Sept. 30, 2025
Defense Secretary Puts Everyone Who Isn’t A Fit, White, Clean Shaven MAN In Uniform On Notice
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RSS Feed Today’s rare, mysterious meeting with top U.S. military leaders turned out to be a headline making, jaw dropper. Secretary Pete Hegseth called hundreds of generals to Quantico Virginia to “raise the standards” of everyone in uniform. And according to Hegseth, raising those standards means no more “fat” generals, no more beards, no more “firsts” and every female must meet male standards
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, there're folks, it is Tuesday, September thirtieth, and get your fat female deiass out of my military. I'm paraphrasing, of course, but that from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth today And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Now Rhodes, I wasn't going too far, and how a lot of people what I say too far? That's exactly how some people took his message today to the generals.
00:00:33
Speaker 2: And yet he said, by no means is he saying that women shouldn't serve in the military. But he is creating a system of standards that makes it very difficult, and some might say, in certain roles impossible to serve.
00:00:47
Speaker 1: Okay, so, folks, this is the message you've been hearing about this meeting he gave to the generals, some characterized as a lecture. Now we are going to share with you what he said today. We don't have to interpret, we don't have to give you necessarily that much commentary. But there was a lot today in a forty minute speech.
00:01:04
Speaker 2: Forty five minutes, I think, yeah, depending.
00:01:06
Speaker 1: On how much you saw, how much you read, We're gonna let you hear exactly what he said. Just a little sample. This is a direct quote from him today in his speech to the generals.
00:01:17
Speaker 2: No more identity months, dei offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division distraction or gender delusions, no more debris.
00:01:31
Speaker 1: He's talking to a room full of hundreds of generals and admirals, the top military leaders that we have. Again, some characterized it as a lecture, but he went through robes. Yes, he is going to be changing a lot of policy, but a big thing he was talking about today was culture, and he wants to change the culture, and he went through how he's going to do it. Now. The two of us, we were in the middle of something else, trying to work earlier today, and we were late getting in another assignment of ours because we couldn't stop listening and we couldn't believe what we were hearing. It was that kind of shocking.
00:02:08
Speaker 2: People always say, oh wow, that was so jaw dropping. I assure you both of our jaws were physically dropped when we were listening to him. Very I mean, he said the same thing in many different ways to make sure that everyone understood exactly what he was saying. He doubled down and tripled down on a lot of these points that seemed shocking, especially even honestly just him using the word fat. He said, no more fat generals, and he's looking out to a sea of generals and some of them weren't necessarily trim or thin.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: Well, it was not everybody on planet Earth is supposed to be right. I don't know whatever he's expecting, but we'll go through in robes. This is not a matter. Look, he's going to change some things said the military, and there are plenty of folks, maybe not just Trump supporters, but there'd be plenty of folks who heard what he said today and will applaud that this is what the military should be, should be doing, should look like, should get women out, should get LGBTQ plus folks out. A lot of people might agree with what he said today. It was still in this moment to sound again we'd always talk about inclusion, but he made an argument that this is the military. We don't play games here. This is life or death.
00:03:27
Speaker 2: Yes, but I do think Look, and he was saying, no more you know, walking on eggshells around people, and I get that, but he actually said we're clearing out the debris and removing the distractions. It sounds dehumanizing, and so it was just, look, I understand, he doesn't want to put on kid gloves. This is the military. This is about protecting our country. This is about protecting our troops when they go outside of our country to either protect other land or fight for our freedom. So I get that this is a matter of life or death. This is a lot that's on the line at stake. But this was something like I have never heard before in my life.
00:04:08
Speaker 1: All right, So he started off the top again. You know about this, This is this mystery meeting that was put together. Every one star general and above was summoned to come back to Quantico, Virginia for this meeting today, and nobody understood why exactly. Well, we got our answer, and a lot of people say, yeah, you could have sent me this memo. I did not to fly thousands of miles as the argument. But he got up this morning, stood in front of the troops, excuse me, not troops, generals leaders, and he started with a bang if you will, robes flat out off the top, good morning, and welcome to the War Department. Because the era of the Department of the defense is over.
00:04:43
Speaker 2: That's right. From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this war fighting, preparing for war, and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit.
00:04:58
Speaker 1: It was very forceful. It was very I'm not sure the right way to characterize it, but it has been characterized as macho, sending a message that that is alf pure nothing. But we will bring the hammer strength. Nothing else to talk about, nothing else to discuss, was his tone. We should also note he was up there. It was a prepared speech, full teleprompter. I don't think he missed the word. Of course, this is a guy who is a training TV guy, but this was a performance as well today.
00:05:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a broadcaster. He knows how to read the teleprompter and he knows how to read it passionately, which is what he did today. I thought this was really interesting. So he said, our number one job, of course, is to be strong, so that we can prevent war. In the first place, the President talks about it all the time. It's called peace through strength. This next line through me, and as history teaches us, the only people who actually deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to defend it.
00:05:58
Speaker 1: Not sure how many ways to interpret and what necessarily what exactly he meant. Rather, but that idea you stopped. That was one of the moments you stopped to say, wait, wait, wait, what who deserves peace?
00:06:09
Speaker 2: Doesn't everyone deserve peace? I don't know. I mean, I obviously he doesn't believe that, and there are clearly people who don't believe that. But I was always brought up to believe that we all deserve respect and peace.
00:06:23
Speaker 1: It's just again, I don't know what he means that. I don't want to get too hard on all that, but I'm saying what it looks like, what you're right? No, no, no, no, I don't know what he meant, but I know what he said, and what he said is that not everybody deserves peace, only those who are willing to fight a war to defend no, no, wage war to defend it, not even being.
00:06:42
Speaker 2: The aggressor, being on the offense, not on the defense. That's why I don't think he likes the Department of Defense, because this was a war rally, a cry for strength and a decision to be on the offense, not on the defense. And I do think that is why they change the name personal opinion here, But that is what this entire speech sounded like. Was what that we are now going on the offense as a nation, this department that he is leading, We are not going to be defending ourselves. We are going to make sure that we fight for what we believe to be the right way and the only way.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: An idea of suggestion that you can't be strong, you can't be seen as having strength if you are on the defensive. Yes, it's semantics, but it was important to them. Another line here from him today in the speech, should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of the War Department. In other words, to our enemies, fa fo Now I was And he looked at them after he said that and say, you don't know what that means. Ask some of your troops what that means. But it still he used a little profanity. But fuck around and find out is a bizarre thing to say to your enemy who has bombs. Maybe, but it was. It was very aggressive speech. And again some people it's fine and might have liked exactly what they heard from the War Secretary.
00:08:07
Speaker 2: Yes. So he went on to say, this speech today is about people, and it's about culture. The topic today is about the nature of ourselves, because no plan, no program, no reform, no formation will ultimately succeed unless we have the right people and the right culture at the War Department.
00:08:27
Speaker 1: Hey, they want an election, they can turn the department into what they think the department should be. And he went on to talk much in much detail about the right culture that he now sees. He continues, the best way to take care of troops is to give them good leaders committed to war fighting culture of the department. Not perfect leaders. Good leaders, competent, qualified, professional, agile, aggressive, innovative, risk taking a political faithful to their oath and to the constitution.
00:08:56
Speaker 2: That's fair, That's fine. Our war fighters are entitled to be led by the best and most capable leaders. That is who we need you all to be.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Okay, so are you starting to go down that direction?
00:09:06
Speaker 2: Yes. The military has been forced by foolish and reckless politicians to focus on the wrong things in many ways. This speech is about fixing decades of decay, some of it obvious, some of it hidden, or, as the Chairman has put it. We are clearing out the debris, moving the distractions, clearing the way for leaders to be leaders. You might say, we're ending the war on Warriors. I heard someone wrote a book about that.
00:09:35
Speaker 1: But I'm bumped. Okay, thank you for that. Okay, so we need to lighten that up. It was a it was a surprising moment because what was his book? That is at his book title, but he was at that moment promoting I don't know what to say. He's promoting his book or just mentioning his book or not. I just maybe it was just a nice moment to put it out there.
00:09:57
Speaker 2: He has a book that is entitled from twenty twenty four the w War on Warriors.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: Okay, so he slid that in there. I mean, is that okay? Fine? It was?
00:10:06
Speaker 2: It was okay, yes, all right. So he goes on to say, for too long, we've promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so called first So that was.
00:10:24
Speaker 1: A tough one. So called first, Like someone can't be the first, so.
00:10:29
Speaker 2: A woman and yes, that's who he basically called out there.
00:10:35
Speaker 1: But somebody who could be the first woman could also be the best person in that position. The first black person can also happen to be the best person for it. He didn't. He didn't allow for that.
00:10:44
Speaker 2: I was gonna say. He didn't seem to leave space for that from what I saw, and.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: I've heard and dealt with this in certain points. If every black person has has come up and corporate America and big business, you always get, in some way accused of only being there because of the of your skin. We hear that accusation all the.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: Time, that you're an affirmative action higher regain.
00:11:05
Speaker 1: Drives us crazy because in that way, how do you defend yourself? And in this way, how can you ever say you are the best Because your defense secretary is going to say you only got the job because of the couse of your skin.
00:11:17
Speaker 2: He might say that now under these new standards, you will be able to say that. That might be his argument. I don't know. The administration, he goes on to say, has done a great deal from day one to remove social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics. And this is when he went on to say no more identity. Months dei offices, dudes and dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division distraction or gender delusions, no more debris as yes, go ahead.
00:11:52
Speaker 1: Well for emphasis. Right after that, the next thing out of his mouth was, as I've said before, and we'll say again, we are done with that shit. I mean he said that for emphasis, I suppose, But this was a at times, I don't know, colloquial speech. It was casual. I should say that it was a casual speech some of the language he.
00:12:14
Speaker 2: Used, that's right. And then he said he's made it his mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal. That said, the war Department requires the next step.
00:12:25
Speaker 1: All right. This next section here is when he gets into what we're talking about physical conditioning men, women, height, weight, all kinds of physical standards. And in this reference, he was asking what would you want your child's unit to be, And he asked, quote, would you want him serving with fat or unfit or undertrained troops or alongside people who can't meet basic standards? Or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could get in it, and a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit performance and war fighting. The answer is not just no, it's hell no. Now's I think in a lot of ways that that makes sense, does it not? From a policy standpoint, that you don't want unfit people out there putting other folks at risk? Is that a reasonable thing to say?
00:13:21
Speaker 2: Of course it is. Of course it's reasonable that you want your best people there in the battlefield, especially if your son or daughter were out there putting their life on the line. The people around them, you would want them to be the best of the best. I totally understand that. But then he goes on to say this, I don't want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape, or in combat units with females who can't meet the same combat arm physical standards as men, or troops who are not fully proficient on their assigned weapons, platform or task, or under a leader who was the first but not the best. Standards must be uniform, gender neutral, and high. If not, they're not standards, they're just suggestions, suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed. Look, I get it to an extent. Of course, we want our best folks out there, and that's who you would want your child serving with one hundred percent, But to call out specific people as already assuming they're not good enough, they're not strong enough, they're not qualified enough, already putting it out there that if you aren't basically a straight white fit man, you have to prove yourself because we're gonna assume you're not good enough. That's what it sounded like to me.
00:14:40
Speaker 1: That was the best summary I think I've heard, and I should probably write that down. If you aren't this, it's not that you're not good enough, but you are going to have to prove in some way that you measure up to this other thing we see as a standard of culture, of height, of whatever it may be.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: This.
00:15:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was That's the best I had. You have to prove your prove.
00:15:07
Speaker 2: Your worth because we're going to assume you aren't as good as these straight white fit men.
00:15:16
Speaker 1: But the response is going to be that straight fit white man is having to meet the same standards. Yes, so everybody has the same standard.
00:15:24
Speaker 2: And that's fine, but to point it out in this speech is to make people already feel like they're not good enough, To already make people feel like they're in a different category and they're going to have to prove themselves.
00:15:36
Speaker 1: To some people's point in their criticism of this, this could have been done in a memo, meaning you could have just said, Hey, everyone from now on has to meet these standards, and here they are. That's all you have to say. You don't have to say men, women, DEI correct, anything else. You just say here they are exactly.
00:15:54
Speaker 2: So, if you if this is all about, if this is just about changing the directives and the standards for the US military, and I know there are slightly different standards if you're a combat if you're going to go into combat, if you're you, and if you're not. But the point is put them into practice, give these directives to your leaders, and then put it into action and see what happens. Why make a huge that he says he wants to take politics out of the military. This seemed extremely political and very deliberate to put this speech in front of cameras, have it roll live. There was absolutely a political gain because he was speaking to certain people who felt like, hell yeah, finally, So if this was just about putting into practice, put it into practice and have a standard, a uniform standard for the military, this was more than that. I'm sorry, but it was.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: But we haven't even gotten to, folks the part about dresses and beard Oz stay here.
00:16:55
Speaker 2: And we continue now with the I think it's fair to say shocking, jaw dropping speech that we saw the Secretary of Defense, or as he likes to call himself, the War Secretary Pete's Hegseth gave to hundreds of top generals, military leaders who had to fly in from all around the world to hear this speech. And wow, did he drop some bombs. Yes, he wants to change the millet ND.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: That's a boy bomb.
00:17:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know what, I didn't even actually try to be punny in that moment, but it just came out that way. But we've been going over what he directed these generals, what the new standards are going to be, and in doing so, a lot of folks, a lot of folks, well, they were frankly offended. And we'll let you be the judge. After hearing what he had to say, we actually listened, by the way, and wrote down the forty five minute speech, so you don't have to listen to the whole thing. If you want to go back and see some excerpts there everywhere. If you'd like, But Secretary Hegseth said this the era of politically correct, overly sensitive, don't hurt anyone's feelings. Leadership ends right now at every level. Either you can meet the standard, either you can do the job. Either you are disciplined, fit and trained, or you are out.
00:18:20
Speaker 1: Just a disclaimer. Robot did add the voice feeling.
00:18:25
Speaker 2: But look, I don't actually think any of that is a necessarily a bad thing to say. I get it. We want our troops to be tough, we want our troops to be trained, we want our troops to be in their best shape. I get that. If he had just left it at that, I don't think we would be doing a podcast today on this. On his speech, because he didn't just say that.
00:18:46
Speaker 1: He went on, that's a good one.
00:18:50
Speaker 2: Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to the fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It's a bad look. It is bad, and it's not who we are. And he was saying this to those very generals and admirals or at least some of them who were in the room. I can't imagine what they were thinking and feeling in that moment.
00:19:20
Speaker 1: Look like a fit room of felons, really, I mean they generals, they always look good in those uniforms, all those guys.
00:19:25
Speaker 2: According to Pete heisth, we've got fat generals.
00:19:27
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know what. He's looking at them and saying, and I don't know what is fat? What will they call fat? And what? Dear lady, are you really? Are you really not able to serve and have nothing to offer the military if you're a little overweight.
00:19:49
Speaker 2: Especially if you're not in a combat role where you aren't having physical duties, if you have very important logistic duties, very important commander duties where you're managing troops, you know it. There's a woint bunch of folks who do a lot of different jobs.
00:20:03
Speaker 1: He says, you're a blight. It's a bad look for the military that you're overweight.
00:20:08
Speaker 2: Well, he's gonna have them doing jumping jacks because he said also today, at my direction, every warrior across our joint force is required to do pt every duty day. It should be common sense, and most units do that. Already, but we are codifying it and we're not talking like hot yoga and stretching. Again, that is a veiled attack on women I think who do tend to like that kind of exercise. We're talking real hard pt and as either a unit or as an individual. He went on to say, this also means grooving standards. No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression. We're going to cut our hair, shave our beards, and adhere to standards. Because it's like the broken windows theory in policing. It's like you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes, so you have to address the small stuff. This is on duty in the field and in the rear. If you want a beard, you can join special forces. If not, then shave today at my direction. The era of unprofessional appearance is over. I wonder if a lot of folks applaud that. I mean, yeah, I think people do appreciate the fact that this is about taking care of yourself.
00:21:18
Speaker 1: Was there a time you go into the military, first thing to do is buzz cut. First thing. Some might applaud that, and some in a new era, and maybe even some younger folks going into the military might not find that to be in line with where we are as a society and where this generation of yes is it.
00:21:37
Speaker 2: So this is when he said the thing that definitely came off as offensive. No more beardoze. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done. Simply put, if you do not meet the male level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test, or don't want to shave and look professional, it's time for a new position or a new profession. Look, my question is tattoos piercings, like, you know, how far do you take this? I'm curious he.
00:22:06
Speaker 1: Probably won't go that far. Isn't he tatted up? Didn't he have a problem with tattoos and got him off of a detail.
00:22:12
Speaker 2: A lot of people feel the same way that he feels about beards about tattoos. So it's just I mean, it's just charge. That's true. That is true, That is true.
00:22:22
Speaker 1: This is getting a lot of attention the either the headlines say he is taking hazing out of the military.
00:22:30
Speaker 2: No, he's he's taking anti hazing policies out of the military. He's bringing hazing back, is what a lot of people are believing.
00:22:36
Speaker 1: Excuse me, he is bringing back the old time tradition of hazing. Forgive me. Yes, as I was coming out, it sounded wrong, can be right?
00:22:49
Speaker 2: It was too hard to say it the way he said it. Yes, he said, we are undertaking a full review of the Department's definitions of so called toxic leadership, bullying, and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing. That is frightening, tj that is frightening. Of course, you can't do like nasty bullying and hazing. We're talking about words like bullying and hazing and toxic. They've been weaponized and bastardized inside our formations, undercutting commanders and NCOs.
00:23:27
Speaker 1: Uh damn it. So again, you might have some out there plenty who would applaud this. This is war these this is tough stuff. You can't take a joke. You can't take a little what some called maybe old fashioned ribbing and jokes and practical jokes and yes, locker room talk, that kind of talk, those kind of I don't know, slapping with a towel, I don't know, that's considered hazing. There you could tie someone to a gold post and that was considered hazing. You can't do that football anymore. Right, It's making somebody stay up all night and all the I don't.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: Know what this is supposed to me or why it push ups throughout the night and like all those things we've seen, you know, that kind of hard labor physical.
00:24:11
Speaker 1: What did he always point to you? He keeps going back to something about these policies and changing things make it difficult to have a force that's ready. He keeps saying this hurts readiness. Everything he's doing is to improve readiness. So something he believes is handcuffing these guys in such a way that they can't just be themselves.
00:24:32
Speaker 2: I would love to have a conversation. I don't know how anyone would feel about it about I just don't remember their being And this could just be me not being aware that our military was somehow broken, that we weren't capable, that we aren't ready. I never knew that that was something that was that we considered or that anyone considered about the US military. Has that been a big topic of discussion where this needs and we need a complete overhaul of our military.
00:25:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there was a Democrat in office for four years between Trump's administrations. Yeah, so anytime, I mean, politically, you have to talk about what you have to talk about the economy, you got to talk about defending the country, you got to talk about the troups. You got to talk about the military, how you're going to strengthen, how you're going to fund them in the way that your opponent did not.
00:25:25
Speaker 2: So you're saying this is politics.
00:25:26
Speaker 1: This is a lot of politics because.
00:25:28
Speaker 2: He's taking politics out of the military. That's what he said today.
00:25:31
Speaker 1: Oh, it was a whole heap in stink, pilar shit of it today.
00:25:36
Speaker 2: That's what I heard. He then said this, after all of what he said beforehand. I want to be very clear about this. This is not about preventing women from serving. We very much value the impact of female troops. Our female officers and NCOs are the absolute best in the world. And you know there's a butt coming the next word out of his mouth. But when it comes to any job that we requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it excellent, If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it that is not the intent, but it could be the result, so be it. I will also mean it will also mean that weak men won't qualify because we're not playing games. This is combat, this is life or death.
00:26:29
Speaker 1: Some people that would jump out of their absolutely applauding what he just said. It's words. This is not this again, this is war. Weak men, I guess think.
00:26:41
Speaker 2: But the argument could be made. Yes, I believe, and I think everyone would agree that women, anyone who's serving in the military, I don't care what color you are, what gender you are, needs to meet a certain level of physical fitness and standards. I get that. However, what is not being considered is that sometimes using your brain, having physical brain strength actually can be just as valuable. So yes, I tell you it, war though I would take it, or absolutely, you need to think clearly, you need to have somebody.
00:27:09
Speaker 1: Oh, he can tell you this about strength. He would make the.
00:27:11
Speaker 2: Argument to fire a gun, I need to have strength.
00:27:14
Speaker 1: Yes, This is the whole argument he was making today, is that this has to do with physical standards, a physical standard. What did you hear about him upping the standard of a of a test that required brain power.
00:27:28
Speaker 2: I believe that brain power is just as important oh im, and.
00:27:33
Speaker 1: A lot of people will agree. I completely agree. Plus there are plenty of people who can't do as many push ups as I can, who are much better in a fight, or much better in a crisis than I.
00:27:44
Speaker 2: Or a better shot, better sniper, a better a lot of things.
00:27:47
Speaker 1: A room for that today, all right?
00:27:50
Speaker 2: So he goes on to say, Pete Hexas goes on to say, I look out at this group, and I see great Americans, leaders who have given decades to our great republic, at great sou scrifice to yourselves and to your families. Do you hear a butt coming? I do the next word out of his mouth. But if the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign. We would thank you for your service.
00:28:16
Speaker 1: There's another butt that's important here.
00:28:18
Speaker 2: But I suspect I know the overwhelming majority of you feel the opposite. These words make your hearts full. You love the War Department because you love what you do, the profession of arms. You are hereby liberated to be an apolitical, hard charging, no nonsense constitutional leader that you joined the military to be.
00:28:41
Speaker 1: If you think that felt like a rallying crime to them. I mean, possibly that was taken as a compliment or a oh okay, let me give this a shot. It was a lot coming at them.
00:28:50
Speaker 2: The man, I like, you know what I wish this would actually like? And I don't know, but I would have loved. You know, you always kind of wish you could see people's thought bubblesness. I would have loved.
00:29:01
Speaker 1: And I don't know how I was received.
00:29:03
Speaker 2: I don't know how what the thought bubbles would be, but man, that would have been fascinating, fascinating. So Pete Hagseth went on to say, we fight not because we hate what's in front of us. We fight because we love what's behind us. You see, the Ivy League faculty lounges will never understand us, and that's okay because they could never do what you do. The media will mischaracterize us, and that's okay because deep down they know the reason they can do what they do is you in this and that's I appreciate that they do protect us absolutely in this profession. You feel comfortable inside the violence so that our citizens can live peacefully. Lethality is our calling card and victory our only acceptable end state.
00:29:49
Speaker 1: Sending a message with his words, He's sending a message with his language that might sound like a rallying cry. It might motivate. Not pretending to understand the mind of a military man or woman. They are built different, in my opinion, and I respect that. So I don't know how they received. I just know what I heard today, But there was some stuff in there that hell, yeah.
00:30:10
Speaker 2: Perhaps they feel empowered, and perhaps they feel it's about time that they were sick to pandering, to letting everybody look I am look. I know you're the same way TJ. As a parent and as somebody who came up in the eighties, we didn't get participation, medals, didn't everybody didn't have to feel good even when they didn't do well. Everyone didn't get an A when they didn't have as good of a test score. And we see a lot of that today, where you don't give grades because you don't want to upset people who didn't do as well as you did. You don't want to give medals or give first place. I get that that's frustrating, because I do think that there should be a place and a space to allow for excellence and to reward people who work harder and who do better. I do believe that, so I understand part of what he was saying. It's just how he said it. And and I think the question a lot of people are asking is why you know? It felt like he went beyond what he needed to say to get the message across.
00:31:08
Speaker 1: And again that maybe was the message correct. Maybe well, he did it exactly, This wasn't received in a way that he didn't expectent. He did exactly what he wanted to do, and there would be a lot of people who applaud it. There are other people on the outside like us who look and go, what the actual hell by some of the language we're not used to seeing someone speak in that manner, who was in that position, And a lot of people say, well, it's about damn time we did.
00:31:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I do think that the intent was shock and awe, getting people to understand where they're coming from and why they're doing what they do. And he said it plainly. He definitely looked like he had rehearsed it. He certainly was intentional. And everything he said, like you said, it was on the prompter, It was written. This was not something he just said, This is something he chose.
00:31:58
Speaker 1: And every quote we read here today. I didn't have to do it, verbet I was taking notes initially, and then they posted the speech and it had those exact quotes. They were lifted from what the Department of Defense put out, so those were his words. A new military, a different military, and a military that is h might be stranded in DC. Government's about to shut down as we record this.
00:32:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, they asked everyone to please get home quickly, and if the government shuts down before they could get their tickets or their way out, they'd have to wait until the government reopens to get reimbursed. So the government will be reimbursing these generals who flew thousands of miles, many of them when the government reopens.
00:32:40
Speaker 1: All right, folks, we always appreciate you listening to Oz's want to hop in and share what was an interesting event today with Amy Robot, I'm TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to Alsto
Speaker 1: Hey, there're folks, it is Tuesday, September thirtieth, and get your fat female deiass out of my military. I'm paraphrasing, of course, but that from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth today And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Now Rhodes, I wasn't going too far, and how a lot of people what I say too far? That's exactly how some people took his message today to the generals.
00:00:33
Speaker 2: And yet he said, by no means is he saying that women shouldn't serve in the military. But he is creating a system of standards that makes it very difficult, and some might say, in certain roles impossible to serve.
00:00:47
Speaker 1: Okay, so, folks, this is the message you've been hearing about this meeting he gave to the generals, some characterized as a lecture. Now we are going to share with you what he said today. We don't have to interpret, we don't have to give you necessarily that much commentary. But there was a lot today in a forty minute speech.
00:01:04
Speaker 2: Forty five minutes, I think, yeah, depending.
00:01:06
Speaker 1: On how much you saw, how much you read, We're gonna let you hear exactly what he said. Just a little sample. This is a direct quote from him today in his speech to the generals.
00:01:17
Speaker 2: No more identity months, dei offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division distraction or gender delusions, no more debris.
00:01:31
Speaker 1: He's talking to a room full of hundreds of generals and admirals, the top military leaders that we have. Again, some characterized it as a lecture, but he went through robes. Yes, he is going to be changing a lot of policy, but a big thing he was talking about today was culture, and he wants to change the culture, and he went through how he's going to do it. Now. The two of us, we were in the middle of something else, trying to work earlier today, and we were late getting in another assignment of ours because we couldn't stop listening and we couldn't believe what we were hearing. It was that kind of shocking.
00:02:08
Speaker 2: People always say, oh wow, that was so jaw dropping. I assure you both of our jaws were physically dropped when we were listening to him. Very I mean, he said the same thing in many different ways to make sure that everyone understood exactly what he was saying. He doubled down and tripled down on a lot of these points that seemed shocking, especially even honestly just him using the word fat. He said, no more fat generals, and he's looking out to a sea of generals and some of them weren't necessarily trim or thin.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: Well, it was not everybody on planet Earth is supposed to be right. I don't know whatever he's expecting, but we'll go through in robes. This is not a matter. Look, he's going to change some things said the military, and there are plenty of folks, maybe not just Trump supporters, but there'd be plenty of folks who heard what he said today and will applaud that this is what the military should be, should be doing, should look like, should get women out, should get LGBTQ plus folks out. A lot of people might agree with what he said today. It was still in this moment to sound again we'd always talk about inclusion, but he made an argument that this is the military. We don't play games here. This is life or death.
00:03:27
Speaker 2: Yes, but I do think Look, and he was saying, no more you know, walking on eggshells around people, and I get that, but he actually said we're clearing out the debris and removing the distractions. It sounds dehumanizing, and so it was just, look, I understand, he doesn't want to put on kid gloves. This is the military. This is about protecting our country. This is about protecting our troops when they go outside of our country to either protect other land or fight for our freedom. So I get that this is a matter of life or death. This is a lot that's on the line at stake. But this was something like I have never heard before in my life.
00:04:08
Speaker 1: All right, So he started off the top again. You know about this, This is this mystery meeting that was put together. Every one star general and above was summoned to come back to Quantico, Virginia for this meeting today, and nobody understood why exactly. Well, we got our answer, and a lot of people say, yeah, you could have sent me this memo. I did not to fly thousands of miles as the argument. But he got up this morning, stood in front of the troops, excuse me, not troops, generals leaders, and he started with a bang if you will, robes flat out off the top, good morning, and welcome to the War Department. Because the era of the Department of the defense is over.
00:04:43
Speaker 2: That's right. From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this war fighting, preparing for war, and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit.
00:04:58
Speaker 1: It was very forceful. It was very I'm not sure the right way to characterize it, but it has been characterized as macho, sending a message that that is alf pure nothing. But we will bring the hammer strength. Nothing else to talk about, nothing else to discuss, was his tone. We should also note he was up there. It was a prepared speech, full teleprompter. I don't think he missed the word. Of course, this is a guy who is a training TV guy, but this was a performance as well today.
00:05:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a broadcaster. He knows how to read the teleprompter and he knows how to read it passionately, which is what he did today. I thought this was really interesting. So he said, our number one job, of course, is to be strong, so that we can prevent war. In the first place, the President talks about it all the time. It's called peace through strength. This next line through me, and as history teaches us, the only people who actually deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to defend it.
00:05:58
Speaker 1: Not sure how many ways to interpret and what necessarily what exactly he meant. Rather, but that idea you stopped. That was one of the moments you stopped to say, wait, wait, wait, what who deserves peace?
00:06:09
Speaker 2: Doesn't everyone deserve peace? I don't know. I mean, I obviously he doesn't believe that, and there are clearly people who don't believe that. But I was always brought up to believe that we all deserve respect and peace.
00:06:23
Speaker 1: It's just again, I don't know what he means that. I don't want to get too hard on all that, but I'm saying what it looks like, what you're right? No, no, no, no, I don't know what he meant, but I know what he said, and what he said is that not everybody deserves peace, only those who are willing to fight a war to defend no, no, wage war to defend it, not even being.
00:06:42
Speaker 2: The aggressor, being on the offense, not on the defense. That's why I don't think he likes the Department of Defense, because this was a war rally, a cry for strength and a decision to be on the offense, not on the defense. And I do think that is why they change the name personal opinion here, But that is what this entire speech sounded like. Was what that we are now going on the offense as a nation, this department that he is leading, We are not going to be defending ourselves. We are going to make sure that we fight for what we believe to be the right way and the only way.
00:07:19
Speaker 1: An idea of suggestion that you can't be strong, you can't be seen as having strength if you are on the defensive. Yes, it's semantics, but it was important to them. Another line here from him today in the speech, should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of the War Department. In other words, to our enemies, fa fo Now I was And he looked at them after he said that and say, you don't know what that means. Ask some of your troops what that means. But it still he used a little profanity. But fuck around and find out is a bizarre thing to say to your enemy who has bombs. Maybe, but it was. It was very aggressive speech. And again some people it's fine and might have liked exactly what they heard from the War Secretary.
00:08:07
Speaker 2: Yes. So he went on to say, this speech today is about people, and it's about culture. The topic today is about the nature of ourselves, because no plan, no program, no reform, no formation will ultimately succeed unless we have the right people and the right culture at the War Department.
00:08:27
Speaker 1: Hey, they want an election, they can turn the department into what they think the department should be. And he went on to talk much in much detail about the right culture that he now sees. He continues, the best way to take care of troops is to give them good leaders committed to war fighting culture of the department. Not perfect leaders. Good leaders, competent, qualified, professional, agile, aggressive, innovative, risk taking a political faithful to their oath and to the constitution.
00:08:56
Speaker 2: That's fair, That's fine. Our war fighters are entitled to be led by the best and most capable leaders. That is who we need you all to be.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Okay, so are you starting to go down that direction?
00:09:06
Speaker 2: Yes. The military has been forced by foolish and reckless politicians to focus on the wrong things in many ways. This speech is about fixing decades of decay, some of it obvious, some of it hidden, or, as the Chairman has put it. We are clearing out the debris, moving the distractions, clearing the way for leaders to be leaders. You might say, we're ending the war on Warriors. I heard someone wrote a book about that.
00:09:35
Speaker 1: But I'm bumped. Okay, thank you for that. Okay, so we need to lighten that up. It was a it was a surprising moment because what was his book? That is at his book title, but he was at that moment promoting I don't know what to say. He's promoting his book or just mentioning his book or not. I just maybe it was just a nice moment to put it out there.
00:09:57
Speaker 2: He has a book that is entitled from twenty twenty four the w War on Warriors.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: Okay, so he slid that in there. I mean, is that okay? Fine? It was?
00:10:06
Speaker 2: It was okay, yes, all right. So he goes on to say, for too long, we've promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so called first So that was.
00:10:24
Speaker 1: A tough one. So called first, Like someone can't be the first, so.
00:10:29
Speaker 2: A woman and yes, that's who he basically called out there.
00:10:35
Speaker 1: But somebody who could be the first woman could also be the best person in that position. The first black person can also happen to be the best person for it. He didn't. He didn't allow for that.
00:10:44
Speaker 2: I was gonna say. He didn't seem to leave space for that from what I saw, and.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: I've heard and dealt with this in certain points. If every black person has has come up and corporate America and big business, you always get, in some way accused of only being there because of the of your skin. We hear that accusation all the.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: Time, that you're an affirmative action higher regain.
00:11:05
Speaker 1: Drives us crazy because in that way, how do you defend yourself? And in this way, how can you ever say you are the best Because your defense secretary is going to say you only got the job because of the couse of your skin.
00:11:17
Speaker 2: He might say that now under these new standards, you will be able to say that. That might be his argument. I don't know. The administration, he goes on to say, has done a great deal from day one to remove social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics. And this is when he went on to say no more identity. Months dei offices, dudes and dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division distraction or gender delusions, no more debris as yes, go ahead.
00:11:52
Speaker 1: Well for emphasis. Right after that, the next thing out of his mouth was, as I've said before, and we'll say again, we are done with that shit. I mean he said that for emphasis, I suppose, But this was a at times, I don't know, colloquial speech. It was casual. I should say that it was a casual speech some of the language he.
00:12:14
Speaker 2: Used, that's right. And then he said he's made it his mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal. That said, the war Department requires the next step.
00:12:25
Speaker 1: All right. This next section here is when he gets into what we're talking about physical conditioning men, women, height, weight, all kinds of physical standards. And in this reference, he was asking what would you want your child's unit to be, And he asked, quote, would you want him serving with fat or unfit or undertrained troops or alongside people who can't meet basic standards? Or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could get in it, and a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit performance and war fighting. The answer is not just no, it's hell no. Now's I think in a lot of ways that that makes sense, does it not? From a policy standpoint, that you don't want unfit people out there putting other folks at risk? Is that a reasonable thing to say?
00:13:21
Speaker 2: Of course it is. Of course it's reasonable that you want your best people there in the battlefield, especially if your son or daughter were out there putting their life on the line. The people around them, you would want them to be the best of the best. I totally understand that. But then he goes on to say this, I don't want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape, or in combat units with females who can't meet the same combat arm physical standards as men, or troops who are not fully proficient on their assigned weapons, platform or task, or under a leader who was the first but not the best. Standards must be uniform, gender neutral, and high. If not, they're not standards, they're just suggestions, suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed. Look, I get it to an extent. Of course, we want our best folks out there, and that's who you would want your child serving with one hundred percent, But to call out specific people as already assuming they're not good enough, they're not strong enough, they're not qualified enough, already putting it out there that if you aren't basically a straight white fit man, you have to prove yourself because we're gonna assume you're not good enough. That's what it sounded like to me.
00:14:40
Speaker 1: That was the best summary I think I've heard, and I should probably write that down. If you aren't this, it's not that you're not good enough, but you are going to have to prove in some way that you measure up to this other thing we see as a standard of culture, of height, of whatever it may be.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: This.
00:15:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was That's the best I had. You have to prove your prove.
00:15:07
Speaker 2: Your worth because we're going to assume you aren't as good as these straight white fit men.
00:15:16
Speaker 1: But the response is going to be that straight fit white man is having to meet the same standards. Yes, so everybody has the same standard.
00:15:24
Speaker 2: And that's fine, but to point it out in this speech is to make people already feel like they're not good enough, To already make people feel like they're in a different category and they're going to have to prove themselves.
00:15:36
Speaker 1: To some people's point in their criticism of this, this could have been done in a memo, meaning you could have just said, Hey, everyone from now on has to meet these standards, and here they are. That's all you have to say. You don't have to say men, women, DEI correct, anything else. You just say here they are exactly.
00:15:54
Speaker 2: So, if you if this is all about, if this is just about changing the directives and the standards for the US military, and I know there are slightly different standards if you're a combat if you're going to go into combat, if you're you, and if you're not. But the point is put them into practice, give these directives to your leaders, and then put it into action and see what happens. Why make a huge that he says he wants to take politics out of the military. This seemed extremely political and very deliberate to put this speech in front of cameras, have it roll live. There was absolutely a political gain because he was speaking to certain people who felt like, hell yeah, finally, So if this was just about putting into practice, put it into practice and have a standard, a uniform standard for the military, this was more than that. I'm sorry, but it was.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: But we haven't even gotten to, folks the part about dresses and beard Oz stay here.
00:16:55
Speaker 2: And we continue now with the I think it's fair to say shocking, jaw dropping speech that we saw the Secretary of Defense, or as he likes to call himself, the War Secretary Pete's Hegseth gave to hundreds of top generals, military leaders who had to fly in from all around the world to hear this speech. And wow, did he drop some bombs. Yes, he wants to change the millet ND.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: That's a boy bomb.
00:17:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know what, I didn't even actually try to be punny in that moment, but it just came out that way. But we've been going over what he directed these generals, what the new standards are going to be, and in doing so, a lot of folks, a lot of folks, well, they were frankly offended. And we'll let you be the judge. After hearing what he had to say, we actually listened, by the way, and wrote down the forty five minute speech, so you don't have to listen to the whole thing. If you want to go back and see some excerpts there everywhere. If you'd like, But Secretary Hegseth said this the era of politically correct, overly sensitive, don't hurt anyone's feelings. Leadership ends right now at every level. Either you can meet the standard, either you can do the job. Either you are disciplined, fit and trained, or you are out.
00:18:20
Speaker 1: Just a disclaimer. Robot did add the voice feeling.
00:18:25
Speaker 2: But look, I don't actually think any of that is a necessarily a bad thing to say. I get it. We want our troops to be tough, we want our troops to be trained, we want our troops to be in their best shape. I get that. If he had just left it at that, I don't think we would be doing a podcast today on this. On his speech, because he didn't just say that.
00:18:46
Speaker 1: He went on, that's a good one.
00:18:50
Speaker 2: Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to the fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It's a bad look. It is bad, and it's not who we are. And he was saying this to those very generals and admirals or at least some of them who were in the room. I can't imagine what they were thinking and feeling in that moment.
00:19:20
Speaker 1: Look like a fit room of felons, really, I mean they generals, they always look good in those uniforms, all those guys.
00:19:25
Speaker 2: According to Pete heisth, we've got fat generals.
00:19:27
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know what. He's looking at them and saying, and I don't know what is fat? What will they call fat? And what? Dear lady, are you really? Are you really not able to serve and have nothing to offer the military if you're a little overweight.
00:19:49
Speaker 2: Especially if you're not in a combat role where you aren't having physical duties, if you have very important logistic duties, very important commander duties where you're managing troops, you know it. There's a woint bunch of folks who do a lot of different jobs.
00:20:03
Speaker 1: He says, you're a blight. It's a bad look for the military that you're overweight.
00:20:08
Speaker 2: Well, he's gonna have them doing jumping jacks because he said also today, at my direction, every warrior across our joint force is required to do pt every duty day. It should be common sense, and most units do that. Already, but we are codifying it and we're not talking like hot yoga and stretching. Again, that is a veiled attack on women I think who do tend to like that kind of exercise. We're talking real hard pt and as either a unit or as an individual. He went on to say, this also means grooving standards. No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression. We're going to cut our hair, shave our beards, and adhere to standards. Because it's like the broken windows theory in policing. It's like you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes, so you have to address the small stuff. This is on duty in the field and in the rear. If you want a beard, you can join special forces. If not, then shave today at my direction. The era of unprofessional appearance is over. I wonder if a lot of folks applaud that. I mean, yeah, I think people do appreciate the fact that this is about taking care of yourself.
00:21:18
Speaker 1: Was there a time you go into the military, first thing to do is buzz cut. First thing. Some might applaud that, and some in a new era, and maybe even some younger folks going into the military might not find that to be in line with where we are as a society and where this generation of yes is it.
00:21:37
Speaker 2: So this is when he said the thing that definitely came off as offensive. No more beardoze. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done. Simply put, if you do not meet the male level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test, or don't want to shave and look professional, it's time for a new position or a new profession. Look, my question is tattoos piercings, like, you know, how far do you take this? I'm curious he.
00:22:06
Speaker 1: Probably won't go that far. Isn't he tatted up? Didn't he have a problem with tattoos and got him off of a detail.
00:22:12
Speaker 2: A lot of people feel the same way that he feels about beards about tattoos. So it's just I mean, it's just charge. That's true. That is true, That is true.
00:22:22
Speaker 1: This is getting a lot of attention the either the headlines say he is taking hazing out of the military.
00:22:30
Speaker 2: No, he's he's taking anti hazing policies out of the military. He's bringing hazing back, is what a lot of people are believing.
00:22:36
Speaker 1: Excuse me, he is bringing back the old time tradition of hazing. Forgive me. Yes, as I was coming out, it sounded wrong, can be right?
00:22:49
Speaker 2: It was too hard to say it the way he said it. Yes, he said, we are undertaking a full review of the Department's definitions of so called toxic leadership, bullying, and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing. That is frightening, tj that is frightening. Of course, you can't do like nasty bullying and hazing. We're talking about words like bullying and hazing and toxic. They've been weaponized and bastardized inside our formations, undercutting commanders and NCOs.
00:23:27
Speaker 1: Uh damn it. So again, you might have some out there plenty who would applaud this. This is war these this is tough stuff. You can't take a joke. You can't take a little what some called maybe old fashioned ribbing and jokes and practical jokes and yes, locker room talk, that kind of talk, those kind of I don't know, slapping with a towel, I don't know, that's considered hazing. There you could tie someone to a gold post and that was considered hazing. You can't do that football anymore. Right, It's making somebody stay up all night and all the I don't.
00:24:02
Speaker 2: Know what this is supposed to me or why it push ups throughout the night and like all those things we've seen, you know, that kind of hard labor physical.
00:24:11
Speaker 1: What did he always point to you? He keeps going back to something about these policies and changing things make it difficult to have a force that's ready. He keeps saying this hurts readiness. Everything he's doing is to improve readiness. So something he believes is handcuffing these guys in such a way that they can't just be themselves.
00:24:32
Speaker 2: I would love to have a conversation. I don't know how anyone would feel about it about I just don't remember their being And this could just be me not being aware that our military was somehow broken, that we weren't capable, that we aren't ready. I never knew that that was something that was that we considered or that anyone considered about the US military. Has that been a big topic of discussion where this needs and we need a complete overhaul of our military.
00:25:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there was a Democrat in office for four years between Trump's administrations. Yeah, so anytime, I mean, politically, you have to talk about what you have to talk about the economy, you got to talk about defending the country, you got to talk about the troups. You got to talk about the military, how you're going to strengthen, how you're going to fund them in the way that your opponent did not.
00:25:25
Speaker 2: So you're saying this is politics.
00:25:26
Speaker 1: This is a lot of politics because.
00:25:28
Speaker 2: He's taking politics out of the military. That's what he said today.
00:25:31
Speaker 1: Oh, it was a whole heap in stink, pilar shit of it today.
00:25:36
Speaker 2: That's what I heard. He then said this, after all of what he said beforehand. I want to be very clear about this. This is not about preventing women from serving. We very much value the impact of female troops. Our female officers and NCOs are the absolute best in the world. And you know there's a butt coming the next word out of his mouth. But when it comes to any job that we requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it excellent, If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it that is not the intent, but it could be the result, so be it. I will also mean it will also mean that weak men won't qualify because we're not playing games. This is combat, this is life or death.
00:26:29
Speaker 1: Some people that would jump out of their absolutely applauding what he just said. It's words. This is not this again, this is war. Weak men, I guess think.
00:26:41
Speaker 2: But the argument could be made. Yes, I believe, and I think everyone would agree that women, anyone who's serving in the military, I don't care what color you are, what gender you are, needs to meet a certain level of physical fitness and standards. I get that. However, what is not being considered is that sometimes using your brain, having physical brain strength actually can be just as valuable. So yes, I tell you it, war though I would take it, or absolutely, you need to think clearly, you need to have somebody.
00:27:09
Speaker 1: Oh, he can tell you this about strength. He would make the.
00:27:11
Speaker 2: Argument to fire a gun, I need to have strength.
00:27:14
Speaker 1: Yes, This is the whole argument he was making today, is that this has to do with physical standards, a physical standard. What did you hear about him upping the standard of a of a test that required brain power.
00:27:28
Speaker 2: I believe that brain power is just as important oh im, and.
00:27:33
Speaker 1: A lot of people will agree. I completely agree. Plus there are plenty of people who can't do as many push ups as I can, who are much better in a fight, or much better in a crisis than I.
00:27:44
Speaker 2: Or a better shot, better sniper, a better a lot of things.
00:27:47
Speaker 1: A room for that today, all right?
00:27:50
Speaker 2: So he goes on to say, Pete Hexas goes on to say, I look out at this group, and I see great Americans, leaders who have given decades to our great republic, at great sou scrifice to yourselves and to your families. Do you hear a butt coming? I do the next word out of his mouth. But if the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign. We would thank you for your service.
00:28:16
Speaker 1: There's another butt that's important here.
00:28:18
Speaker 2: But I suspect I know the overwhelming majority of you feel the opposite. These words make your hearts full. You love the War Department because you love what you do, the profession of arms. You are hereby liberated to be an apolitical, hard charging, no nonsense constitutional leader that you joined the military to be.
00:28:41
Speaker 1: If you think that felt like a rallying crime to them. I mean, possibly that was taken as a compliment or a oh okay, let me give this a shot. It was a lot coming at them.
00:28:50
Speaker 2: The man, I like, you know what I wish this would actually like? And I don't know, but I would have loved. You know, you always kind of wish you could see people's thought bubblesness. I would have loved.
00:29:01
Speaker 1: And I don't know how I was received.
00:29:03
Speaker 2: I don't know how what the thought bubbles would be, but man, that would have been fascinating, fascinating. So Pete Hagseth went on to say, we fight not because we hate what's in front of us. We fight because we love what's behind us. You see, the Ivy League faculty lounges will never understand us, and that's okay because they could never do what you do. The media will mischaracterize us, and that's okay because deep down they know the reason they can do what they do is you in this and that's I appreciate that they do protect us absolutely in this profession. You feel comfortable inside the violence so that our citizens can live peacefully. Lethality is our calling card and victory our only acceptable end state.
00:29:49
Speaker 1: Sending a message with his words, He's sending a message with his language that might sound like a rallying cry. It might motivate. Not pretending to understand the mind of a military man or woman. They are built different, in my opinion, and I respect that. So I don't know how they received. I just know what I heard today, But there was some stuff in there that hell, yeah.
00:30:10
Speaker 2: Perhaps they feel empowered, and perhaps they feel it's about time that they were sick to pandering, to letting everybody look I am look. I know you're the same way TJ. As a parent and as somebody who came up in the eighties, we didn't get participation, medals, didn't everybody didn't have to feel good even when they didn't do well. Everyone didn't get an A when they didn't have as good of a test score. And we see a lot of that today, where you don't give grades because you don't want to upset people who didn't do as well as you did. You don't want to give medals or give first place. I get that that's frustrating, because I do think that there should be a place and a space to allow for excellence and to reward people who work harder and who do better. I do believe that, so I understand part of what he was saying. It's just how he said it. And and I think the question a lot of people are asking is why you know? It felt like he went beyond what he needed to say to get the message across.
00:31:08
Speaker 1: And again that maybe was the message correct. Maybe well, he did it exactly, This wasn't received in a way that he didn't expectent. He did exactly what he wanted to do, and there would be a lot of people who applaud it. There are other people on the outside like us who look and go, what the actual hell by some of the language we're not used to seeing someone speak in that manner, who was in that position, And a lot of people say, well, it's about damn time we did.
00:31:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I do think that the intent was shock and awe, getting people to understand where they're coming from and why they're doing what they do. And he said it plainly. He definitely looked like he had rehearsed it. He certainly was intentional. And everything he said, like you said, it was on the prompter, It was written. This was not something he just said, This is something he chose.
00:31:58
Speaker 1: And every quote we read here today. I didn't have to do it, verbet I was taking notes initially, and then they posted the speech and it had those exact quotes. They were lifted from what the Department of Defense put out, so those were his words. A new military, a different military, and a military that is h might be stranded in DC. Government's about to shut down as we record this.
00:32:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, they asked everyone to please get home quickly, and if the government shuts down before they could get their tickets or their way out, they'd have to wait until the government reopens to get reimbursed. So the government will be reimbursing these generals who flew thousands of miles, many of them when the government reopens.
00:32:40
Speaker 1: All right, folks, we always appreciate you listening to Oz's want to hop in and share what was an interesting event today with Amy Robot, I'm TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to Alsto