Thing Trump did. It was produced by Harrison Patino.
Our next middle episode will be in your podcast feed
later this week. Will be asking you how the tariffs
are affecting you if you're feeling that yet. Our theme
music was composed by Noah Haidu. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Talk to you soon
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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