October 3, 2025 • 43 mins
A community protest with porta-potty “sponsorships” shouldn’t have anything to do with a room full of stone-faced generals at Quantico—but it does. We open on real-world organizing in Colorado Springs, then trace a straight line to a stage where aesthetics and loyalty checks tried to pass for military leadership. When beards become the battleground and “look the part” outweighs mission, you can feel the culture war trying to rewrite standards from the outside.
We break down what actually happened at the GOFO summit: a massive lift to move the brass, a political speech delivered to an audience trained not to clap, and a message heavy on optics but light on readiness. From shaving waivers and their racial reality to religious accommodations in the Space Force, we separate myth from operational need. We also clear the air on PT standards and combat roles: elite units already enforce tough, job-specific requirements that didn’t soften when women got a fair shot. The data is small, the standards are high, and the dog whistles are loud.
Then we widen the lens. “Train in our cities,” “enemy within,” and a push to militarize police risk crossing legal lines that protect civilians from domestic force. Add a government shutdown framed by misinformation about immigrant benefits while lavish projects skate through, and the priorities come into focus. Finally, we challenge the nostalgia for “hands-on” boot camp. Draft-era fear worked when you could replace deserters with letters; in an all-volunteer force, abuse undermines trust, retention, and real readiness. Along the way, we call out the AI meme factory and the normalization of ridicule from the highest office—a propaganda loop that distracts from what actually keeps the country safe.
If you care about readiness over rhetoric and mission over memes, pull up a chair. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who served (or wanted to), and leave a review to help more folks find an honest take on what really matters.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face.
My name is Adam Gillard.
I'm your co-host long here withDick Wilkinson.
How are you doing this morning,Dick?
I'm doing great, Adam.
Good morning.
Good morning.
And is uh it's crazy how wedon't even really have to
prepare for these thingsanymore.
There's just such a constantonslaught of BS.
SPEAKER_02 (00:16):
Um It's like just grab onto the stream and float,
float through the river, youknow?
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (00:21):
It's nuts that uh we have a pretty constant stream of
stuff to talk about here.
Um but before we dive into ourtopics today, uh I wanted to
mention that uh our localprotest on the 18th of October
here in Colorado Springs isgonna be at America the
Beautiful Park uh from 12 to 3.
We're gonna have a lot of uhdifferent uh workshops and
community organizations therejust kind of you know trying to
(00:41):
build community and especiallyyou know now that you know
government shut down thingsthings are gonna get start you
know drying up here locally.
Yeah.
How how do we keep move on as acommunity and help each other
out?
So we're gonna have someworkshops down there.
Um uh you can donate at uh givebutter uh 5051 COS so 50501 COS
(01:02):
at Give Butter.
Uh you know, if you want to youknow rent a porta potty and name
it after somebody, you can dothat.
Uh yeah, you know, if you needto rent a dumpster, you know,
you can do that.
But but yeah, it should be agood day.
SPEAKER_02 (01:14):
12 to 3 is I'm gonna rent the porta potties and
dumpsters and put them in yourhonor.
How about that?
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
I like that those are the things available to to
rent.
SPEAKER_02 (01:21):
So yeah, but we're thinking like the Trump dump,
yeah, you know, things likethat.
You know, so okay.
That's different.
Yeah, I see a bit of apejorative or a tongue-in-cheek
sponsorship.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
I was like, who wants thebathroom named after them?
So I got you.
Exactly.
There you go.
Okay, the other way or outbecause I'm sitting here like,
what are you talking about?
(01:42):
Good job, Barbie.
Uh joke sponsorships.
That's a great way to, yeah, Ilike that.
I'm very much, I mean, I wasgonna joke sponsor it for you,
so yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:53):
King King Turret over here, yeah.
Uh but yeah, so that'd be the18th of you know, 12 to 3 at
America the Beautiful Park.
Uh some other organizations aregonna try to get some uh marches
going and and you know do someother things, you know, after
our our portion.
But uh it should be a greattime.
It's getting a lot of traction.
A lot of people are talkingabout it, you know, and just
(02:13):
being able to go somewhere andbe around people that you know
understand what you're goingthrough and find ways that you
can give back to the community.
Uh it's been huge for folks, andand it's been you know a lot of
fun going down there.
That's great.
I'm glad it's coming up soon.
Yeah.
Um, so the first thing we wantedto talk about is kind of a
follow-up to what we uh hit alot last week was this uh big
GoFo meeting that uh hadn'thappened at Quantico, you know,
(02:36):
just a couple days ago.
It feels like forever already.
Like it gets covered so much andyou read so much about it, feels
like it was all right.
Yeah, it's almost out of thenews cycle now.
Um but you so you know,Secretary of Defense still, uh
Pete Heggseth, uh called 800some generals and admirals and
their senior enlisted advisorsuh to Quantico.
(02:56):
And now when that team kind typeof team travels, they travel
with calm people, they travelwith a whole like it's not just
like a couple people goingbecause like these folks have
responsibilities that they can'twalk away from the city.
Especially you can't transfercommand from the four-star down
to somebody else.
Yeah, yeah.
So what's that called?
You know, authorized commands.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
So the uh the three stars andthe four stars, they always have
(03:18):
their own calm teams that theytravel with.
So so like it's a big logisticalmovement to get there.
Yeah, it's at least five people,right?
I mean, to get the four-starsomewhere, it's a five-person
team.
Right.
And uh so it's a huge lift.
Everything that I've read, andagain, I'm in my own echo
chambers, I recognize that, isthat it was bet it was a
complete waste of time for thegenerals.
(03:38):
Like no general has come out andyou know said anything positive
about it or or like enjoyed thetrip or you know, enjoyed
Virginia this time of year.
Um, they went you know, leafsighted.
SPEAKER_02 (03:49):
That that would have been great if one of them just
basically ignored the fact thatthey were at this meeting and
just been like, you know, backget great to get back to
Quantico.
This is where I started mycareer, you know, and just like
talk about little buddies inVirginia.
Yeah, just to have them down abarbecue and be like, I haven't
seen this guy in 30 years.
SPEAKER_00 (04:05):
You know, you know, it we get trained to be so uh
non-political, and you heardsome like clapping and things
like that during Heg Seth or uhDonald Trump speech, but I think
it really shocks people.
Barely, yeah, barely.
And it was probably their ownentourage, right?
Sure.
It was probably their own otherpeople, yeah.
It's their own yes uniformpeople chuckling.
Um but people don't r realizehow awkward it is because like
(04:28):
you can go to a military thingand somebody could just crush
the national anthem, like leaveyou in goosebumps and you just
stand there and stare at themand you don't clap for them.
You know, it's so weird how likeyeah, the just the lack of
emotion.
So when people saw that, youknow, a room full of stone faced
generals, like they were like,Oh shit, they're kind of
serious.
Like, yeah, they they they taketheir job seriously.
(04:48):
Yeah, like they're they're notextremely happy about getting
called away from they're not upfor company picnics, yeah.
Right.
And really, you know, themessage that came out was you
know, one from unqualifiedpeople to deliver the message,
but you know, get fitter, lookbetter.
It was about aesthetics, right?
It it it wasn't aboutficial,yeah.
It was, you know, look better.
(05:10):
Yeah.
And look, you know, meet themale standards, things like
that.
Um and overall, you know, whenyou look at you know, recruiting
numbers and who they're goingafter and who they've been
pulling in over the last fewmonths, it's clear that they're
going after a certain shade ofpeople.
Okay.
Um there's there's ademographic.
(05:32):
Yeah.
You know, hex, I thought theyyou know they've already they're
they're removing the shavingwaiver.
So anybody that needs to behearing about that.
Yeah, anybody's gonna be able todo that.
Yeah, so if you're on a shavingwaiver for more than a year,
you're gone.
Yeah.
And that's a lot of AfricanAmerican uh soldiers, sailors,
airmen, marines, guardians,whatever, are on shaving
waivers.
Uh they're they're getting ridof folks that disagree with them
(05:54):
in every avenue possible.
SPEAKER_02 (05:56):
Um I'll be curious to see how the shaving waiver
part plays out.
I know I made a joke about itlast week, but um, you know,
that the the racial implicationof that is you know, anybody
that served in the militaryunderstands that yes, it was
extremely rare to see aCaucasian male with a shaving
waiver and it was always verytemporary, like five days,
right?
You know, like you get you got aburned on your face and now you
(06:18):
have a five-day shaving waiver,and then you better start
shaving before the burn's evenhealed, right?
Like that's what the expectationwas.
Yeah, and so you're right.
The only people that hadpseudophiliculitis barbae and
had the long-term waivers werepeople of African-American
descent, right?
Like that's it.
Um now, I have noticed in theSpace Force specifically, um, it
seems like they're man,everybody got a beard around
(06:40):
there, you know.
Like there's a lot of peoplewith beards in the Space Force,
regardless of the shade of skinor complexion or you know, you
know, hair problems.
You're just doing it, right?
And that that may be he's like,What's going on here?
Like you're just a regular dudeand you have a tight beard and
uniform.
That's not right.
You know, that's what justvisually, that's what Pete's
seeing.
SPEAKER_00 (06:59):
Right, but but a lot of these folks have you know
religious reasons for havingtheir beard.
And again, it it's not the theChristian nationalist.
SPEAKER_02 (07:06):
I have no idea why.
I mean, I'm saying I've seenpeople in person here in the
local community, and I look atthem and go, I have no clue how
why you have a beard.
Yeah, right.
Like it doesn't make sense tome.
SPEAKER_00 (07:16):
Umes that affect the war fight.
SPEAKER_02 (07:21):
It doesn't, right?
Uh foreign militaries um allowtheir senior NCOs and officers
to have beards, and it's a markof uh, you know, maturity and
respect that you're gonna followthe rules and you're not gonna
act a fool and try and look, youknow, look crazy and out of
rags.
You're gonna look professional.
Yeah, if we let, you know, youngmen under 25, they're gonna try
and have handlebars and stufflike that.
But by the time you've been inthe military for about five to
(07:42):
ten years, you're gonna followthe rules.
You know, and so that's how theyall do it is their NCOs and
officers are allowed to havethat, right?
And then, yes, if you go intotheater and they think you're
gonna be under attack, you needto shave to have a tight seal on
your gas mask.
That's an operationalrequirement that's dictated by
the theater of operations,right?
It's not gonna happen in youryou know home unit in what we
(08:02):
call garrison in the army,right?
But that's where garrison is theplace where grooming standards
matter the most, right?
Yeah, that the sergeant major,you know, at that unit is like
all that matters is tightuniforms and clean shaven and
like you know, discipline iscarried out by the razor, right?
It just is, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (08:20):
And it's uh meh, well, I mean yeah, it's totally
backwards.
Yeah, because even the operatorsin the field that are actually
under threat often have beards.
SPEAKER_02 (08:27):
Yes, often have beards because they're not
putting on a gas mask, they'regonna shoot their way out of the
gas cloud or die, right?
Like it's not gonna be aprolonged exposure to some nerve
gas.
SPEAKER_00 (08:36):
Like just the overall tone of having somebody
that never served at a highenough level to even make these
decisions to make suchsuperficial claims, you know,
that that they're gonna havebeen in clean shape.
They're gonna be any kind oflike anything other than
aesthetically pleasing, youknow, it's gonna have no
effectiveness on our military.
It's gonna hurt probably if Ibecause now we're gonna get rid
of qualified people um trying totry to re-rebuild things.
(09:00):
For sure.
Uh you know, so you're okay withyou know the you know, going
back to male standards andmaking those standards tougher.
Um what do you think what do youthink that the long-term impacts
of this type of rally cry fromthe secretary is gonna have?
SPEAKER_02 (09:17):
Um on the PT part, I mean I'll speak about that in
the standards, you know, andwhat his statement was of combat
roles, and he's coming at thatfrom a very army mindset, right?
Like the army has full of unitsthat are male only.
I don't remember, yes, somethingalong those lines.
Combat arms.
He was a combat arms guy, youknow.
(09:39):
So not a staff officer, like youknow, no, he wasn't an Intel guy
or uh, you know, comms guy oranything like that.
No, he was uh he was a you knowtroop leader, puller, trigger
puller kind of guy, yeah.
So um he's taking a very armyconcept and applying it to all
branches, but saying that combatroles that have in the army, we
have unique physicalrequirements to be airborne or
to be a ranger or to be, youknow, whatever special forces,
(10:02):
right?
Like if you're gonna go do thosethings, they tend to be more
strict and kind of may notmatter what your age is.
The standard may be more stricteven as you get older as a male.
They're like, hey, it doesn'tmatter if you want to keep you
know doing ranger stuff, youhave to be able to do ranger
stuff no matter how old you are,right?
And so those special units havespecial standards, and that's
what he was kind of trying tosay is if you're in a job that
(10:23):
that puts you into those units,you need to everybody has to
qualify to those standards toinclude females.
The army specific thing that'shappened over, I think, the last
10 years was that shift where itwas like no female would have
ever been allowed to go toranger school because there's no
females in ranger units, right?
(10:43):
Like the MOS is there excludedfemales.
Well, that changed probably, Ithink, right before Trump's
first term.
Some females were starting to beallowed to train into those
units.
Um, but it was single-digit, youknow, very small throughput of
people who volunteered to go andtake that uh program, take that
(11:04):
training, and they hadn't theyknew they had to meet some
exceedingly hard standardcompared to their regular PT
test.
They understood that going intoit, right?
So he's making a much ado aboutnothing, right?
Of like that kind of program'skind of already been in place.
And I don't think that there areany females or even males, no,
you know, regardless, females ormales, that are making it into
(11:27):
those units off of wokism, offof DEI, off of lowered
standards.
I don't think there's anybodythat's standing there giving
them a PT test and going, well,you just barely have to pass
female and then we'll let you bea ranger.
Right.
No, they don't even let malesbarely pass.
You know, the standard armyunit, like you have to get more
than 60% in each category.
You have to get like 80 or 90percent as the baseline to stay
(11:50):
qualified in that unit.
So they already increased thestandard to keep that unit more
fit than the regular army.
That's been there for a longtime, right?
Regardless of gender andregardless of qualifications.
So there's not much to restorein that.
And then we're also talking ifthere's a thousand, that I mean,
that's extremely generous.
If there's a thousand women thathave made it through any of
(12:10):
those programs that requiredhigher uh physical standards,
that's all that's ever has beenin the past 10 years.
Right.
And we're talking hundreds ofthousands of people that go
through these programs, andthere's been a thousand of them
that are females.
So again, uh, it's it's a muchado about the very, very small
slice of readiness, yeah,warrior mentality, any of that
stuff.
So I say I'm okay with itbecause I don't think it impacts
(12:32):
very many people.
SPEAKER_00 (12:33):
I guess is really what it boils down to.
But but the the rallying cry andthe dog whistles that that they
say and and you know, the impacton the culture overall when when
you take uh, you know, becauseit it's again hysterically
ironic or just sad that you knowthey sit there and cry about
culture wars, but that's allthey stand on.
And that's all they preachabout.
(12:54):
That's all Tuesday was.
So now again, you take a verysmall percentage of the
population of the military andand try to alienate them.
Amplify it and turn it into abig topic.
Yeah, it and then I mean so sothere's that you know
divisiveness there uh so thatyou can kind of you know
strengthen your your voices asthe women playing in men's
(13:14):
sports to them.
Exactly the opposite of what'shappening in collegiate and high
school situations, right?
SPEAKER_02 (13:19):
Exactly.
Women are playing in these men'ssports, and we got to do
something about that.
Just like men are playing inwomen's sports in college, and
that's unfair to them.
Yeah, we don't need femaleshanging around doing this over
here.
Yeah, right?
You know, it's not that overt,but the it comes from the same
root.
Yeah, it grows from the same,you know, moral root.
SPEAKER_00 (13:34):
Just uh well, yeah, like a chauvinistic lifestyle.
Like uh like viewpoint of thecity.
SPEAKER_02 (13:40):
That's a good that's an absolute, you know,
definition-wise, that's an aptword.
SPEAKER_00 (13:46):
Yeah, you don't think women belong in the
military.
Um, and again, Hegcess'sspiritual leader is a big
proponent of that.
Um, but an another thing that hesaid that was just flabbergasted
to me was uh calling out fatgenerals and admirals.
So he did do that.
(14:06):
And then and then not even topoint out the having Trump come
up speak next, and like you talkabout you know a
commander-in-chief like notbeing fit.
Uh physically fit, yeah.
We'll leave that to the side.
Yeah, but you're talking aboutfolks that have spent easily
over 30 years in the military.
Oh, sure.
Easily, yeah, high stress, high,just crazy amount of hours.
(14:29):
Like they don't always get timeto go to the gym.
Um, they're still incredibly ingood shape.
You look like like GeneralMiley.
SPEAKER_02 (14:36):
Compared to the regular population, to their
peers that are all 55, 60 yearsold.
Yeah, yeah, they'll stillbenchmark.
They're blowing them out of thewater, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
Right.
I mean, like General Miley.
He he probably wasn't in thegreatest shape of his life,
yeah, but like that was a dudewho who know knew you know what
was going on, right?
Um you're gonna get rid ofpeople who are look a little bit
more you know bigger in theiruniforms, but they can still
button up their jackets uh justfor aesthetics, just to so that
you can get uh a yes man inthere.
SPEAKER_02 (15:06):
Now, see there you got you wrapped two things
together there.
Hold on now.
You wrapped the yes man into it.
Um because yeah, yeah.
You get to hand pick the theskinny muscle guy and go, hey,
we gave you a two-level,three-level promotion, right?
We took you from colonel totwo-star, right?
Like we you just you skipped astar because your waistline's
under 40 inches, right?
(15:26):
Right.
You know, I think that's our newpromotion standard.
How many stars is how far underthe, you know.
So I mean, so I was raised inthe army mentality of uh if you
look like a soldier, you'll actlike a soldier, and you'll just
be better off in general.
So be thin and be fit.
And I heard Heg Seth, you know,screaming that from the rafters
(15:49):
in that statement of leadershave to set the example, leaders
have to look fit, you know, looklike a soldier to act like a
soldier.
And that's why drill sergeantsget picked.
You know, there's literally someaesthetic aspect of like, you
know, if you don't look right,yeah, we're not gonna get let
you go train the troops, right?
The honor guard for the guardthe tomb and things like that.
(16:10):
Yeah, they have heightrequirements and weight
requirements and all that stuff,right?
So, anyways, um, I get where thewhat what Pete's talking about
there, right?
Um I also agree though that thevalue that somebody with 30
years of experience and is youknow well past retirement
possibility that they'recontinuing to volunteer to add
value to the mission thatthey've dedicated their entire
(16:32):
lives to, if they're withinstandards, there's nothing to
talk about.
SPEAKER_00 (16:36):
Yeah, yeah, the standard is there.
SPEAKER_02 (16:38):
Change the standard and then you know, harass people
in the hallways of the Pentagon.
But if they're qualifying in thestandard right now, there's
nothing to talk about.
SPEAKER_00 (16:46):
Yeah, and you know, like you said, like I do like to
wrap up the two points becausethis is a bigger push for them
because you know the one, youknow, they wrote all this stuff
down in Project 2012 that henever knew about, but now he's
saying that he's gonna meet withthe guy that wrote today.
Like they're in the roomtogether, yeah, yeah, yeah, to
cut you know democratic programsand stuff like that.
So it's always been the plan todo these types of things and
(17:06):
push people out and and reallyinstall their folks, and not
only in the military, but localpolice departments too.
I uh I don't know if you sawrecently uh uh that little
psycho um Miller.
Okay, he was talking withHeggseth behind him, and I think
the uh Levitt, the the presssecretary, where he told police
(17:28):
officers, like the handcuffs areoff you, you can go sure put
them on criminal.
They're out there likemilitarizing the police force,
really getting them hyped up togo out and hurt people, really.
Yeah, uh and this is directlywhat you know the militarization
of the local police forces isagain another a blurring of the
line, right?
SPEAKER_02 (17:49):
Of on purpose, right?
Of like figuring out a wayaround Posse Comatatis, right?
SPEAKER_00 (17:54):
Like and historically, this is what the
Nazis did too.
You know, when when you startyou know really militarizing the
police force against your owncitizens, and when the president
stands up in front of all thesegenerals and says that the enemy
is from within, that'shorrifying.
SPEAKER_02 (18:08):
The um we'll switch gears a little bit here on I
mean, still in the same lane,but the whole concept of um use
our cities as training groundsfor war.
Yeah.
What does that mean?
What I mean, what does thatmean?
And even when uh the does he notunderstand what war is?
That's what that's got to meanto me.
(18:28):
He's been dodging.
You don't understand what waris, homie.
Like you can't do you can'tmarch around inside the United
States and scare people, even ifyou were walking around with
blanks.
You're not gonna roll downstreets and formation in in like
uh you know convoys.
No, you know, like the point ofthat is to go out and shoot, to
(18:51):
get into position and shoot.
That's what you know, train andand that's what the point of it
is, is to figure out where youneed to go to kill people.
Right.
Do you cannot do that in theUnited States?
Like, it's just not that doesn'teven make sense.
I I don't it's an alternativereality statement that just kids
can't even make sense.
SPEAKER_00 (19:08):
Well, and at this point, you know, there there's
so many similarities to what youknow the the the Nazis did and
things like that to what's goingon.
Like I I think the MAGA movementhas moved past being associated
with Nazis.
I think they're their own thing.
I think you know, like they'reusing their playbook, sure, but
but people need to stop saying,like, oh, they're Nazis.
(19:30):
No, they're MAGA, they need toown this.
I hear what you're saying.
America was here for 250 yearsalmost, and these these folks
are tearing it downpurposefully.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
Purposefully and intentionallydoing it, using the Third
Reich's playbook.
It's like they need to be calledout for what they're doing,
though.
SPEAKER_02 (19:47):
Speaking of that, you sent me a text where Pete
Pete Hexeth had uh there was ageneral that made reference to
the the some conference wherethey brought everybody, all the
German generals back togetherand basically said this is the
new order, right?
And you either are on board oryou're not.
Yeah.
And then Pete Hexeth said, Coolstory, bro.
Cool story, bro.
And then he went out there andsaid, You're either on board or
(20:08):
you're not, right?
He said, if what I'm sayingtoday doesn't make your heart or
it makes your heart sink,meaning like you don't agree
with the moral tone of what I'mdelivering, you're welcome to
leave the room and don't comeback, right?
Get up and resign, do the rightthing.
Exactly.
That was the uh my comments lastweek was like, you know, I I was
a little bit um uh being alittle bit hyperbolic over the
(20:31):
idea that it's a loyalty check,right?
Um that that there's probablysome other genuine uh valid
reasons to talk to all thesefolks.
But he didn't sugarcoat thatvery much at all.
You know what I'm saying?
He said, You're either gonna geton board or you're gonna leave,
right?
And then Trump backed him up.
Right.
Trump said once he got on stage,we haven't even talked about
what what President Trump hassaid on stage, right?
(20:53):
We haven't even got there yet.
But he got up there and said,Oh, you know, if you don't agree
with me, you could get up andwalk out, but that'd be the end
of your career, that'd be theend of everything you have, you
know.
Like and straight up said, like,I know you're not gonna clap for
me, but you better damn surebetter not get up and walk out.
Yeah, he said that.
SPEAKER_00 (21:10):
Well, and I I mean on his way there, he he
threatened a report, notthreatened to the reporter, but
he said to a reporter that, youknow, if anybody disagrees with
me, I'll fire him on the spot.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, uh how authorauthoritarian do you need to be?
Um, because when when uh thepress pressed Mike Johnson, and
Mike Johnson was like, Well, I'mnot gonna you know entertain
your interpretation of thepresident's words.
(21:32):
Yeah, like no, he said we're theenemy within, and these he's
gonna use us for traininggrounds.
Like, like how do you feel aboutthat?
I'm not gonna I'm not gonnainterpret that.
SPEAKER_02 (21:39):
Then the very next day deployed troops into
Portland, Oregon, right, afterthe governor said, We don't need
troops, right?
SPEAKER_00 (21:47):
And I think somebody got killed in the last 24 hours
there, too.
Yeah, um uh insane.
Oh yeah, yeah.
So uh yeah, you know, when wewrapped up last week's show, you
you threw out the questionthere, like how would you do the
code?
I was like I'm not gonna answerthat.
SPEAKER_02 (22:01):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:02):
But I tell you what I wouldn't do if I was the Trump
or Heggseth administration.
Stop following the Nazi playbookstep by step.
Is that I wouldn't put 800generals in the same room and
then walk out and like I hopethose some of those generals
like kind of looked around theroom and was like, We doing
this, guys?
Yeah, but like I wouldn't putall those guys in the same room
right now because like those arethe folks that are gonna stop
you.
SPEAKER_02 (22:22):
So that's exactly thank you for taking the words
out of my mouth.
So I will I'll say uh we talk,we're part of the rhetoric, part
of the rhetoric machine, becausewe do talk about the um
similarities or parallelsbetween previous fascist regimes
or totalitarian regimes ordictators or whatever, you know,
and that and the the granddaddyof all of those are Nazis.
(22:42):
I try to be real careful aboutthe Nazi language, right?
And I, you know, you can't helpit when the when the playbook is
being executed the way it is.
I used to be a good idea.
It's hard to avoid the languagesometimes, you know, but I'm
still committed to avoiding thatlanguage.
So I appreciate that you saidMAGA can be something different.
Um, and that that calling MAGAMAGA and whether it's evil or
(23:05):
not, or whatever it is, likelet's give it its own credence
and stop form factoring it overto whatever Nazis and that type
of fascism.
Like, I kind of like the mentalseparation that history will
probably draw in the future, youknow, whether it's rhetorical or
factual about something thathappens with the MAGA movement.
I don't know.
Um, but yeah, the uh the thingfor me that I saw on stage, and
(23:29):
I I guess unfortunately I watchDonald Trump on stage more often
than I care to, right?
Because he's on all the time,right?
And so I've seen him get upthere and do his riffs, I've
seen him get up there and do hisuh political speeches.
I've heard him talk about howterrible Biden was and blah,
blah, blah, and woke andeverything.
I've heard, you know, he didn'tsay anything he hasn't said a
thousand times up there.
It was a full-on politicalspeech.
(23:50):
It had nothing to do withmilitary discipline or might or
almost anything, right?
Like he said, we're the hottestcountry in the world to these
generals, right?
I went to the UN and everybodytold me we're super cool.
All right.
Right on.
But here's what I saw, and maybeit was the lack of applause.
It was an audience that Trump isnot familiar with, right?
(24:12):
Like, there is no room that hewalks into where literally
everybody is just staring at himand is not moving or saying
anything.
Yeah, right.
And there was a 2,000 people inthere just staring straight at
him.
SPEAKER_00 (24:24):
Because they weren't there to be entertained, they
were there to listen.
To listen.
SPEAKER_02 (24:27):
And yeah, and so here like you said, Trump, as
much as we want to think thathe's sometimes he's bumbling his
way through this tragedy.
Um, he knows who where the ifanyone's gonna hold the line
ever in something that exceedsthe boundaries of the
Constitution, whatever that is,those are the guys and gals that
(24:51):
are gonna do it, right?
They have the mandate, they havethe responsibility to do said
protection, right?
They have it.
Like it's clear, it's writtendown and it's legally directed
to them to say if somebody, notjust Donald Trump, but if
anybody that's a politicianthat's in power tries to break
the rules, you all have somereasonable authority to stop
(25:12):
that.
There's almost nobody else thatPresident Trump interacts with
that has that, right?
Like the Supreme Court's alreadysaid they don't have it and
don't want it, right?
Like they set it down and saidwe had it, but not for now,
right?
Um, and so this is the onlygroup of people that has really
got any say in how he wants toexecute 2028, right?
(25:35):
And I think he knew he knowsthat, right?
Like he's not stupid, he'sreally not stupid.
He he uh he sometimes he puts onan act, but he's not stupid, and
he knows that those are thepeople that that like we said,
loyalty has always beenextremely important to him, even
outside of this setting, right?
In every setting, loyalty is iscurrency with Donald Trump.
(25:55):
Yeah, because he's usuallybreaking the law, and he's
standing in a room full ofpeople who are sworn to not be
loyal to him, right?
To be loyal to something otherthan him.
Yeah, and you could see that inhim, you could hear it in his
voice, you could see it in hisbody language that he was not
that freewheeling.
Everybody in here is my bestfriend, and they're all just
gonna pour money into mypockets.
(26:17):
He wasn't doing that.
He understood that he wastalking to a room full of people
that, like you said, were thereto listen, they were paying
attention, they were takingnotes, and they actually have
some decision to be made whereDonald Trump's not telling them,
here's what I'm about to deliverinto your life, right?
Like everybody else that hetalks to.
It's it's here's what pop ofsugar is gonna come and just
pour on everybody, right?
(26:39):
Those people had no reason tocare about that, and so he's
just never in a room of peoplewhere 90% of them have no
interest in loyalty to him as aperson, a brand, a movement, a
political figure.
None of them cared, right?
Right, and he could he felt thatawkwardness, you know?
SPEAKER_00 (26:56):
Yeah, yeah, it's good to see him squirm a little.
Yeah.
Um, it it's kind of ironic.
Again, the the irony of allthese administration gaffes are
just his they're gonna bethere's gonna be a lot of books
written.
But uh the government shuts downa couple days after we spend
millions of dollars to move allthese generals around the world.
(27:16):
Government shuts down.
Now, with uh the governmentbeing shut down, all of these
government websites are puttingthings up that say things like,
oh, the woke left is you knowradicalizing this and that and
that like on governmentwebsites.
SPEAKER_02 (27:31):
Yes, and emails from government systems out to
employees.
SPEAKER_00 (27:36):
Partisan language, direct violations of the Hatch
Act, you know, using governmentsystems to endorse activity in
politics.
Um big time, but it's uh soblatant propaganda being
swallowed and drank up drinkingup by the right pushed through
government channels, like butnobody seems to be fussing about
that on the right at all.
(27:58):
And you know, government ingeneral is nonpartisan, right?
Uh and people can't be I don'tknow, it just again, it's
another one of thosemind-blowing moments that when
you look back at like you knowhow regimes took over, they did
things like this.
They started pushing propagandaon all media sites, on all
(28:18):
government public sites.
SPEAKER_02 (28:19):
No channel is sacred.
SPEAKER_00 (28:20):
Yeah, right, right, right, right.
You know, that there's you knowonly authorized news releases,
like guys, like we're we are init now.
Like, I I know you're afraid ofthe Nazi language, I was afraid
of it for a long time, andthat's why I just call them
MAGA.
Like, like we are in our ownshit storm right now.
Like we don't need to call itanything else.
SPEAKER_02 (28:36):
See, I'm more comfortable with that.
I'm like way more comfortablewith that.
I can own that, I can takeownership of that and go, yeah,
something really, really bad isafoot here.
And so historical relationshipsto that don't don't matter,
right?
And I'm like way better withthat, I guess.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:54):
Um, so yeah, I mean, who's to blame with the shutdown
now?
What what are your thoughts onthat?
SPEAKER_02 (28:59):
The thing that I have the most bone to pick with
is the the lie of the talkingpoint that um illegal immigrants
getting medical health care isis the only nail in this coffin
that matters, it's the onlyconflict of of interest that
matters, and that the Democraticside of the house is is trying
(29:20):
to promote the idea that if youjust wandered across the border,
we're gonna give you a bunch ofbenefits.
It's just not true, right?
SPEAKER_00 (29:28):
But it but it but it worked last year, it worked in
2020 uh you know, 24 before theelection.
Sure.
Even it wasn't true then, so whychange the story?
Yeah, you know, right?
Oh, like just keeping it.
From a political brandingperspective, yes, yeah.
But but it's it's easily provenfalse that you know immigrants
pay into these systems you knowthrough their EINs and stuff
like that.
Yeah, but when it comes down toit, they do not get benefits
(29:50):
back, yeah, right, right.
There's a very few activ or likeuh avenues for them to get
things, you know, you know, ifthey're in the immigration court
systems.
SPEAKER_02 (29:57):
So and that was it was um the difference and then.
This is what it really boilsdown to where it's the
gamesmanship of the one bigbeautiful bill took away medical
coverage for people who werehere on legal status but were
not fully immigrated andnaturalized, right?
So they're here on legal status,asylum seekers that we brought
(30:18):
in, or like people from Haitiwhen there's that emergency, you
know, we bring in 5,000 peopleand we just give them this like
five-year green card type thing,right?
Those people were eligible forcoverage because we invited them
to America.
Yeah, they're just and that gottaken away in the Big Beautiful
bill.
So now the usually Mike Johnsonis saying um that change
(30:41):
basically is irrelevant, thatthe continuing resolution is
exactly what they were alreadyoperating on operating on as the
previous year's things, butthat's not true.
That's disingenuous because thebig beautiful bill takes away
something that was in the lastCR.
And that's the only talkingpoint and the only focal point
that anybody's talking about,right?
Um I don't know, man.
Like, uh, is this is it worthshutting the government down
(31:03):
over?
No, sure, surely it's not.
Um, is there some great moralunjustice happening if that gets
taken away or reinstated?
Like, man, that doesn't move theneedle for almost any voter.
So I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (31:16):
Even yeah, that one right there, again, very narrow
targeted, but it's a goodtalking point.
It's a good thing that for themto say.
SPEAKER_02 (31:22):
Because it's related to health care and immigration.
And so it's like you did, likeyou twisted the wires on me
earlier, the Republicans going,ha, two things in the Democratic
bucket that aren't related, butwe'll make them stuck together
in a way that like people can'teven make it make sense, right?
SPEAKER_00 (31:37):
But but when we look at you know what our
government's doing, and even theDepartment of Homeland Security
months ago triggered theanti-deficiency act by overgoing
overshooting their budget.
So that they're just spendingall this money.
The what the White House has,you know,$200 million ballroom
being planned, it's being youknow, gold plated and stuff like
that.
They have money for all thesethings, they just don't want to
give it to the people.
(31:57):
And that's what's disgusting.
And that that like that's why Iam 100% for shutting it down.
Like, we need a big change now.
Uh we can't allow them to justkeep funding the ice agents that
are stealing people off thestreets.
That they're rolling in vansnow, just kidnapping people and
snatching them quickly in theseprotests.
Um plain clothes, plain card.
Yeah, that's dangerous.
(32:17):
If you if you want to do thatshit, well, you're not getting a
paycheck.
Yeah, sorry, buddy.
But like I didn't get a paycheckfor a couple months during the
one of the you know thesequestrations before.
Like, I've been there.
SPEAKER_02 (32:28):
ICE agents would never get furloughed.
What are you talking about?
They'll they'll take people fromother jobs and be like, hey, you
don't have to take next week offif you want to go down and kick
doors for ice.
No kidding.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I'm not joking.
That that'll be an option.
They'll be like, hey, you cantake the next month off, or you
can report to the ice detentionfacility and watch inmates, you
know.
SPEAKER_00 (32:46):
I mean that's for real, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (32:48):
Like somebody's getting that letter, that email
today.
Needs of the service, right?
Yeah, service before service.
Basically, yeah, that's it.
They're just telling that to thecivilians instead.
So yeah.
Uh well, let's wrap up on aveteran topic that we, you know,
will I know we're running longon this episode, but there's a
lot to talk about.
Uh yeah, we're good right now.
So the put hands-on recruitstopic.
(33:09):
Oh, yeah.
We're back to Pete Hexeth andtalking to the generals, which
none of these dudes have almostanything to do with that.
Um, guys or gals.
But uh the idea that basictraining once upon a time was
much more physical, much morefrightening, and from a mental
perspective of like neverknowing what was going on, you
know.
And if somebody told you to gosomewhere and you were by
(33:30):
yourself, you were worried thatmaybe something bad was gonna
happen, right?
Like, oh no, they're tricking meinto getting my my ass beat,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (33:35):
You know.
So uh uh I got a good story onthat.
My uh I had a friend in theMarines uh back in Vietnam, so
he was drafted.
And uh his daytime drillsergeant told him that they
could bit burn the midnight oiland write letters underneath
their blankets, like writeletters home, but didn't pass
that on to the nighttime drillsergeant.
Yeah, probably did.
They probably you know, but myfriend was yeah, it's a good
setup, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
(33:56):
My friend was the only one thatdid this, took advantage of it.
Took advantage of it.
So nighttime drill sergeantcomes in, rips the blanket off,
and he snaps up to attention.
Dude knocks him out.
Yeah, knocks him over cleanedhim out, yeah.
He woke up to Revele playing,yeah.
And you know, a few hours later,yeah, a few hours later, and
everybody rushed into thebathroom, and so he wiped the
blood off his face, and he'slike, I was out there by the end
(34:17):
of it.
Yeah, and he's like that thatwas the the norm.
That that was you know what theywere expecting.
SPEAKER_02 (34:22):
And so that's what Pete Heggseth won't was saying
we can go back to that, right?
And man, you know, I like thesentiment of hard and scary, um,
but the point that you just madeor the story that you shared
makes the point is um that erathat Hollywood romanticizes that
older gentlemen talk about wasfrom the draft era from World
(34:46):
War II through Vietnam, wherethere were a lot of people in
the military that did not uh youknow volunteer.
They they were told by to dutyof country you have to go.
The discipline um of a personwho does not volunteer and
doesn't want to be there, right,and is basically go to war or go
to jail kind of you know deal.
Of course, those people aregoing to be much, much harder to
(35:08):
train and coerce, if you will,into getting the right outcomes,
right?
That stopped in 1976 orsomething.
When did the draft like so since1976, it's been an all volunteer
force.
Everybody, now there's somedraftees that stayed in forever,
and they were the odd duck thatsomehow managed to get drafted
(35:30):
in and then spent 25 years inthe military.
Yeah, and those folks retired inthe 90s, right?
Like they've been gone, right?
And so there's nobody culturallythat remembers that time or that
has any relationship to gettingbeat up in basic training,
right?
It's it's it's this weirdromantic concept that old people
have, right?
I say old veterans have about,well, this it was tougher, and
(35:52):
that's always a thing in themilitary.
Well, what I went through wastougher than what you went
through.
Oh, yeah.
So I'm tough and you're you're abeard, you know, like just
downgrade you, you know, insideour own veteran circles.
That's what happens, right?
And so he's you know, Heg Sethis saying, let's go back to that
era where people can get beat upand be scared about basic
training.
That doesn't work when theformula includes an
(36:12):
all-volunteer force, right?
Because for you know, for everyfive people that ran away from
boot camp because they weregetting beat up, and that's what
happened is they just deserted,right?
They could recruit 50 more witha draft letter.
Yeah, it wasn't a problem tobackfill those people that said,
I don't have to be here, right?
Like, I'd rather run away and bea criminal than get beat up
again, right?
That's not who's in the militarynow at all.
(36:35):
They volunteered to be there.
So physical uh contact abuse,correction, whatever you want to
call it, wall-to-wallcounseling, right?
Like it doesn't matter.
That is not congr congruent, ifyou will, with uh an
all-volunteer force that ispassionately seeking training
(36:58):
and the the possibility toserve.
SPEAKER_00 (37:00):
Yeah.
Uh another thing I think that islost on people that didn't go
through the draft error era uhis the the fear that you had on
draft nights.
You know, when when people wouldsit down with and watch the news
and see what numbers got called.
Yeah.
You know, I I had one uncle uhget drafted into the Marines and
uh died in 6 either no, I thinkit was late 68, 69, something
(37:25):
like that.
But but he died after the peaceaccords broke down, after like
our own folks shut down thepeace accords, yeah, um and you
know the the South Vietnamesepulled out, uh you know, he he
he got killed in in action.
Um my other next closest oldestuncle, his number was like 10
from getting called away.
And you remember sitting downwatching the news and like
(37:46):
seeing sweating bullets rightbecause like you start seeing
like your numbers coming up andthen like it's 10 away.
Yeah, um, and your brother justdied a couple years ago.
Yeah, you know, people don'tremember that, right?
And people don't understand thatthe fear that it comes with and
you know, if we start going backtowards that, and you know,
again, the enemies from within,and again, 50% of our, you know,
(38:06):
we're we're 50-50 right now.
So they're talking about goingafter a lot of us.
Uh, and you're gonna peoplearen't gonna be joining the
military, so you're gonna starthaving to draft folks.
Um, if we start going down thispath, and we're already are down
this path again.
This isn't something that we cansay, oh, it might happen.
Like, this is what we're doingnow as a country.
Um, we are you know marchingback towards the monarchy um
(38:29):
because Trump is still hawking2028 merchandise in the White
House, uh, you know, sendingthem to political opponents and
trying to taunt people with it.
SPEAKER_02 (38:37):
And like this isn't let's wrap up on the friggin'
Hakeem Jeffries meme.
Oh my god, let's wrap up onthat, yeah.
And the double down.
So I'll tell the story, I'lltell the story so people know
why I'm excited.
Um, I saw the first meme, uh,but I didn't know about the
double down until, of course,much later on.
(38:59):
But uh Trump is really off therails with Truth Social and just
retweeting things.
Like it's sort of I think it's agame, it's kind of like a
sweepstakes.
If I can put something goofy onTruth Social with my own
personal account, maybe I'll goget one.
So see if I can win this prize,right?
Like I want to win this prize.
Uh, if I say something goofyenough that just is the right
flavor of ice cream today thatTrump wants to eat, he'll
(39:21):
retweet me, right?
He'll retweet me.
And then like I'm on every newsoutlet and every you know,
webpage is talking about it andeverything, right?
Like my goofy little AI videothat I just made went from two
hours ago, I just made it tothis evening, it's on CNN,
right?
Like, I want to win that prize,right?
And so who knows if the peoplethat are creating this crap are
(39:42):
even genuine in what they'recreating or if they're like
going fishing and just like, canI land a big one, you know?
Yeah, and so the video wasSchumer saying something about
how it's terrible.
There, it's a fake AI video.
They're standing out on like apodium outside of the Capitol,
and Schumer saying, Oh, it'sterrible to be a Democrat.
And then beside Schumer isHakeem Jeffries, these are the
(40:05):
leader of the Senate and theHouse on the Democrat side, and
he's wearing a sombrero with acartoon mustache.
And I understood that what theywere trying to say was
Democrats, he's trying tobasically say, Hey, all you
Latinos, we we failed you, whichdoesn't make any sense.
But he didn't say any of this.
This the dumb AI video made thisup, right?
All right, that's offensive.
(40:25):
That's maybe it's funny, maybeit's not.
It's goofy, and why did thepresident do that?
Like, I can laugh at it fromthat perspective of like, oh my
gosh, that this dude's thepresident.
Yeah, and he's spending his timeretweeting goofy cartoons.
I can't even laugh at that.
So, you know, like, but here'swhat the part that's funny,
because that part was maybe notso funny.
The double down is that HakeemJeffrey said they said something
(40:46):
about like this is just silly,and you know, I can't believe,
you know, this is so far belowthe office of the president, I
can't believe we're talkingabout this, right?
So then somebody took that videoand put Donald Trump as the as a
mariachi band where every personin the mariachi band was Donald
Trump, right?
And then Hakeem Jeffrey's hatand mustache was even more
(41:06):
goofy, and it made no sense.
Yeah, it was so.
SPEAKER_00 (41:12):
But it goes around, and like you said, it's gonna be
seen by millions of people.
Uh, a few months ago, a friendof mine, uh a Mexican friend of
mine, sent me a video ofPresident Trump, like an AI
video of cartoonish him as likea robot mech warrior kicking
down the border and smashing andjust slaughtering you know brown
people, and sh and he's like,Oh, lol.
No, man, I can't even laugh atthis shit because that's what
(41:34):
they want to do.
Well, when when they whenthey're degrading people like
this, like it's all intentionaland it's all a part of this
propaganda machine that is justdisgusting to see how many
people are just oh, you know,boys will be boys, presidents
will be presidents, that's likeour bar is that low now that
that this is how we behave allbecause of Kamala's laugh.
(41:56):
Great job, guys.
Yeah, great fucking choice.
We made it 249 years, yeah, andwe're a laugh turned us off.
Cool.
SPEAKER_02 (42:05):
Yeah, yeah.
See, I was trying to land on thehappy part of this.
That the cartoon tweets arefunny, right?
The cartoon tweets are funny,right?
Never mind that they're from thefree leader of the free world,
right?
Like he's got time to retweetcartoons.
SPEAKER_01 (42:19):
Oh god, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (42:20):
So I like Donald Trump as a mariachi band.
Let's just there we go.
That's what I want to end on.
Is I loved it.
And I just loved it.
And he must like it too.
SPEAKER_00 (42:28):
If you get running off into the Sun's opposite
mariachi guy, I'm all for it.
Just stop sitting in the world.
I love it.
I want him, I want that's what Iwant to see more of.
So well, that's what we got forthis week on Left Face.
Uh, tune in next week.
We'll have more of me bitchingand complaining.
Yeah.
Thanks, everybody.
Hello everyone and welcome to Left Face.
My name is Adam Gillard.
I'm your co-host long here withDick Wilkinson.
How are you doing this morning,Dick?
I'm doing great, Adam.
Good morning.
Good morning.
And is uh it's crazy how wedon't even really have to
prepare for these thingsanymore.
There's just such a constantonslaught of BS.
SPEAKER_02 (00:16):
Um It's like just grab onto the stream and float,
float through the river, youknow?
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (00:21):
It's nuts that uh we have a pretty constant stream of
stuff to talk about here.
Um but before we dive into ourtopics today, uh I wanted to
mention that uh our localprotest on the 18th of October
here in Colorado Springs isgonna be at America the
Beautiful Park uh from 12 to 3.
We're gonna have a lot of uhdifferent uh workshops and
community organizations therejust kind of you know trying to
(00:41):
build community and especiallyyou know now that you know
government shut down thingsthings are gonna get start you
know drying up here locally.
Yeah.
How how do we keep move on as acommunity and help each other
out?
So we're gonna have someworkshops down there.
Um uh you can donate at uh givebutter uh 5051 COS so 50501 COS
(01:02):
at Give Butter.
Uh you know, if you want to youknow rent a porta potty and name
it after somebody, you can dothat.
Uh yeah, you know, if you needto rent a dumpster, you know,
you can do that.
But but yeah, it should be agood day.
SPEAKER_02 (01:14):
12 to 3 is I'm gonna rent the porta potties and
dumpsters and put them in yourhonor.
How about that?
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
I like that those are the things available to to
rent.
SPEAKER_02 (01:21):
So yeah, but we're thinking like the Trump dump,
yeah, you know, things likethat.
You know, so okay.
That's different.
Yeah, I see a bit of apejorative or a tongue-in-cheek
sponsorship.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
I was like, who wants thebathroom named after them?
So I got you.
Exactly.
There you go.
Okay, the other way or outbecause I'm sitting here like,
what are you talking about?
(01:42):
Good job, Barbie.
Uh joke sponsorships.
That's a great way to, yeah, Ilike that.
I'm very much, I mean, I wasgonna joke sponsor it for you,
so yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:53):
King King Turret over here, yeah.
Uh but yeah, so that'd be the18th of you know, 12 to 3 at
America the Beautiful Park.
Uh some other organizations aregonna try to get some uh marches
going and and you know do someother things, you know, after
our our portion.
But uh it should be a greattime.
It's getting a lot of traction.
A lot of people are talkingabout it, you know, and just
(02:13):
being able to go somewhere andbe around people that you know
understand what you're goingthrough and find ways that you
can give back to the community.
Uh it's been huge for folks, andand it's been you know a lot of
fun going down there.
That's great.
I'm glad it's coming up soon.
Yeah.
Um, so the first thing we wantedto talk about is kind of a
follow-up to what we uh hit alot last week was this uh big
GoFo meeting that uh hadn'thappened at Quantico, you know,
(02:36):
just a couple days ago.
It feels like forever already.
Like it gets covered so much andyou read so much about it, feels
like it was all right.
Yeah, it's almost out of thenews cycle now.
Um but you so you know,Secretary of Defense still, uh
Pete Heggseth, uh called 800some generals and admirals and
their senior enlisted advisorsuh to Quantico.
(02:56):
And now when that team kind typeof team travels, they travel
with calm people, they travelwith a whole like it's not just
like a couple people goingbecause like these folks have
responsibilities that they can'twalk away from the city.
Especially you can't transfercommand from the four-star down
to somebody else.
Yeah, yeah.
So what's that called?
You know, authorized commands.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
So the uh the three stars andthe four stars, they always have
(03:18):
their own calm teams that theytravel with.
So so like it's a big logisticalmovement to get there.
Yeah, it's at least five people,right?
I mean, to get the four-starsomewhere, it's a five-person
team.
Right.
And uh so it's a huge lift.
Everything that I've read, andagain, I'm in my own echo
chambers, I recognize that, isthat it was bet it was a
complete waste of time for thegenerals.
(03:38):
Like no general has come out andyou know said anything positive
about it or or like enjoyed thetrip or you know, enjoyed
Virginia this time of year.
Um, they went you know, leafsighted.
SPEAKER_02 (03:49):
That that would have been great if one of them just
basically ignored the fact thatthey were at this meeting and
just been like, you know, backget great to get back to
Quantico.
This is where I started mycareer, you know, and just like
talk about little buddies inVirginia.
Yeah, just to have them down abarbecue and be like, I haven't
seen this guy in 30 years.
SPEAKER_00 (04:05):
You know, you know, it we get trained to be so uh
non-political, and you heardsome like clapping and things
like that during Heg Seth or uhDonald Trump speech, but I think
it really shocks people.
Barely, yeah, barely.
And it was probably their ownentourage, right?
Sure.
It was probably their own otherpeople, yeah.
It's their own yes uniformpeople chuckling.
Um but people don't r realizehow awkward it is because like
(04:28):
you can go to a military thingand somebody could just crush
the national anthem, like leaveyou in goosebumps and you just
stand there and stare at themand you don't clap for them.
You know, it's so weird how likeyeah, the just the lack of
emotion.
So when people saw that, youknow, a room full of stone faced
generals, like they were like,Oh shit, they're kind of
serious.
Like, yeah, they they they taketheir job seriously.
(04:48):
Yeah, like they're they're notextremely happy about getting
called away from they're not upfor company picnics, yeah.
Right.
And really, you know, themessage that came out was you
know, one from unqualifiedpeople to deliver the message,
but you know, get fitter, lookbetter.
It was about aesthetics, right?
It it it wasn't aboutficial,yeah.
It was, you know, look better.
(05:10):
Yeah.
And look, you know, meet themale standards, things like
that.
Um and overall, you know, whenyou look at you know, recruiting
numbers and who they're goingafter and who they've been
pulling in over the last fewmonths, it's clear that they're
going after a certain shade ofpeople.
Okay.
Um there's there's ademographic.
(05:32):
Yeah.
You know, hex, I thought theyyou know they've already they're
they're removing the shavingwaiver.
So anybody that needs to behearing about that.
Yeah, anybody's gonna be able todo that.
Yeah, so if you're on a shavingwaiver for more than a year,
you're gone.
Yeah.
And that's a lot of AfricanAmerican uh soldiers, sailors,
airmen, marines, guardians,whatever, are on shaving
waivers.
Uh they're they're getting ridof folks that disagree with them
(05:54):
in every avenue possible.
SPEAKER_02 (05:56):
Um I'll be curious to see how the shaving waiver
part plays out.
I know I made a joke about itlast week, but um, you know,
that the the racial implicationof that is you know, anybody
that served in the militaryunderstands that yes, it was
extremely rare to see aCaucasian male with a shaving
waiver and it was always verytemporary, like five days,
right?
You know, like you get you got aburned on your face and now you
(06:18):
have a five-day shaving waiver,and then you better start
shaving before the burn's evenhealed, right?
Like that's what the expectationwas.
Yeah, and so you're right.
The only people that hadpseudophiliculitis barbae and
had the long-term waivers werepeople of African-American
descent, right?
Like that's it.
Um now, I have noticed in theSpace Force specifically, um, it
seems like they're man,everybody got a beard around
(06:40):
there, you know.
Like there's a lot of peoplewith beards in the Space Force,
regardless of the shade of skinor complexion or you know, you
know, hair problems.
You're just doing it, right?
And that that may be he's like,What's going on here?
Like you're just a regular dudeand you have a tight beard and
uniform.
That's not right.
You know, that's what justvisually, that's what Pete's
seeing.
SPEAKER_00 (06:59):
Right, but but a lot of these folks have you know
religious reasons for havingtheir beard.
And again, it it's not the theChristian nationalist.
SPEAKER_02 (07:06):
I have no idea why.
I mean, I'm saying I've seenpeople in person here in the
local community, and I look atthem and go, I have no clue how
why you have a beard.
Yeah, right.
Like it doesn't make sense tome.
SPEAKER_00 (07:16):
Umes that affect the war fight.
SPEAKER_02 (07:21):
It doesn't, right?
Uh foreign militaries um allowtheir senior NCOs and officers
to have beards, and it's a markof uh, you know, maturity and
respect that you're gonna followthe rules and you're not gonna
act a fool and try and look, youknow, look crazy and out of
rags.
You're gonna look professional.
Yeah, if we let, you know, youngmen under 25, they're gonna try
and have handlebars and stufflike that.
But by the time you've been inthe military for about five to
(07:42):
ten years, you're gonna followthe rules.
You know, and so that's how theyall do it is their NCOs and
officers are allowed to havethat, right?
And then, yes, if you go intotheater and they think you're
gonna be under attack, you needto shave to have a tight seal on
your gas mask.
That's an operationalrequirement that's dictated by
the theater of operations,right?
It's not gonna happen in youryou know home unit in what we
(08:02):
call garrison in the army,right?
But that's where garrison is theplace where grooming standards
matter the most, right?
Yeah, that the sergeant major,you know, at that unit is like
all that matters is tightuniforms and clean shaven and
like you know, discipline iscarried out by the razor, right?
It just is, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (08:20):
And it's uh meh, well, I mean yeah, it's totally
backwards.
Yeah, because even the operatorsin the field that are actually
under threat often have beards.
SPEAKER_02 (08:27):
Yes, often have beards because they're not
putting on a gas mask, they'regonna shoot their way out of the
gas cloud or die, right?
Like it's not gonna be aprolonged exposure to some nerve
gas.
SPEAKER_00 (08:36):
Like just the overall tone of having somebody
that never served at a highenough level to even make these
decisions to make suchsuperficial claims, you know,
that that they're gonna havebeen in clean shape.
They're gonna be any kind oflike anything other than
aesthetically pleasing, youknow, it's gonna have no
effectiveness on our military.
It's gonna hurt probably if Ibecause now we're gonna get rid
of qualified people um trying totry to re-rebuild things.
(09:00):
For sure.
Uh you know, so you're okay withyou know the you know, going
back to male standards andmaking those standards tougher.
Um what do you think what do youthink that the long-term impacts
of this type of rally cry fromthe secretary is gonna have?
SPEAKER_02 (09:17):
Um on the PT part, I mean I'll speak about that in
the standards, you know, andwhat his statement was of combat
roles, and he's coming at thatfrom a very army mindset, right?
Like the army has full of unitsthat are male only.
I don't remember, yes, somethingalong those lines.
Combat arms.
He was a combat arms guy, youknow.
(09:39):
So not a staff officer, like youknow, no, he wasn't an Intel guy
or uh, you know, comms guy oranything like that.
No, he was uh he was a you knowtroop leader, puller, trigger
puller kind of guy, yeah.
So um he's taking a very armyconcept and applying it to all
branches, but saying that combatroles that have in the army, we
have unique physicalrequirements to be airborne or
to be a ranger or to be, youknow, whatever special forces,
(10:02):
right?
Like if you're gonna go do thosethings, they tend to be more
strict and kind of may notmatter what your age is.
The standard may be more stricteven as you get older as a male.
They're like, hey, it doesn'tmatter if you want to keep you
know doing ranger stuff, youhave to be able to do ranger
stuff no matter how old you are,right?
And so those special units havespecial standards, and that's
what he was kind of trying tosay is if you're in a job that
(10:23):
that puts you into those units,you need to everybody has to
qualify to those standards toinclude females.
The army specific thing that'shappened over, I think, the last
10 years was that shift where itwas like no female would have
ever been allowed to go toranger school because there's no
females in ranger units, right?
(10:43):
Like the MOS is there excludedfemales.
Well, that changed probably, Ithink, right before Trump's
first term.
Some females were starting to beallowed to train into those
units.
Um, but it was single-digit, youknow, very small throughput of
people who volunteered to go andtake that uh program, take that
(11:04):
training, and they hadn't theyknew they had to meet some
exceedingly hard standardcompared to their regular PT
test.
They understood that going intoit, right?
So he's making a much ado aboutnothing, right?
Of like that kind of program'skind of already been in place.
And I don't think that there areany females or even males, no,
you know, regardless, females ormales, that are making it into
(11:27):
those units off of wokism, offof DEI, off of lowered
standards.
I don't think there's anybodythat's standing there giving
them a PT test and going, well,you just barely have to pass
female and then we'll let you bea ranger.
Right.
No, they don't even let malesbarely pass.
You know, the standard armyunit, like you have to get more
than 60% in each category.
You have to get like 80 or 90percent as the baseline to stay
(11:50):
qualified in that unit.
So they already increased thestandard to keep that unit more
fit than the regular army.
That's been there for a longtime, right?
Regardless of gender andregardless of qualifications.
So there's not much to restorein that.
And then we're also talking ifthere's a thousand, that I mean,
that's extremely generous.
If there's a thousand women thathave made it through any of
(12:10):
those programs that requiredhigher uh physical standards,
that's all that's ever has beenin the past 10 years.
Right.
And we're talking hundreds ofthousands of people that go
through these programs, andthere's been a thousand of them
that are females.
So again, uh, it's it's a muchado about the very, very small
slice of readiness, yeah,warrior mentality, any of that
stuff.
So I say I'm okay with itbecause I don't think it impacts
(12:32):
very many people.
SPEAKER_00 (12:33):
I guess is really what it boils down to.
But but the the rallying cry andthe dog whistles that that they
say and and you know, the impacton the culture overall when when
you take uh, you know, becauseit it's again hysterically
ironic or just sad that you knowthey sit there and cry about
culture wars, but that's allthey stand on.
And that's all they preachabout.
(12:54):
That's all Tuesday was.
So now again, you take a verysmall percentage of the
population of the military andand try to alienate them.
Amplify it and turn it into abig topic.
Yeah, it and then I mean so sothere's that you know
divisiveness there uh so thatyou can kind of you know
strengthen your your voices asthe women playing in men's
(13:14):
sports to them.
Exactly the opposite of what'shappening in collegiate and high
school situations, right?
SPEAKER_02 (13:19):
Exactly.
Women are playing in these men'ssports, and we got to do
something about that.
Just like men are playing inwomen's sports in college, and
that's unfair to them.
Yeah, we don't need femaleshanging around doing this over
here.
Yeah, right?
You know, it's not that overt,but the it comes from the same
root.
Yeah, it grows from the same,you know, moral root.
SPEAKER_00 (13:34):
Just uh well, yeah, like a chauvinistic lifestyle.
Like uh like viewpoint of thecity.
SPEAKER_02 (13:40):
That's a good that's an absolute, you know,
definition-wise, that's an aptword.
SPEAKER_00 (13:46):
Yeah, you don't think women belong in the
military.
Um, and again, Hegcess'sspiritual leader is a big
proponent of that.
Um, but an another thing that hesaid that was just flabbergasted
to me was uh calling out fatgenerals and admirals.
So he did do that.
(14:06):
And then and then not even topoint out the having Trump come
up speak next, and like you talkabout you know a
commander-in-chief like notbeing fit.
Uh physically fit, yeah.
We'll leave that to the side.
Yeah, but you're talking aboutfolks that have spent easily
over 30 years in the military.
Oh, sure.
Easily, yeah, high stress, high,just crazy amount of hours.
(14:29):
Like they don't always get timeto go to the gym.
Um, they're still incredibly ingood shape.
You look like like GeneralMiley.
SPEAKER_02 (14:36):
Compared to the regular population, to their
peers that are all 55, 60 yearsold.
Yeah, yeah, they'll stillbenchmark.
They're blowing them out of thewater, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
Right.
I mean, like General Miley.
He he probably wasn't in thegreatest shape of his life,
yeah, but like that was a dudewho who know knew you know what
was going on, right?
Um you're gonna get rid ofpeople who are look a little bit
more you know bigger in theiruniforms, but they can still
button up their jackets uh justfor aesthetics, just to so that
you can get uh a yes man inthere.
SPEAKER_02 (15:06):
Now, see there you got you wrapped two things
together there.
Hold on now.
You wrapped the yes man into it.
Um because yeah, yeah.
You get to hand pick the theskinny muscle guy and go, hey,
we gave you a two-level,three-level promotion, right?
We took you from colonel totwo-star, right?
Like we you just you skipped astar because your waistline's
under 40 inches, right?
(15:26):
Right.
You know, I think that's our newpromotion standard.
How many stars is how far underthe, you know.
So I mean, so I was raised inthe army mentality of uh if you
look like a soldier, you'll actlike a soldier, and you'll just
be better off in general.
So be thin and be fit.
And I heard Heg Seth, you know,screaming that from the rafters
(15:49):
in that statement of leadershave to set the example, leaders
have to look fit, you know, looklike a soldier to act like a
soldier.
And that's why drill sergeantsget picked.
You know, there's literally someaesthetic aspect of like, you
know, if you don't look right,yeah, we're not gonna get let
you go train the troops, right?
The honor guard for the guardthe tomb and things like that.
(16:10):
Yeah, they have heightrequirements and weight
requirements and all that stuff,right?
So, anyways, um, I get where thewhat what Pete's talking about
there, right?
Um I also agree though that thevalue that somebody with 30
years of experience and is youknow well past retirement
possibility that they'recontinuing to volunteer to add
value to the mission thatthey've dedicated their entire
(16:32):
lives to, if they're withinstandards, there's nothing to
talk about.
SPEAKER_00 (16:36):
Yeah, yeah, the standard is there.
SPEAKER_02 (16:38):
Change the standard and then you know, harass people
in the hallways of the Pentagon.
But if they're qualifying in thestandard right now, there's
nothing to talk about.
SPEAKER_00 (16:46):
Yeah, and you know, like you said, like I do like to
wrap up the two points becausethis is a bigger push for them
because you know the one, youknow, they wrote all this stuff
down in Project 2012 that henever knew about, but now he's
saying that he's gonna meet withthe guy that wrote today.
Like they're in the roomtogether, yeah, yeah, yeah, to
cut you know democratic programsand stuff like that.
So it's always been the plan todo these types of things and
(17:06):
push people out and and reallyinstall their folks, and not
only in the military, but localpolice departments too.
I uh I don't know if you sawrecently uh uh that little
psycho um Miller.
Okay, he was talking withHeggseth behind him, and I think
the uh Levitt, the the presssecretary, where he told police
(17:28):
officers, like the handcuffs areoff you, you can go sure put
them on criminal.
They're out there likemilitarizing the police force,
really getting them hyped up togo out and hurt people, really.
Yeah, uh and this is directlywhat you know the militarization
of the local police forces isagain another a blurring of the
line, right?
SPEAKER_02 (17:49):
Of on purpose, right?
Of like figuring out a wayaround Posse Comatatis, right?
SPEAKER_00 (17:54):
Like and historically, this is what the
Nazis did too.
You know, when when you startyou know really militarizing the
police force against your owncitizens, and when the president
stands up in front of all thesegenerals and says that the enemy
is from within, that'shorrifying.
SPEAKER_02 (18:08):
The um we'll switch gears a little bit here on I
mean, still in the same lane,but the whole concept of um use
our cities as training groundsfor war.
Yeah.
What does that mean?
What I mean, what does thatmean?
And even when uh the does he notunderstand what war is?
That's what that's got to meanto me.
(18:28):
He's been dodging.
You don't understand what waris, homie.
Like you can't do you can'tmarch around inside the United
States and scare people, even ifyou were walking around with
blanks.
You're not gonna roll downstreets and formation in in like
uh you know convoys.
No, you know, like the point ofthat is to go out and shoot, to
(18:51):
get into position and shoot.
That's what you know, train andand that's what the point of it
is, is to figure out where youneed to go to kill people.
Right.
Do you cannot do that in theUnited States?
Like, it's just not that doesn'teven make sense.
I I don't it's an alternativereality statement that just kids
can't even make sense.
SPEAKER_00 (19:08):
Well, and at this point, you know, there there's
so many similarities to what youknow the the the Nazis did and
things like that to what's goingon.
Like I I think the MAGA movementhas moved past being associated
with Nazis.
I think they're their own thing.
I think you know, like they'reusing their playbook, sure, but
but people need to stop saying,like, oh, they're Nazis.
(19:30):
No, they're MAGA, they need toown this.
I hear what you're saying.
America was here for 250 yearsalmost, and these these folks
are tearing it downpurposefully.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
Purposefully and intentionallydoing it, using the Third
Reich's playbook.
It's like they need to be calledout for what they're doing,
though.
SPEAKER_02 (19:47):
Speaking of that, you sent me a text where Pete
Pete Hexeth had uh there was ageneral that made reference to
the the some conference wherethey brought everybody, all the
German generals back togetherand basically said this is the
new order, right?
And you either are on board oryou're not.
Yeah.
And then Pete Hexeth said, Coolstory, bro.
Cool story, bro.
And then he went out there andsaid, You're either on board or
(20:08):
you're not, right?
He said, if what I'm sayingtoday doesn't make your heart or
it makes your heart sink,meaning like you don't agree
with the moral tone of what I'mdelivering, you're welcome to
leave the room and don't comeback, right?
Get up and resign, do the rightthing.
Exactly.
That was the uh my comments lastweek was like, you know, I I was
a little bit um uh being alittle bit hyperbolic over the
(20:31):
idea that it's a loyalty check,right?
Um that that there's probablysome other genuine uh valid
reasons to talk to all thesefolks.
But he didn't sugarcoat thatvery much at all.
You know what I'm saying?
He said, You're either gonna geton board or you're gonna leave,
right?
And then Trump backed him up.
Right.
Trump said once he got on stage,we haven't even talked about
what what President Trump hassaid on stage, right?
(20:53):
We haven't even got there yet.
But he got up there and said,Oh, you know, if you don't agree
with me, you could get up andwalk out, but that'd be the end
of your career, that'd be theend of everything you have, you
know.
Like and straight up said, like,I know you're not gonna clap for
me, but you better damn surebetter not get up and walk out.
Yeah, he said that.
SPEAKER_00 (21:10):
Well, and I I mean on his way there, he he
threatened a report, notthreatened to the reporter, but
he said to a reporter that, youknow, if anybody disagrees with
me, I'll fire him on the spot.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, uh how authorauthoritarian do you need to be?
Um, because when when uh thepress pressed Mike Johnson, and
Mike Johnson was like, Well, I'mnot gonna you know entertain
your interpretation of thepresident's words.
(21:32):
Yeah, like no, he said we're theenemy within, and these he's
gonna use us for traininggrounds.
Like, like how do you feel aboutthat?
I'm not gonna I'm not gonnainterpret that.
SPEAKER_02 (21:39):
Then the very next day deployed troops into
Portland, Oregon, right, afterthe governor said, We don't need
troops, right?
SPEAKER_00 (21:47):
And I think somebody got killed in the last 24 hours
there, too.
Yeah, um uh insane.
Oh yeah, yeah.
So uh yeah, you know, when wewrapped up last week's show, you
you threw out the questionthere, like how would you do the
code?
I was like I'm not gonna answerthat.
SPEAKER_02 (22:01):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:02):
But I tell you what I wouldn't do if I was the Trump
or Heggseth administration.
Stop following the Nazi playbookstep by step.
Is that I wouldn't put 800generals in the same room and
then walk out and like I hopethose some of those generals
like kind of looked around theroom and was like, We doing
this, guys?
Yeah, but like I wouldn't putall those guys in the same room
right now because like those arethe folks that are gonna stop
you.
SPEAKER_02 (22:22):
So that's exactly thank you for taking the words
out of my mouth.
So I will I'll say uh we talk,we're part of the rhetoric, part
of the rhetoric machine, becausewe do talk about the um
similarities or parallelsbetween previous fascist regimes
or totalitarian regimes ordictators or whatever, you know,
and that and the the granddaddyof all of those are Nazis.
(22:42):
I try to be real careful aboutthe Nazi language, right?
And I, you know, you can't helpit when the when the playbook is
being executed the way it is.
I used to be a good idea.
It's hard to avoid the languagesometimes, you know, but I'm
still committed to avoiding thatlanguage.
So I appreciate that you saidMAGA can be something different.
Um, and that that calling MAGAMAGA and whether it's evil or
(23:05):
not, or whatever it is, likelet's give it its own credence
and stop form factoring it overto whatever Nazis and that type
of fascism.
Like, I kind of like the mentalseparation that history will
probably draw in the future, youknow, whether it's rhetorical or
factual about something thathappens with the MAGA movement.
I don't know.
Um, but yeah, the uh the thingfor me that I saw on stage, and
(23:29):
I I guess unfortunately I watchDonald Trump on stage more often
than I care to, right?
Because he's on all the time,right?
And so I've seen him get upthere and do his riffs, I've
seen him get up there and do hisuh political speeches.
I've heard him talk about howterrible Biden was and blah,
blah, blah, and woke andeverything.
I've heard, you know, he didn'tsay anything he hasn't said a
thousand times up there.
It was a full-on politicalspeech.
(23:50):
It had nothing to do withmilitary discipline or might or
almost anything, right?
Like he said, we're the hottestcountry in the world to these
generals, right?
I went to the UN and everybodytold me we're super cool.
All right.
Right on.
But here's what I saw, and maybeit was the lack of applause.
It was an audience that Trump isnot familiar with, right?
(24:12):
Like, there is no room that hewalks into where literally
everybody is just staring at himand is not moving or saying
anything.
Yeah, right.
And there was a 2,000 people inthere just staring straight at
him.
SPEAKER_00 (24:24):
Because they weren't there to be entertained, they
were there to listen.
To listen.
SPEAKER_02 (24:27):
And yeah, and so here like you said, Trump, as
much as we want to think thathe's sometimes he's bumbling his
way through this tragedy.
Um, he knows who where the ifanyone's gonna hold the line
ever in something that exceedsthe boundaries of the
Constitution, whatever that is,those are the guys and gals that
(24:51):
are gonna do it, right?
They have the mandate, they havethe responsibility to do said
protection, right?
They have it.
Like it's clear, it's writtendown and it's legally directed
to them to say if somebody, notjust Donald Trump, but if
anybody that's a politicianthat's in power tries to break
the rules, you all have somereasonable authority to stop
(25:12):
that.
There's almost nobody else thatPresident Trump interacts with
that has that, right?
Like the Supreme Court's alreadysaid they don't have it and
don't want it, right?
Like they set it down and saidwe had it, but not for now,
right?
Um, and so this is the onlygroup of people that has really
got any say in how he wants toexecute 2028, right?
(25:35):
And I think he knew he knowsthat, right?
Like he's not stupid, he'sreally not stupid.
He he uh he sometimes he puts onan act, but he's not stupid, and
he knows that those are thepeople that that like we said,
loyalty has always beenextremely important to him, even
outside of this setting, right?
In every setting, loyalty is iscurrency with Donald Trump.
(25:55):
Yeah, because he's usuallybreaking the law, and he's
standing in a room full ofpeople who are sworn to not be
loyal to him, right?
To be loyal to something otherthan him.
Yeah, and you could see that inhim, you could hear it in his
voice, you could see it in hisbody language that he was not
that freewheeling.
Everybody in here is my bestfriend, and they're all just
gonna pour money into mypockets.
(26:17):
He wasn't doing that.
He understood that he wastalking to a room full of people
that, like you said, were thereto listen, they were paying
attention, they were takingnotes, and they actually have
some decision to be made whereDonald Trump's not telling them,
here's what I'm about to deliverinto your life, right?
Like everybody else that hetalks to.
It's it's here's what pop ofsugar is gonna come and just
pour on everybody, right?
(26:39):
Those people had no reason tocare about that, and so he's
just never in a room of peoplewhere 90% of them have no
interest in loyalty to him as aperson, a brand, a movement, a
political figure.
None of them cared, right?
Right, and he could he felt thatawkwardness, you know?
SPEAKER_00 (26:56):
Yeah, yeah, it's good to see him squirm a little.
Yeah.
Um, it it's kind of ironic.
Again, the the irony of allthese administration gaffes are
just his they're gonna bethere's gonna be a lot of books
written.
But uh the government shuts downa couple days after we spend
millions of dollars to move allthese generals around the world.
(27:16):
Government shuts down.
Now, with uh the governmentbeing shut down, all of these
government websites are puttingthings up that say things like,
oh, the woke left is you knowradicalizing this and that and
that like on governmentwebsites.
SPEAKER_02 (27:31):
Yes, and emails from government systems out to
employees.
SPEAKER_00 (27:36):
Partisan language, direct violations of the Hatch
Act, you know, using governmentsystems to endorse activity in
politics.
Um big time, but it's uh soblatant propaganda being
swallowed and drank up drinkingup by the right pushed through
government channels, like butnobody seems to be fussing about
that on the right at all.
(27:58):
And you know, government ingeneral is nonpartisan, right?
Uh and people can't be I don'tknow, it just again, it's
another one of thosemind-blowing moments that when
you look back at like you knowhow regimes took over, they did
things like this.
They started pushing propagandaon all media sites, on all
(28:18):
government public sites.
SPEAKER_02 (28:19):
No channel is sacred.
SPEAKER_00 (28:20):
Yeah, right, right, right, right.
You know, that there's you knowonly authorized news releases,
like guys, like we're we are init now.
Like, I I know you're afraid ofthe Nazi language, I was afraid
of it for a long time, andthat's why I just call them
MAGA.
Like, like we are in our ownshit storm right now.
Like we don't need to call itanything else.
SPEAKER_02 (28:36):
See, I'm more comfortable with that.
I'm like way more comfortablewith that.
I can own that, I can takeownership of that and go, yeah,
something really, really bad isafoot here.
And so historical relationshipsto that don't don't matter,
right?
And I'm like way better withthat, I guess.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:54):
Um, so yeah, I mean, who's to blame with the shutdown
now?
What what are your thoughts onthat?
SPEAKER_02 (28:59):
The thing that I have the most bone to pick with
is the the lie of the talkingpoint that um illegal immigrants
getting medical health care isis the only nail in this coffin
that matters, it's the onlyconflict of of interest that
matters, and that the Democraticside of the house is is trying
(29:20):
to promote the idea that if youjust wandered across the border,
we're gonna give you a bunch ofbenefits.
It's just not true, right?
SPEAKER_00 (29:28):
But it but it but it worked last year, it worked in
2020 uh you know, 24 before theelection.
Sure.
Even it wasn't true then, so whychange the story?
Yeah, you know, right?
Oh, like just keeping it.
From a political brandingperspective, yes, yeah.
But but it's it's easily provenfalse that you know immigrants
pay into these systems you knowthrough their EINs and stuff
like that.
Yeah, but when it comes down toit, they do not get benefits
(29:50):
back, yeah, right, right.
There's a very few activ or likeuh avenues for them to get
things, you know, you know, ifthey're in the immigration court
systems.
SPEAKER_02 (29:57):
So and that was it was um the difference and then.
This is what it really boilsdown to where it's the
gamesmanship of the one bigbeautiful bill took away medical
coverage for people who werehere on legal status but were
not fully immigrated andnaturalized, right?
So they're here on legal status,asylum seekers that we brought
(30:18):
in, or like people from Haitiwhen there's that emergency, you
know, we bring in 5,000 peopleand we just give them this like
five-year green card type thing,right?
Those people were eligible forcoverage because we invited them
to America.
Yeah, they're just and that gottaken away in the Big Beautiful
bill.
So now the usually Mike Johnsonis saying um that change
(30:41):
basically is irrelevant, thatthe continuing resolution is
exactly what they were alreadyoperating on operating on as the
previous year's things, butthat's not true.
That's disingenuous because thebig beautiful bill takes away
something that was in the lastCR.
And that's the only talkingpoint and the only focal point
that anybody's talking about,right?
Um I don't know, man.
Like, uh, is this is it worthshutting the government down
(31:03):
over?
No, sure, surely it's not.
Um, is there some great moralunjustice happening if that gets
taken away or reinstated?
Like, man, that doesn't move theneedle for almost any voter.
So I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (31:16):
Even yeah, that one right there, again, very narrow
targeted, but it's a goodtalking point.
It's a good thing that for themto say.
SPEAKER_02 (31:22):
Because it's related to health care and immigration.
And so it's like you did, likeyou twisted the wires on me
earlier, the Republicans going,ha, two things in the Democratic
bucket that aren't related, butwe'll make them stuck together
in a way that like people can'teven make it make sense, right?
SPEAKER_00 (31:37):
But but when we look at you know what our
government's doing, and even theDepartment of Homeland Security
months ago triggered theanti-deficiency act by overgoing
overshooting their budget.
So that they're just spendingall this money.
The what the White House has,you know,$200 million ballroom
being planned, it's being youknow, gold plated and stuff like
that.
They have money for all thesethings, they just don't want to
give it to the people.
(31:57):
And that's what's disgusting.
And that that like that's why Iam 100% for shutting it down.
Like, we need a big change now.
Uh we can't allow them to justkeep funding the ice agents that
are stealing people off thestreets.
That they're rolling in vansnow, just kidnapping people and
snatching them quickly in theseprotests.
Um plain clothes, plain card.
Yeah, that's dangerous.
(32:17):
If you if you want to do thatshit, well, you're not getting a
paycheck.
Yeah, sorry, buddy.
But like I didn't get a paycheckfor a couple months during the
one of the you know thesequestrations before.
Like, I've been there.
SPEAKER_02 (32:28):
ICE agents would never get furloughed.
What are you talking about?
They'll they'll take people fromother jobs and be like, hey, you
don't have to take next week offif you want to go down and kick
doors for ice.
No kidding.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I'm not joking.
That that'll be an option.
They'll be like, hey, you cantake the next month off, or you
can report to the ice detentionfacility and watch inmates, you
know.
SPEAKER_00 (32:46):
I mean that's for real, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (32:48):
Like somebody's getting that letter, that email
today.
Needs of the service, right?
Yeah, service before service.
Basically, yeah, that's it.
They're just telling that to thecivilians instead.
So yeah.
Uh well, let's wrap up on aveteran topic that we, you know,
will I know we're running longon this episode, but there's a
lot to talk about.
Uh yeah, we're good right now.
So the put hands-on recruitstopic.
(33:09):
Oh, yeah.
We're back to Pete Hexeth andtalking to the generals, which
none of these dudes have almostanything to do with that.
Um, guys or gals.
But uh the idea that basictraining once upon a time was
much more physical, much morefrightening, and from a mental
perspective of like neverknowing what was going on, you
know.
And if somebody told you to gosomewhere and you were by
(33:30):
yourself, you were worried thatmaybe something bad was gonna
happen, right?
Like, oh no, they're tricking meinto getting my my ass beat,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (33:35):
You know.
So uh uh I got a good story onthat.
My uh I had a friend in theMarines uh back in Vietnam, so
he was drafted.
And uh his daytime drillsergeant told him that they
could bit burn the midnight oiland write letters underneath
their blankets, like writeletters home, but didn't pass
that on to the nighttime drillsergeant.
Yeah, probably did.
They probably you know, but myfriend was yeah, it's a good
setup, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
(33:56):
My friend was the only one thatdid this, took advantage of it.
Took advantage of it.
So nighttime drill sergeantcomes in, rips the blanket off,
and he snaps up to attention.
Dude knocks him out.
Yeah, knocks him over cleanedhim out, yeah.
He woke up to Revele playing,yeah.
And you know, a few hours later,yeah, a few hours later, and
everybody rushed into thebathroom, and so he wiped the
blood off his face, and he'slike, I was out there by the end
(34:17):
of it.
Yeah, and he's like that thatwas the the norm.
That that was you know what theywere expecting.
SPEAKER_02 (34:22):
And so that's what Pete Heggseth won't was saying
we can go back to that, right?
And man, you know, I like thesentiment of hard and scary, um,
but the point that you just madeor the story that you shared
makes the point is um that erathat Hollywood romanticizes that
older gentlemen talk about wasfrom the draft era from World
(34:46):
War II through Vietnam, wherethere were a lot of people in
the military that did not uh youknow volunteer.
They they were told by to dutyof country you have to go.
The discipline um of a personwho does not volunteer and
doesn't want to be there, right,and is basically go to war or go
to jail kind of you know deal.
Of course, those people aregoing to be much, much harder to
(35:08):
train and coerce, if you will,into getting the right outcomes,
right?
That stopped in 1976 orsomething.
When did the draft like so since1976, it's been an all volunteer
force.
Everybody, now there's somedraftees that stayed in forever,
and they were the odd duck thatsomehow managed to get drafted
(35:30):
in and then spent 25 years inthe military.
Yeah, and those folks retired inthe 90s, right?
Like they've been gone, right?
And so there's nobody culturallythat remembers that time or that
has any relationship to gettingbeat up in basic training,
right?
It's it's it's this weirdromantic concept that old people
have, right?
I say old veterans have about,well, this it was tougher, and
(35:52):
that's always a thing in themilitary.
Well, what I went through wastougher than what you went
through.
Oh, yeah.
So I'm tough and you're you're abeard, you know, like just
downgrade you, you know, insideour own veteran circles.
That's what happens, right?
And so he's you know, Heg Sethis saying, let's go back to that
era where people can get beat upand be scared about basic
training.
That doesn't work when theformula includes an
(36:12):
all-volunteer force, right?
Because for you know, for everyfive people that ran away from
boot camp because they weregetting beat up, and that's what
happened is they just deserted,right?
They could recruit 50 more witha draft letter.
Yeah, it wasn't a problem tobackfill those people that said,
I don't have to be here, right?
Like, I'd rather run away and bea criminal than get beat up
again, right?
That's not who's in the militarynow at all.
(36:35):
They volunteered to be there.
So physical uh contact abuse,correction, whatever you want to
call it, wall-to-wallcounseling, right?
Like it doesn't matter.
That is not congr congruent, ifyou will, with uh an
all-volunteer force that ispassionately seeking training
(36:58):
and the the possibility toserve.
SPEAKER_00 (37:00):
Yeah.
Uh another thing I think that islost on people that didn't go
through the draft error era uhis the the fear that you had on
draft nights.
You know, when when people wouldsit down with and watch the news
and see what numbers got called.
Yeah.
You know, I I had one uncle uhget drafted into the Marines and
uh died in 6 either no, I thinkit was late 68, 69, something
(37:25):
like that.
But but he died after the peaceaccords broke down, after like
our own folks shut down thepeace accords, yeah, um and you
know the the South Vietnamesepulled out, uh you know, he he
he got killed in in action.
Um my other next closest oldestuncle, his number was like 10
from getting called away.
And you remember sitting downwatching the news and like
(37:46):
seeing sweating bullets rightbecause like you start seeing
like your numbers coming up andthen like it's 10 away.
Yeah, um, and your brother justdied a couple years ago.
Yeah, you know, people don'tremember that, right?
And people don't understand thatthe fear that it comes with and
you know, if we start going backtowards that, and you know,
again, the enemies from within,and again, 50% of our, you know,
(38:06):
we're we're 50-50 right now.
So they're talking about goingafter a lot of us.
Uh, and you're gonna peoplearen't gonna be joining the
military, so you're gonna starthaving to draft folks.
Um, if we start going down thispath, and we're already are down
this path again.
This isn't something that we cansay, oh, it might happen.
Like, this is what we're doingnow as a country.
Um, we are you know marchingback towards the monarchy um
(38:29):
because Trump is still hawking2028 merchandise in the White
House, uh, you know, sendingthem to political opponents and
trying to taunt people with it.
SPEAKER_02 (38:37):
And like this isn't let's wrap up on the friggin'
Hakeem Jeffries meme.
Oh my god, let's wrap up onthat, yeah.
And the double down.
So I'll tell the story, I'lltell the story so people know
why I'm excited.
Um, I saw the first meme, uh,but I didn't know about the
double down until, of course,much later on.
(38:59):
But uh Trump is really off therails with Truth Social and just
retweeting things.
Like it's sort of I think it's agame, it's kind of like a
sweepstakes.
If I can put something goofy onTruth Social with my own
personal account, maybe I'll goget one.
So see if I can win this prize,right?
Like I want to win this prize.
Uh, if I say something goofyenough that just is the right
flavor of ice cream today thatTrump wants to eat, he'll
(39:21):
retweet me, right?
He'll retweet me.
And then like I'm on every newsoutlet and every you know,
webpage is talking about it andeverything, right?
Like my goofy little AI videothat I just made went from two
hours ago, I just made it tothis evening, it's on CNN,
right?
Like, I want to win that prize,right?
And so who knows if the peoplethat are creating this crap are
(39:42):
even genuine in what they'recreating or if they're like
going fishing and just like, canI land a big one, you know?
Yeah, and so the video wasSchumer saying something about
how it's terrible.
There, it's a fake AI video.
They're standing out on like apodium outside of the Capitol,
and Schumer saying, Oh, it'sterrible to be a Democrat.
And then beside Schumer isHakeem Jeffries, these are the
(40:05):
leader of the Senate and theHouse on the Democrat side, and
he's wearing a sombrero with acartoon mustache.
And I understood that what theywere trying to say was
Democrats, he's trying tobasically say, Hey, all you
Latinos, we we failed you, whichdoesn't make any sense.
But he didn't say any of this.
This the dumb AI video made thisup, right?
All right, that's offensive.
(40:25):
That's maybe it's funny, maybeit's not.
It's goofy, and why did thepresident do that?
Like, I can laugh at it fromthat perspective of like, oh my
gosh, that this dude's thepresident.
Yeah, and he's spending his timeretweeting goofy cartoons.
I can't even laugh at that.
So, you know, like, but here'swhat the part that's funny,
because that part was maybe notso funny.
The double down is that HakeemJeffrey said they said something
(40:46):
about like this is just silly,and you know, I can't believe,
you know, this is so far belowthe office of the president, I
can't believe we're talkingabout this, right?
So then somebody took that videoand put Donald Trump as the as a
mariachi band where every personin the mariachi band was Donald
Trump, right?
And then Hakeem Jeffrey's hatand mustache was even more
(41:06):
goofy, and it made no sense.
Yeah, it was so.
SPEAKER_00 (41:12):
But it goes around, and like you said, it's gonna be
seen by millions of people.
Uh, a few months ago, a friendof mine, uh a Mexican friend of
mine, sent me a video ofPresident Trump, like an AI
video of cartoonish him as likea robot mech warrior kicking
down the border and smashing andjust slaughtering you know brown
people, and sh and he's like,Oh, lol.
No, man, I can't even laugh atthis shit because that's what
(41:34):
they want to do.
Well, when when they whenthey're degrading people like
this, like it's all intentionaland it's all a part of this
propaganda machine that is justdisgusting to see how many
people are just oh, you know,boys will be boys, presidents
will be presidents, that's likeour bar is that low now that
that this is how we behave allbecause of Kamala's laugh.
(41:56):
Great job, guys.
Yeah, great fucking choice.
We made it 249 years, yeah, andwe're a laugh turned us off.
Cool.
SPEAKER_02 (42:05):
Yeah, yeah.
See, I was trying to land on thehappy part of this.
That the cartoon tweets arefunny, right?
The cartoon tweets are funny,right?
Never mind that they're from thefree leader of the free world,
right?
Like he's got time to retweetcartoons.
SPEAKER_01 (42:19):
Oh god, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (42:20):
So I like Donald Trump as a mariachi band.
Let's just there we go.
That's what I want to end on.
Is I loved it.
And I just loved it.
And he must like it too.
SPEAKER_00 (42:28):
If you get running off into the Sun's opposite
mariachi guy, I'm all for it.
Just stop sitting in the world.
I love it.
I want him, I want that's what Iwant to see more of.
So well, that's what we got forthis week on Left Face.
Uh, tune in next week.
We'll have more of me bitchingand complaining.
Yeah.
Thanks, everybody.
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