Dan Mitchinson: US Correspondent chats mandatory testosterone tests for US troops

US Correspondent Dan Mitchinson joined Heather du Plessis-Allan to chat the latest news out of the USA. 

Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, has announced that US troops aged 30 or older will have to undergo testosterone testing as part of annual health screenings.

Mitchinson said, "there are, you know, studies that show 1 in 4 men over 30 have low testosterone, and only 1 in 20 recognise the symptoms, but really this just seems like, why are you doing this?"

"What is the point?"

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dan Mitchinson, US correspondent, is with us. Hello, Dan, Hey,
good after What do you make of Donald Trump's speech?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
It was short, It was twenty five minutes. I mean,
in all seriousness, had caught me off guard. I thought
it'd be going on for at least an hour, maybe
ninety minutes. But apart from that, I think it just
I mean, it was a lot of rehash, right, It
lacked a lot of content. It didn't produce any new
evidence it votes had been manipulated, didn't produce any real
evidence that the election outcome had been altered. And as

(00:29):
you've just mentioned in the World Wires, he's going to
release previously classified documents related to both the twenty twenty
and the twenty eighteen election. Tell you, what I do
find interesting is he's doubling down on this just months
ahead of the midterm elections.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah, which means.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Which means I think he is just trying to make
a push for Republicans. He's trying to bring up something
that he knows really rallied his base the last time around.
But I got to tell you to Heather, all these
things they've been talking experts after this, and I mean,
it sounds bad. When you hear the President say it
the way he does. But they had an election law
contributor that came on right after the speech and he said,

(01:08):
the reality is all these voter files in the US
are are public and there's really, I mean, there's there's
not much that China can do with it to to
meddle in an election. So I just I just think
this is also part of his his push to Save
the America Act. That's that bill that would require a
citizenship to register to vote, among a number of others.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I mean, which, in a way you skin it right,
it is.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
The announcement is designed to try to help him in
the in the midterms, isn't it. Because if it's if
it's getting the Save America Act across the line, it
helps him. If it's rallying the base with an existential
threat from China, it helps him. If it gives him
an excuse for why he loses the midterms, it helps.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Him exactly exactly. And I think you know, there's a
little bit of a scare tactic in there. He wants
he wants to bring up something that has been brought
up over the last couple of elections and continues to
be shown that it just didn't happen. It just didn't happen,
But you can't convince his base of voters that it didn't.
Toward the conspiracy theorists.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, hey, so what do you make of this guy
who was the teleprompter who's made all the money off
the speeches.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
First thing is the guy was a genius. Second thing
is he was an idiot. He was a genius because
he's been Trump's teleprompter operator since I think twenty sixteen
or so, made about one hundred thousand dollars by placing
bets on more than a dozen of Trump's speeches in
the prediction market, which is a big no no. The
problem was he got too specific in these In these markets,

(02:34):
what you can do is bet on whether specific words
or phrases or topics are going to be uttered during
a public speech. And he just got too specific in there.
You know, he said exact words and exact sentences. So
this was flagged and boom, there's an investigation going on
and this guy has been put on unpaid administrative leave.
And President Trump said, you know, it was a disgrace,

(02:55):
and he made the decision to put the guy on
on leave while they're investigating this Right.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Now, Dan, how do the troops feel about having these
testosterone tests?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
I think we're going to find out more in the
coming days. There's a lot of medical experts coming out
saying why are you doing this right now if there
are no symptoms? Because troops thirty and up are going
to get tested for testosterone levels annually, and we know
that the testosterone can affect your sex drive and your
mood and focus and muscle and bone density and all

(03:24):
kinds of stuff too, So this new T check is
going to be part of the physical But men begin
experiencing a dropping this I mean usually around forty. By
fifty or fifty five, you get symptoms of low T
that may become more obvious. So yes, there are you
know studies that show one in format over thirty have
low testosterone and only one in twenty recognize the symptoms.

(03:46):
But really this just seems like, why are you doing this?
What is the point? And apparently it's just to make
sure that the troops are in as you know, good
a condition, physically fit and it can possibly be Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Is the drop of in testosterone why men get moves?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Well? That or smoking pot I mean it from pot.
Oh yeah, yeah, you can get some huge moves from
from smoking pot.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
I don't know that. Are you making or is that real?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Well? No, it's real. In fact, if you if you,
I mean, if you smoke pot for too long and
the moves get too big, you have to go out
and you have to buy a man's er or a bro.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
What are you serious? For real?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
That the man's eier thing was a Seinfeld reference. But
there are men that definitely get you know, and testosterone
can't play a role in that as well too. But
it's a it's a fact that that that pot is
a is a big contributor to men growing.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
I didn't know that. Okay, now I'm going to identify
the pot smokers all the time. I thank you, Dan,
Dan Mitchinson, US correspondent. Yeah. Do you know what though,
when they said that they're going to start testing them
for testosterone, I don't have a problem with that, because
have you ever met a man who's low on testosterone?
As they get older, crumpy, get that testosterone into them,

(05:07):
So stop being grumpy annoying. Seventeen away from five For
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