Oct. 17, 2025

The Pentagon’s Not-So-Straight Talk

Show Notes
Transcript

From Washington DC where apparently nobody in the military is gay, Patrick Gutfield takes you inside the latest moral panic — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is furious about Netflix’s new gay Marine series Boots. Meanwhile, Trump’s busy scheduling imaginary peace summits with Putin, a woman at a Brewers game calls ICE on a Navy vet, and NASA discovers an asteroid just in time to tell us it almost killed us. Just another perfectly normal day in America.

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Callaroga shark media from Washington, DC, where nobody in the

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military is gay. This is ballad. That's right. You don't

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see the commander in chief dancing to the village people, now,

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do you. I'm Patrick Gutfield and breaking news from the Pentagon.

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Apparently the military is on a mission to restore something

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called the Warrior Ethos, which sounds like a rejected action

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movie title starring Steven Segall. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is

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mad about Netflix's new gay military series Boots. He's claiming

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the streaming giant is pushing a woke agenda faster than

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a drill sergeant can drop and give you twenty. The series,

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based on a memoir, follows a closeted gay teen joining

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the Marines with his straight best friend. Heg Seth's big

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complaint Netflix is apparently serving up what he calls woke garbage,

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a phrase that sounds like something you'd find in a

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hipster compost bin. The Pentagon's hot take, they're all about

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elite uniform and sex neutral standards. Translation, a rucksack doesn't

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care if you're gay, straight, or confused about which TikTok

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dance to do next. Trump who isn't gay. He just

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likes dancing to the village people, says. He wrapped a

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two hour phone call with Vladimir Putin that probably felt

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longer than waiting at the DMV. Trump's promising a summit

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in Budapest within two weeks or so, which in political

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speak means maybe probably who knows. Longtime watchers of the

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not at all gay president know that any time there

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isn't a real timetable. He just says two weeks their

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grand plan to end what Trump dramatically calls the inglorious

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war between Russia and Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Vladimir Walls

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is heading to the White House today. I'm guessing his

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diplomatic small talk will be slightly more complicated than so

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how about those phone calls. The Trump administration just unveiled

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a new citizenship test that sounds more like a PhD

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dissertation defense than a path to American citizenship. Forget six

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out of ten questions. Now the applicants need to nail

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twelve out of twenty, because nothing says Welcome to America

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like making people jump through more hoops than an Olympic gymnast.

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The test bank has expanded from one hundred to one

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hundred and twenty eight questions. And these aren't your grandpa's

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softball civics questions. We're talking about questions so complex they'll

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make a Harvard professor sweat. Remember the old test, where

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you could basically guess your way to citizenship gone. Now

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immigration officers will keep firing questions until you pass or fail.

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It's like a verbal pop quiz from Hell, where you're

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done only happens after you prove you know more about

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American history than most high school students. The administration's justification

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the current test is too easy. Joseph Edlow from US

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Citizenship and Immigration Services basically called the old testa joke,

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saying it was so simple you could memorize the answers

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in your sleep. Current pass rate ninety one percent. Trump's

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message not on my watch. Picture this the Milwaukee Brewers

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game where the most dramatic action isn't happening on the field,

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but in the stands. Shannon kobo Archic tries, saying that

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five times Fast decided to turn a baseball game into

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her personal immigration enforcement fantasy. When the Dodgers fan Ricardo

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Fosado started filming the crowd. Our protagonist went full Karen mode.

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Her battlecry real men drink beer, which sounds like a

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slogan you defined on a very sad tank top at

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a county fair. But here's the kicker. Fasado is a

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US Navy veteran who served two wars. Her brilliant plan

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to call ice about a US citizen about as strategic

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as try trying to steal home plate with a beach ball.

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The consequences were swift manpower group. Her employer, which also

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is definitely not gay, showed her the door faster than

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a rookie get sent back to the miners make a wish.

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Wisconsin also showed her the exit talk about a career strikeout.

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The Brewers response they banned both fans from the ballpark.

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I'm sorry, is not being able to attend a Brewer's

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game some sort of punishment. Sign me up, baby. Breaking

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news from the cosmos. We've got a space rock playing

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cosmic Chicken with Earth, and NASA's playing Lookout even during

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a government shutdown, because nothing says dedication like tracking potentially

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planet destroying chunks of space debris while most of Washington

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is at home binge watching c SPAN meet asteroid twenty

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twenty five TP five sounds like a robot's social Security number,

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which decided to swing by our planetary neighborhood yesterday at

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four nine pm East. It cruised past at sixty three

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hundred and twenty eight miles from Earth, which is basically

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the celestial equivalent of a drive by wave. For context,

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this asteroid is about the size of a six story building,

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so essentially, it's like that one weird neighbor who gets

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too close to your property line, except this neighbor is

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made of rock and traveling at several thousand miles per hour.

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The real kicker. Astronomers only spotted this cosmic party crasher

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on Tuesday morning. That's right, this asteroid has been playing

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hide and seek with Earth since nineteen seventy nine, and

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we just noticed the good news. No imminent planet destroying

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scenarios today. NASA's asteroid tracking is so good now that

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we're basically catching these space rocks like their softballs at

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a company picnic. Just another day in the universe, folks.

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Portions of today's show were made with the help of

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gay I and Ai