1-14-25 - 8am - Pete Hegseth Hearing and Shellenberger Breaks Down Fires

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The nation's two largest grocery store change Kroger's and Alberson's,
which own Safeway, both have net profit margins of less
than two percent. You can find that information on their forums.
Ten K filed with the SEC.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
So Pete Hegsath has begun his opening statement and I
want to drop into it, but he's giving too much
of his camp introductory stuff now now dragging this drop
into it. Now, this is Pete Hegsath before the Senate
Armed Services Committee to become the next Secretary of Defense.

(00:38):
Let's see what he has to say.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
As I've said to many of you in private meetings,
when President Trump chose me for this position, the primary
charge he gave me was to bring the warrior.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
Culture back to the Department of Defense.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Amien Key like me once eight Pentagon Laser focused on lethality, meritocracy,
war fighting, accountability, and readiness.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
And there's the protesters, of course, the aspector asses out
of the room. What you could put Donald Duck up there,
and they're protest when you get put Douglas MacArthur up there,
and the good agree.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
I just hear when I would hear what he has
to say about.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Returning the Pentamon back to war fighting.

Speaker 5 (01:26):
There we go.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
That's it, that's my job.

Speaker 6 (01:30):
Mister Hexath suspends your remarks. Let me just say this,
the Capitol Police are going to remove immediately individuals that
are disrupting the hearing. I see a pattern attempted to
be inflicted on the committee, and we're simply not going

(01:52):
to tolerate that.

Speaker 5 (01:56):
You may proceed.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
To bring back war fighting if confirmed. I'm going to
work with.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
President Trump and this committee to one restore the warrior
ethos to the Pentagon and throughout our fighting force. In
doing so, we will re establish trust in our military,
addressing the recruiting crisis, the retention crisis, and readiness crisis
in our.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Rank didn't number security.

Speaker 5 (02:27):
The arms and legs good for them.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Of course, if I'm a Democratic, you may, you may.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
The strength of our military is our unity and our
shared purpose.

Speaker 7 (02:49):
To give it thirty more seconds.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Number two, We're going to rebuild our military, always matching
threats to capabilities. This includes reviving our devents in dust base,
reforming the acquisitions process, as you mentioned, mister chairman, no
more value of death for new defense companies, modernizing.

Speaker 4 (03:08):
Our nuclear triad, ensuring the.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Pentagon can pass an audit and rapidly fielding merging technologies.

Speaker 4 (03:15):
And number three, we're going to re establish deterrence.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
First and foremost, we will defend our homeland, our borders,
and our skies. Second, we will work with our partners
and allies to deter aggression in the Indo Pacific from
the communist Chinese. And finally, we will responsibly end wars
to ensure that we prioritize our resources to reorient to

(03:38):
larger threats. We can no longer count on reputational deterrence.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
We need real deterrence.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
The Department of Defense under Donald Trump will achieve peace
through strength, and in pursuing these America First national security
goals will remain patriotically a political and stridently constitutional, Unlike
the current administration, Politics should play no part.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
In military matters.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
We are not Republicans, we are not Democrats. We are
American warriors. Our standards will be high, and they will.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
Be equal, not equitable. That's a very different.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
We need to make sure every warrior is fully qualified
on their assigned weapons system, every pilot's fully qualified and.

Speaker 4 (04:31):
Current on the aircraft they are flying. And every general
or flag.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Officer is selected for leadership or promotion purely based on performance, readiness,
and merit.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Leaders at all levels will.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Be held accountable and were fighting and lethality and the
readiness of the troops and their families will be our
only focus. This has been my focus since.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
I first put on the uniform as a young.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Army ROTC cadet at Princeton University in two thousand and one.
I joined the military because I love my country and
felt an obligation to defend it. I served with incredible
Americans in Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and on
the streets of Washington, d C. Many of which are

(05:25):
with me here today. This includes enlisted soldiers I helped
become American citizens and Muslim allies I helped immigrate from
Iraq and Afghanistan. Because when I took off the uniform,
my mission never stopped. Now, it is true, and it
has been acknowledged that I don't have a similar biography

(05:45):
to Defense secretaries of the last thirty years. But as
President Trump also told me, we've repeatedly placed people atop
the Pentagon with supposedly the right credentials, whether they are
retired generals, academics, or defense contract executives, and where has
it gotten us?

Speaker 4 (06:04):
He believes, and I humbly agree.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
That it's time to give someone with dust.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
On his boots the helm change agent.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Someone with no vested interest in certain companies or specific
programs or approved narratives. My only special interest is the warfighter,
deterring wars and if called upon, winning wars. By ensuring
our warriors never enter a fair fight, we.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
Let them win and we bring them home.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Like many of my generation, I've been there. I've led
troops in combat. I've been on patrol for days. I've
pulled a trigger down range, heard bullets whiz by, flexcuffed insurgents,
called in close air support, led metovacs, dodged IEDs, pulled
out dead bodies, and knelt before a battlefield cross. This

(06:58):
is not academic for me. This is my life. I
led then and I will lead now. Ask anyone who's
ever worked for me or with me. I know what
I don't know my success as a leader, and I
very much look forward to discussing my organization's successes at

(07:21):
That's for Freedom and Concern Veterans for America. I'm incredibly
proud of the work that we've done, but my success
as a leader has always been setting a clear vision,
hiring people smarter and more capable than me, empowering them
to succeed, holding everyone account and driving toward clear matre metrics.
Build the plan, work the plan, and then work harder

(07:45):
than everyone else around you. I've sworn an ot to
the Constitution before, and if confirmed, I will proudly do
it again.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
This time for the.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Most important deployment of my life.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
I pledged to be a faithful partner.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
To this committee, taking input and respecting oversight. We share
the same goals, a ready, lethal military, the health and
well being of our troops, and a strong and secure America.
Thank you for the time, and I look forward to
your questions.

Speaker 4 (08:18):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
I would say that was a damn good opening statement.
He addressed everything. You know what he did. He set
up every argument that they that the Democrats want and
some Republicans for that matter, want to make against him.
You're not the traditional nominee, you're not a former general. Well,
I always believe that we don't need former generals in

(08:43):
that position. We need civilians to head up the Pentagon.
And I think the idea of someone who's had the
experience but is not aligned with any particular defense contractors,
and the statement that he knows what he doesn't know,
and he surrounded themselves as smart people. He establishes the mission,
the plan, and then you work the mission, You work

(09:05):
the plan, and you see and you judge that success
by having certain metrics that you're going If this guy
put it out succinctly and most importantly, uh, he knocked
down every stupid argument that the Democrats are going to
want to make about his skills to do this. I

(09:25):
know that those opening statements because I've done many of those.
I've done for confirmation hearings. I've done two opening statements myself,
and I know they are a combination of what you
want to say. Plus you know editor, you know the
the editing by the White House and the staffers that
are assigned to help you put those opening statements together.
I would say that if this is the quality of

(09:48):
the workmanship that they're doing on these nominees, every single
one of them should be confirmed. And when Democrats, either
through protesters or the Democrats start attack him, because you
gotta remember, he's passive, He's passed his full field FBI
background check, So any allegations about a drinking problem, about womanizing,

(10:09):
or anything else.

Speaker 5 (10:10):
All of those have been addressed by the FBI.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
And you know, this FBI, if it had a chance,
would if they thought that he couldn't pass it the
FBI full field background investigation, they'd try to deep six
them with that report. And my understanding from all the
reading I've done is that report has come back clean.
So he's never been charged with the crime. So boom,
let's get it on. And I think it's a brilliant

(10:35):
move too, to put on the part of the Trump
team obviously in negotiations with the Republican controlled Senate, the
order in which these are going to be presented, and
by starting out with what many would argue might be
the weakest nominee but yet probably the most important nomine

(11:00):
beyond Secretary of State. Uh, this is a brilliant move.
So it shows me that Trump two point zero, it
understands how Washington works, is going to work within that framework.
But at the same time they're not going to abdicate
their principles upon which they won the election. So I

(11:23):
think this bodes well for Trump two point zh. It
certainly bodes well for the nominees. And I think for
the Democrats, I think they're going to look pretty stupid
when if they try to cabin all this guy, if
we can make Kavanaugh verb, if they're going to try
to cabin all this guy, I think it's going to
blow up in their face.

Speaker 5 (11:41):
And that's my.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Understanding about what Chuck Schumer wants to do. Grill him about.
You know, so you drink alcoholic? Yeah, well yeah I do.
It doesn't mean I'm an alcoholic. Good grief, you know
this this goes to this idea. You know, let's let
me tie all of this together, include including the wildfires

(12:04):
out in California right now, because that was that's where
I was planning the head.

Speaker 5 (12:07):
But I don't want to.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
I don't want to just summarily drop the idea that
what's inherently governmental and take that one step further that
you know, I see just why why don't we nationalize
the airlines, Let's nationalize the grocery stores, let's nationalize all
these things. Well, when you think about the fallout from

(12:29):
from what's going on in Los Angeles, the fallout particularly
for Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, the government the mayor, respectively,
it's all one of the fallouts of their own making,
and it's not politicizing the fires or this disaster to
say so. The past decisions of these policy makers, from

(12:53):
Newsom on down are all to blame for this, and
they've escaped the consequences of those decisions by doing things
like continuing uh, for example, let me see if I
can find real quickly. Gavin Newsom, trying to shift the
blame or trying to claim that he's not to blame,

(13:16):
said this to CBS Local in Los Angeles and reservoirs.

Speaker 8 (13:22):
The reservoirs are completely full of the state reservoirs here
in southern California. That missing disinformation. I don't think advantages
or aids any of us.

Speaker 5 (13:29):
Wait a minute, that's actually true.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
But you know you've seen the empty reservoirs, so once
the language he's using.

Speaker 8 (13:43):
And reservoirs, the reservoirs are completely full of the state reservoirs.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Oh, the state reservoirs so so not the Santa Ynez
reservoir not not the one that you've seen that is
completely empty, that held millions of gallons of water but
was just uh underrepairs for two years for a tear
in the cover which could have been fixed in oh

(14:08):
maybe a week or two. That's the kind of bull
crap that he's been involved in, and that's the kind
of stuff that he's doing to try to shift the
blame elsewhere. You know, I don't think anybody that suffered
from these fires cares about reparations, wokeness DEI policies. In fact,

(14:30):
I don't think anybody anywhere cares about that. You look
at some of the Hollywood stars, these these celebreties that.

Speaker 5 (14:38):
Are all so you know, I'm for Deein. You think
they care?

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Do you think they really care when their house is
burning down? Do you think they really care about equity?
They don't. They don't at all. The devastating wildfires have
utterly laid waste to these two entire neighborhoods, and of

(15:03):
course they were fueled in large part by the dried
out under brush that was potting up on all the
surrounding hillsides, which stayed in. Local officials ignored warnings about
for years and at times even misled the public about
the efforts to clear that out removal of decaying vegetation.
You asked, any I don't care whether it's an urban, rural,

(15:25):
a smoke jumper. You can ask any firefighter, but removal
of the decaying vegetation, that's a key component of brush
fire prevention, particularly in aeric climate. It's like Los Angeles,
but the mayor and the governor would not refuse to
address the problem. And that's that's the stage from one
of the worst disasters in the history of the city,

(15:46):
and quite frankly, I think it's gonna be one of
the worst disasters in the history of the country. So
I happened to I don't consistently listen to Tucker Carlson,
but Tucker had Where did my tag go? Tucker had
last night he had Michael Schallenberger on in which they

(16:07):
were talking about the fires. And in the first several minutes,
I'm going to probably try to I'll start it now,
but I'll continue on the other side of the break.
But Schellenberger said something that I literally stopped what I
was doing, turned and and I was listening in my

(16:30):
with my AirPods on, and I turned and I looked
at my phone and backed it up to listen again
because it became incredibly personal for me. Well, maybe I
won't play an, I'll play it when I get back.
It became incredibly personal for me, and then it became
infuriating for me because what I endured during Katrina was

(17:00):
and you can read my book if you don't believe me,
because primarily, well, in fact, indeed was the primary fault
of the mayor and the governor now decades later, exactly
the same thing.

Speaker 5 (17:12):
Well combat Vietnam veteran.

Speaker 8 (17:14):
And I've got to tell you, after listening to Pete
meigs Seth's opening statement, I'm ready to Reenlistorah.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
So Senator Reid Is, the ranking member of the Armed
Services Committee, is questioning him now about DEI, and Haig's
best I can tell by the closed captioning is is
going right back at him and saying, look, I served
with men and women of all backgrounds, all races, all colors,

(17:47):
all everything. But what DEI is doing is it's dividing.
It's dividing the troops. It is eliminating meritocracy, and it
is causing the commanders to walk on eggshell, afraid to
say or do anything that might be misinterpreted. And heigsaf
says he intends to return everything to a meritocracy. And

(18:09):
Read's trying to turn that into no, you're just trying
to implement your political views, that you're using the word
meritocracy as a cudgel, as a euphemism for what you
just really want to accomplish politically. And Heggs's coming right back, No,
that's not exactly. I want men and women who meet
the standards, that are willing to carry out the mission,

(18:31):
and this is what we're.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
Going to do.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
So it's amazing to me when you think about the
absolute rejection of DEI by the voters in November, and
here's a guy who says, look, we got recruiting problems
because of this, we have morale problems because of this,
and I'm going to fix all. I'm going to get
rid of all of this. They can't let go of it.

(18:54):
They're so wedded to this DEI bull crap, and Heggs
is not going to have any of it. So I'm
going to watch to see if our clipping service does
some of the I mean, there's a part of me
that one's just turn over the show to to these
to these questions because I think he's doing a damn
good job. But let let me at least finish this

(19:15):
and we'll see where we are. At nine o'clock. So
Tucker Carlson is talking to Michael Schellenberger, a guy that
I followed very closely. He was at one point a
radical lefty and he's seen the light, uh and I
think not wholly, but in part because he was one
of the three Barry Weiss, Matt Tayebe and Michael Schllenberger

(19:39):
that got the Twitter files and he saw firsthand what
the Biden administration was doing in terms of censorship and
he was appalled by it. Well, now he's on Tucker
talking about what happened with the fires, and there's a
there's there's some back and forth, but I want to

(20:00):
go through some of this because this really hit home
with me and it shows me and I wanted to
show you just how badly as a nation we are functioning.
When when Katrina hipped, well, let me let me just

(20:22):
play the audio first. This is courtesy the Tucker Carlson Network.

Speaker 9 (20:26):
I believe there's five active fires right now and these
are ignition driven fires, meaning that these are all this
is all shop are all or you know, scrubbling, you know,
brush area, So this isn't this is different than the Sierra.

Speaker 5 (20:39):
For us, these are not forest fires.

Speaker 9 (20:41):
Yeah, these are not forest fires, and that doesn't mean
that you're doomed to them. But it's the it's not
the same problem that we get in the Sierras. So
they're ignition driven and they're obviously wind driven, but there's
nothing unusual.

Speaker 5 (20:54):
You know.

Speaker 9 (20:54):
I just interviewed a climate scientist about this, or rather
an environmental forest science scientist about this. Unusual about this,
I mean, it is someone unusual to get. You know,
you have a dry period and then the Santa Ana
wins in January.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
We talked about this, I think on Saturday. I went
through the historical record of the Santa Anna winds going
back to the eighteen hundreds, and this is not it's
not regular, but it's not unusual. It's not like, oh
my god, this has never happened before. Yes, it happens
on the somewhat regular schedule, not schedule, but a kind

(21:29):
of a regular rotation that these winds will do what
they've done in these fires. But it's even worse than
ignoring the historical record.

Speaker 7 (21:38):
But it's not like that never happens. They I'm working
my way there.

Speaker 9 (21:44):
So now martignations, I mean The important thing to know
is that the National Weather Service put out a fire
warning on January second.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
A fire warning, you know, the difference between a watch
and a warning. A watch means that the conditions are
ripe for whatever, you know, a hurricane, a tornado, a
severe thunderstorm, a wild land fire. The conditions are right
for that to occur. A warning means we've seen some

(22:16):
We've actually seen a tornado.

Speaker 5 (22:18):
There's there's a there's.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
A tropical tropical depression that has actually reached hurricane force
wind levels. Uh, there is flooding going on in parts
of an area. The tornado, tornado has touched the ground somewhere.

Speaker 9 (22:33):
And a local weathermen actually for forecasted on January first,
they said, we're headed towards a super dangerous moment. The
next day, the National Weather Service Los Angeles held a
briefing to underscore that point.

Speaker 7 (22:46):
The day after that, the mayor flew to Ghana.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
I mean, oh, I let me, here's where it just
started making me.

Speaker 5 (22:54):
Look.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
I mean, you know how you do the stupid thing
of you're listening to something and you're listening on your
earbuds and you actually turning you look at the device
that you're listening to as if you're going to see something.

Speaker 5 (23:04):
Well, that's what I did. During Katrina.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
We issued the National Hurricane Center issued warnings about the
hurricane that became named Katrina. And those were warnings, and
we had briefings. I didn't leave town. I stayed in DC.
I went to our op center. I got the President,
I got the mayor's I got the governors all on screens,

(23:33):
and I've got the National Hurricane Center briefing them about
how bad this is going to be. And what did
the mayor do? Not a damn thing, even after requesting
that he issue an evacuation order. I don't have the
power to do that. The President doesn't have the power
to do that. That's a local issue, that's a state issue.

(23:56):
So we encourage the mayor to do it. He doesn't
do it. I turned to I turned to Max, who
was who's running the Hurricane Center at the time, and
I'm talking to Max offline while the briefing is going on. Max,
you've got you've got to paint a dire picture to

(24:17):
Mayor Nagan about how bad this is going to be.
And if you can't get him, you know, if you
can't paint a bad enough picture. Then let me let
me work the back channel and I'll do something drastic.

Speaker 5 (24:31):
So I did. The mayor refused to order an evacuation.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
So I called Bush, who was down at Crawford and
I and I said, mister President, I really need you
to do something. I need you to call the mayor
of New Orleans and beg with him to order a
mandatory evacuation. And Bush was astonished. He said, are you
are you serious? And I said, yes, I know, I

(24:57):
know it's kind of breaking protocol. You should be calling
the governor, but I need the mayor to do this.
If you can't get the mayor to do it, then
let me work on the governor for a while.

Speaker 5 (25:06):
So he called.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
He literally picked the phone right then called Mayor Nagan
and said, look, the National Hurricane Center and Michael Brown,
all these people are telling us that you really do
need to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. Would
you please do it? And his response was I'll talk
to my team about it. So I started working on
the governor. They finally issued the evacuation order as the

(25:33):
hurricane was making landfill. So that's like ordering the evacuation.
You know, you need to evacuate this particular area of
Pacific Palisades after it's already on fire. Well, little Fisi Sherlock.
Really this is what Schellenberger is describing.

Speaker 7 (25:51):
It's crazy. Like you look for public press conferences.

Speaker 9 (25:56):
Yeah, these were all I mean, it's absolutely public and
it goes to the politicians.

Speaker 7 (25:59):
First was all said public, it's the National Weather Service.

Speaker 9 (26:01):
So that so that that was like literally on the
first or second the governor should have called out the
National Guard.

Speaker 7 (26:08):
He should have called all of our neighboring states.

Speaker 9 (26:10):
He should have called Canada and Mexico asked for all
their backup help.

Speaker 7 (26:14):
They should have started circling Sea one thirties.

Speaker 9 (26:16):
That are you know, especially retrofitted with that can dump the.

Speaker 7 (26:19):
Fire retardant or water.

Speaker 9 (26:21):
They should have had helicopter circling to see where the
fires were.

Speaker 7 (26:25):
It should have been immediate mobilization.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Absolutely so. Now this is self serving, but I must
say it anyway. So when I realized that the local
officials were not going to do what needed to be done,
I started doing what I could do. So I started
pre positioning assets. Now I didn't put them in New Orleans.
Why because I had been briefed by all the meteorologists,

(26:51):
all of the experts that said there is a greater
than fifty to fifty chance that these levees are going
to be breached.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
Not top means that the.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
Levees are going to get holes in them, gaps in them,
and the water's going to flow through, and the water's
going to continue to flow until it reaches equilibrium. So
I pre so, I don't want to put, you know,
humvies and blackhawks and supplies and everything else in harm's way.
So I put it on the outskirts. And then what happens.

(27:23):
The levees breach and now everything's flooding, and what do
they do. They bitch at me because I didn't have
supplies in the disaster area of operations. It was mind
numbingly stupid to me how ignorant these politicians are. And

(27:43):
what Michael Schellenberger's describing here is exactly how ignorant these
politicians are. So, if you want in a nutshell, the
point that I'm trying to convey, it's this, politicians don't
learn feces. Everybody bitched at me about what I was
doing right in New Orleans, and now here we are

(28:09):
twenty years later, and politicians are doing exactly the same mistakes.

Speaker 10 (28:16):
Pardon my ignorance. I didn't first, I didn't see that
news when it happened.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
But well, with all due respect, Tucker, you wouldn't see
that because that's not something that is broadcast nationally. It's
you know, all disasters are local, and this one was local,
just as Katrina was local. To some degree. It became
much larger, but it was initially local. We knew at

(28:41):
some point, oh, it's going right up, it's going right
into New Orleans. So of course you wouldn't hear about
but the locals do. This is why who you elected
at the local level is so damn important. But I
would say, in this case, unfortunately, just to tell you

(29:03):
the truth, the people in Los Angeles got exactly what
they voted for.

Speaker 5 (29:10):
I'll be right back, dumb ass thory.

Speaker 7 (29:12):
I hope that becomes an official word in the English language, just.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Saying my favorite word. But it hasn't caught on that well,
caught on that. Well, maybe someday it will, but then
I won't get credit for it, and then I'll be
all cry and I won't be able to go on
because I won't get credit for it.

Speaker 5 (29:34):
It'll be horrible.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Back to this interview that Tucker did with uh with Michael.

Speaker 7 (29:44):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 10 (29:45):
So it was really clear to the people who are
in the city and the state that you had this
combination of dry conditions and heavy winds, high winds.

Speaker 9 (29:53):
Yeah, and because there's so many ignitions because of really
these two factors, mostly the electric wires, you know, brushing
up against you know, vegetation and traving a fire. That's
kind of one of the main ones. The other one
is homeless people starting fires. All over LA. Half of

(30:13):
all fires put out by the LA Fire Department are
started by homeless people.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Half the fires put out in Los Angeles are fires
started by homeless people. You're spending fift your resources, your budget,
you're funding your time, energy, everything putting out fire started
by homeless people.

Speaker 5 (30:37):
So if you're doing.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
That that those are resources that are taken away from
or that drain or you know, in terms of just
maintenance issues. For example, every time an engine leaves a firehouse,
well that comes back and that's wear and tear on
that engine. And if fifty of the time all you're

(30:59):
doing is put out fires of homeless people, maybe you.

Speaker 5 (31:02):
Ought to address the fires being started.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
By homeless people so that when when the proverbial feces
hits the fan, you actually have well maintained equipment, You
have human human resources that are tired or not tired,
or arrested and ready to respond to a wild land
urban urban, wildland interface fire, a wild land fire. Maybe

(31:26):
you ought to be doing that, but those aren't the priorities.
Just like right now, Senator, what's your name? She and
from I think New Hampshire. I think she's in New Hampshire.
Was grilling Pete HEGs it's about women in the military
and asking him will he commit to reviewing some law

(31:46):
from two years ago that mandates that you know, women,
you know be actively involved in in all aspects of
the military, all all aspects of national security. And his
response was perfect. It was all commit to reviewing the
law to see if it fits the priorities of the
president and that it is using meritocracy so that if

(32:12):
someone can meet the.

Speaker 5 (32:14):
Standards and that we don't lower the standards.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
If someone can meet the standards that we need for warriors,
then yes, or if they meet the standards for a promotion, yes,
but otherwise I'll come back and work with this committee
because we need to make changes. So the focus of
Hegesath seems to be as it should be with all

(32:40):
of these issues we're talking about today. Meritocracy. You go
back to California. This is precisely what Californians have voted for.
They voted for all of this bull crap policies. Oh
you know, let's let's save the smelt, you know, let
the water run off. Let's we pass a bond issue.

(33:03):
We actually say, hey, we're gonna vote, We're gonna pass
a bond issue and tax ourselves to build more reservoirs.
And that was two years ago or no that, I'm sorry,
that was a decade ago, and not one has been built,
not one. Go back to the book about you know
why complex societies collapse.

Speaker 5 (33:22):
This is why.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Because we have a group of citizens in this country
who believe that government can and somehow does.

Speaker 5 (33:35):
Just astonishingly do.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Wonderful work in whatever programs they administer or carry out.
And the fact on the ground is they don't. And
politicians get elected because they got really nice you know
hairjail that they use and they look really cool and
they can speak well, or they happen to be a female,
black lesbian. I mean, good grief. The old oak that

(34:01):
the AG secretary got fired for is now reality in
the world. It's now the reality.

Speaker 5 (34:07):
Oh you know.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Crusoe I think was his name, who ran against Karen Bass,
a very successful real estate developer who in his real
estate developments used private firefighters to save those developments. And
so they're all, okay, they're now. But they looked at
him and saw a white guy, and they started looking
across the field of candidates and ran across oh, a

(34:31):
black female lesbian and stopped right there and said, oh, well,
then that that's where I've got to vote.

Speaker 5 (34:38):
By gosh, what how much dummer can this country get? Really,
I'm afraid to answer that question.