Speaker 1: Hi, Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofits. And today
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about somebody appointments that our
Speaker 1: new president. They were going to talk about one appointment
Speaker 1: that our new president is making. And to take us there,
Speaker 1: Cindy Plaza is going to lead us along the way.
Speaker 1: Take it away, Cindy Hey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every single person Trump has nominated for a position
Speaker 2: in his future government is problematic in some way. Matt Gates,
Speaker 2: Telsy Gabbard, RFK Junior, memet Oz, and dozens of others.
Speaker 2: Today where we're looking into Pete Hexeth, who is set
Speaker 2: together a Defense secretary position, which is not nothing. Trump
Speaker 2: wants him there because of his experience swimming in the military,
Speaker 2: but we now learn that he was flagged as a
Speaker 2: potential military in side threat because he wears a tattoo
Speaker 2: associated with white nationalist groups. This story is from ABC
Speaker 2: News by Lucien Brugerman and Nathan Luna on vemor eighteen,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's a real problem. I probably
Speaker 1: more than most people are looking at. I do wanted
Speaker 1: to ask aj though, because we're not talking about some tattoos.
Speaker 1: Can you elaborate on the nature of his tattoos exactly
Speaker 1: what they are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he set tattoos first came under securtiny following the
Speaker 3: January sixth votes at the US Capitol because he was
Speaker 3: being considered as one of these service members to be
Speaker 3: part of Biden's inauguration security, like the team that they
Speaker 3: assembolware for security. So when they were reviewing all of
Speaker 3: this information about him, some of his fellow service members
Speaker 3: became concerned about his tattoo because this specific warning is
Speaker 3: being used by nationalists, and so he was leveled as
Speaker 3: an insider threat determines that there is a risk that
Speaker 3: this person, you know, whether they're an employee or a
Speaker 3: contractor or another other person, will use any type of
Speaker 3: information and access to harm the security of the United States,
Speaker 3: you know. So I think it's irresponsible to consider anyone
Speaker 3: who is you know, in the past, has been labeled
Speaker 3: as a potential insider to it to serve in any
Speaker 3: capacity with the US government, especially the Defense Department.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's a real problem. And I think
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of people within the conservative
Speaker 1: movement with in America, and I don't want to say
Speaker 1: all of them, but there does seem to be these
Speaker 1: few that are putting together conservatism and patriotism with bigotry
Speaker 1: and white supremacy and fascist idealism. Now, I don't want
Speaker 1: to say everybody does that, but you get people like
Speaker 1: Pete Hegseth with this tattoo, and the whole controversy started
Speaker 1: months ago, and then he was deflecting and said it
Speaker 1: was that he started talking about how his other tattoo
Speaker 1: wasn't that. So it's like it's almost like they're trying
Speaker 1: to hide their real views. What do you think of that, Jonathan.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have a little bit of an an interest
Speaker 4: inness in one particular way, and that's because as a
Speaker 4: former naval officer, I had a lot to do with
Speaker 4: primarily physical security but also clearances. And so it's to me,
Speaker 4: it seems that this is a really, really bad idea.
Speaker 4: I'm actually kind of appalled, a little bit disgusted at
Speaker 4: the current selectees for cabinet positions, but predominantly this one
Speaker 4: is a bad idea. He doesn't have a a lot
Speaker 4: of military experience. B it was with the National Guard,
Speaker 4: not full time, and except for he was deployed, so
Speaker 4: there was a six eight month I don't know what,
Speaker 4: but it just makes me nervous when you see about
Speaker 4: giving an overseeing a position for entire the largest military
Speaker 4: operation in the world, all of the detail and absolute
Speaker 4: complexity of modern warfare, modern acquisition of weapons, development of
Speaker 4: weapons through DHARPA, and all that. He has no experience
Speaker 4: with an upper level military position, and he is going
Speaker 4: to really take a long time, probably the entire four
Speaker 4: years to figure out his left hand from his right
Speaker 4: hand at that point. So I'm and I have a
Speaker 4: lot of other problems with it. The gentleman is going
Speaker 4: to destroy the separation of church and state. His tattoos
Speaker 4: may be an indication of that, But I think that
Speaker 4: first the appointment is simply to test loyalty in the Senate.
Speaker 4: If they'll pass this guy and those other people, then
Speaker 4: you know they are are real sycophants. So there are
Speaker 4: centuries long military traditions of non political stance. You're not
Speaker 4: a political in the military, and you can be political
Speaker 4: in your private life, but in the military, wearing a uniform,
Speaker 4: you're a political. That's across all the services, and the
Speaker 4: training is secular and the indoctrination is strictly about war fighting.
Speaker 4: It's a non preferential treatment of religion. Any religion goes
Speaker 4: just leave it out of the military. When you're on duty,
Speaker 4: your religion don't count no more. Everybody's secular. At that point,
Speaker 4: that whole thing is about to be overturned. And that
Speaker 4: means that what has been going on illegally in certain
Speaker 4: military academies where they are making cadets go to sessions
Speaker 4: of proselytizing by evangelicals or have like extra duty or
Speaker 4: other things they have to do which are work related
Speaker 4: if they don't go. And even up to the point
Speaker 4: some chaplains in the military have boasted about being evangelical
Speaker 4: and creating Jesus warriors when these people have just gone
Speaker 4: through training that has put them at the lowest point
Speaker 4: they have ever been in their life, and they're grabbing
Speaker 4: them at this point. Now, there are organizations that have
Speaker 4: fought back against us and are fighting back against this.
Speaker 4: But I am going to tell you that if you're
Speaker 4: sleep deprived, hungry, soaking, wet and cold, it's not the
Speaker 4: time to be preaching religion at you. It's time to
Speaker 4: be preaching. How you not get that way in that situation.
Speaker 4: So it's just it's just a really, really nasty situation.
Speaker 4: And this guy has no clue what he's doing. Once
Speaker 4: he gets there. He doesn't have a clue now, he
Speaker 4: won't have a clue later. And he can't be trained
Speaker 4: in the time allotted to be able to do a
Speaker 4: senior military position like that. If he had been an
Speaker 4: admiral or a general, he would have had an entire
Speaker 4: fleet or an entire army unit, whatever, brigade or something
Speaker 4: to give him the knowledge about how to order stuff,
Speaker 4: how to how to find stuff, how to contract for stuff,
Speaker 4: all how to get that stuff to the troops, how
Speaker 4: the transportation system works, how all that's organized when you're
Speaker 4: going into a conflict, during the conflict and after the conflict.
Speaker 4: I just don't think that he's going to be able
Speaker 4: to handle all that in any way that is going
Speaker 4: to be applicable to any stressful situations we come across
Speaker 4: and in the volatile world right now, that is not
Speaker 4: who we need in this position. So this will be
Speaker 4: a disaster. And if the senior military officers are there's
Speaker 4: another point, if the senior military officers are too slow
Speaker 4: to implement the policies of of this individual. You know
Speaker 4: what happens in.
Speaker 1: Cindy. How have you been feeling throughout this whole election
Speaker 1: and nomination process. I know I haven't feeling you good
Speaker 1: about it, but what do you what's your take on it,
Speaker 1: especially since you're NATO American.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so after I saw the results of the election,
Speaker 2: and more importantly, I saw several commentators saying that basically
Speaker 2: he won thanks to translate, and that sent me into
Speaker 2: a state of dread and despair. I didn't turn on
Speaker 2: the news for for an entire week, state of Facebook
Speaker 2: and YouTube and everything for an entire week. And each
Speaker 2: nomination just keeps comforting this this feeling. Trump seems to
Speaker 2: be picking the worst candidate for every single position. Here
Speaker 2: we are talking about hiring someone to lead the US
Speaker 2: military that was expelled from it because he poses an insight, right,
Speaker 2: which which is crazy. The very type of people you
Speaker 2: really don't want in the military is put in charge
Speaker 2: of it, and and that's the point for Trump, and
Speaker 2: he does that for every position. So we will probably
Speaker 2: do a segment on how he plans to avoid having
Speaker 2: to vet his nominees through Congress. Maybe we'll talk about
Speaker 2: this in a future episode. But yeah, this seems to
Speaker 2: me like the first step to autocracy. Limit the powers
Speaker 2: of Congress and have the president decide everything and put
Speaker 2: sic event in charge of the highest positions. But to me,
Speaker 2: there's a bigger issue here, and Jonathan seem to go
Speaker 2: in this direction. Having installed Christian supremacists in many high
Speaker 2: places and high level positions, increases the risk that the
Speaker 2: US will use its global influence to impose its religion
Speaker 2: on the rest of the world. So far, the US
Speaker 2: expansionism has been fueled by greed and power, But if
Speaker 2: you add this religion to the mix, especially with the
Speaker 2: current situation in the Middle East, you'll get a very,
Speaker 2: very explosive cocktail. And as if Tran's presidency wasn't scary
Speaker 2: enough for the rest of us, outside the US, there's
Speaker 2: that threat looming in the future. So yeah, not great.
Speaker 1: Hey, I don't think it's very great either. Honestly, AJ,
Speaker 1: we talked about the tattoos a little bit. Do you
Speaker 1: think that you could legitimately say that these tattoos are
Speaker 1: a sign of his faith and not of his political views.
Speaker 3: Well, firstly, I want to clarify for the viewers because
Speaker 3: I don't think we've described this specific tattoo that we're
Speaker 3: talking about, and it's a tattoo that says does worlds,
Speaker 3: which means God wills it. I'm sorry, I probably messed
Speaker 3: up the pronunciation, but it's okay. So it means God
Speaker 3: wills it. And in recent years this phrase has been
Speaker 3: appropriated by far right and neo Nazis and extremist hate
Speaker 3: groups to inside violence. So this is problematic with that
Speaker 3: one as it is. And I don't think that there's
Speaker 3: a way to make this specific tattoo about faith. That's
Speaker 3: because this isn't the only concerning tattoo. If this was
Speaker 3: his only tattoo of the sword, then you know, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't look at it twice. But the fact is he
Speaker 3: has several learning pieces of ink in addition to the
Speaker 3: obvious one that we just discussed. He also has the
Speaker 3: Jerusalem costs on his chest. And this isn't just any costs. Okay.
Speaker 3: He can claim that it isn't hateful all he wants,
Speaker 3: but history says otherwise. This was a symbol of the
Speaker 3: knights templar, and it's also referred to as the Crusader's
Speaker 3: cost That's how you need to know about that one, right.
Speaker 3: In addition to that one, he has on his upper
Speaker 3: arm the thirteen flag, the thirteen star flag, it's called
Speaker 3: and underneath it it's an AR fifteen assault type rifle.
Speaker 3: Then there is the cross with the sword on his
Speaker 3: arm that references a biblical quote from Matthew and that says,
Speaker 3: do not think that I have come to bring peace
Speaker 3: to earth. I have not come to bring peace but
Speaker 3: a sword. So this is like fighting sort of tattoos
Speaker 3: that are inciting violence. And he has patriotic nationalist tattoos.
Speaker 3: You know that one could definitely recognize as far right
Speaker 3: symbols like the one on his lower arm that says
Speaker 3: we the people, or the snake that says you know
Speaker 3: the joint or dies snake that represents the American Revolution.
Speaker 3: And I mean, when you combine all of these tattoos,
Speaker 3: like I said, it's not just one, it's the collection
Speaker 3: of all of them as a whole. What else do
Speaker 3: you expect but this big bold I'm a Christian nationalist
Speaker 3: outcry message written literally all over his body.
Speaker 1: I'm not completely convinced, I'll be honest with you that
Speaker 1: what his tattoos are, I can see them being interpreted
Speaker 1: in two different ways. I also want to point out
Speaker 1: that Deu's fault was like a catchphrase of the crusades
Speaker 1: as well, So a lot of the crusaders were yelling
Speaker 1: at in the battles. So God wills it. I can
Speaker 1: see where he can honestly say these are part of
Speaker 1: my faith and not my political views. And I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that is a problem here,
Speaker 1: is because there's this ambiguity about the tattoos. I'm not
Speaker 1: sick enough for Pete Hegseitt believe me, but I just
Speaker 1: don't know that we can honestly say for a positive
Speaker 1: one hundred percent that these tattoos are representing that. Now, John,
Speaker 1: I know you said you had some concerns about the
Speaker 1: separation of church and state over this. Do you have
Speaker 1: any other concerns maybe that you know about the military
Speaker 1: his leadership of the military.
Speaker 4: I have a lot of issues with this particular nominee,
Speaker 4: and one of the ones that is probably of great
Speaker 4: interest of the Pentagon itself is that this person is
Speaker 4: going to be demanding, just like his boss, total loyalty,
Speaker 4: which means that anybody who objects to an order or
Speaker 4: a policy that's illegal or an illegal order can be
Speaker 4: just replaced with another sycophont. The problem with that is
Speaker 4: that most senior officers are very very loyal to one thing,
Speaker 4: the constitution, So if you give them an illegal order,
Speaker 4: they're probably going to refuse to take it. If they
Speaker 4: are if that is doubled down on, they have a choice.
Speaker 4: They can either hope they know they have a choice.
Speaker 4: They can either do what they're told, do what they're
Speaker 4: ordered to, or resign. If all the senior leaders who
Speaker 4: know what they're doing resign, what do you have leading
Speaker 4: your military, you know. So that's a major concern for me.
Speaker 4: The other thing is that this person would work probably
Speaker 4: normally fail any background check to get a clearance. So
Speaker 4: since he has to be dealing with extremely classified material
Speaker 4: in the military above the secret level, he's probably going
Speaker 4: to get a clearance by default because of his position,
Speaker 4: and that's not the way to do it. We have
Speaker 4: another possible or probable in my mind, leak of very
Speaker 4: sensitive information to our enemies and to people who are
Speaker 4: not thinking well of us. So these are just two
Speaker 4: more of the real problems I have with us. There's
Speaker 4: you know, our literal security as a nation is at
Speaker 4: stake with us, and somebody is just playing roulette with it,
Speaker 4: you know, And I'm just I'm not comfortable with any of.
Speaker 1: This, Cindy, are you worried about you know you mentioned it,
Speaker 1: but how really argue about the religious nature of some
Speaker 1: of the recent cabinet nominations. See, do you think that
Speaker 1: this is going to create real problems for our nation,
Speaker 1: for the United States?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I think it's going to create real problems
Speaker 2: for the US and for the rest of the world,
Speaker 2: because we all know that even in twenty sixteen when
Speaker 2: Trump was elected, it was because of the evangelical vote.
Speaker 2: And so now he has no restraint because he doesn't
Speaker 2: need to appeal to moderate people, because he won't try
Speaker 2: to get a third mandate, so he can do whatever
Speaker 2: he wants. And that's scary. That's scary because the guy
Speaker 2: has no limit. He doesn't have any shame, he doesn't
Speaker 2: have any decency, he doesn't have anything. The only thing
Speaker 2: he has is I want people to adore me, and
Speaker 2: and that's that's everything he wants and money and avoid prison,
Speaker 2: and that's why he uh tried to get elected in
Speaker 2: the first place. So yeah, I think it's it's it's
Speaker 2: it's terrifying all this uh and even even though it's
Speaker 2: not exactly white supremacism that's displayed by by his tatoos,
Speaker 2: He's it's still as a j described it, it's still
Speaker 2: I want to impose religion to everyone. So that that's
Speaker 2: that's something that that's very scary because we also know
Speaker 2: that Trump is going to try to use the military
Speaker 2: two to help with his deportation uh set up. And
Speaker 2: so if he does and we start seeing people from
Speaker 2: different religion religions inside those camps, what do you think
Speaker 2: people like him are going to do to Muslim people?
Speaker 2: For example? What do you think he's start to tell
Speaker 2: you what he's going to do.
Speaker 3: I have to agree with with Cindy, you know, we
Speaker 3: were just Sindy, like I have a lot of respect
Speaker 3: for anyone that serves in the military. Right, he may
Speaker 3: be a decorated veteran, but this does not give someone
Speaker 3: the skills on the back round necessary to run the
Speaker 3: defense department of an entire country. And you can tell
Speaker 3: that Hegseet's goal is really clear from his public messages. Okay,
Speaker 3: he has it in his mind that everyone is targeting Christianity.
Speaker 3: He's a Catholic, He's a very hardcore Catholic, and he's
Speaker 3: publicly stated on social media that the targeting Christians conservatives, patriots,
Speaker 3: and everyday Americans will end on day one of the
Speaker 3: new administrations. So he has a clear goal, he has
Speaker 3: a clear message.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's not even that they were being targeted.
Speaker 4: See that's a narrative. They're trying to say that the
Speaker 4: other people were being targeted, that they were being targeted.
Speaker 4: It's another claiming victimhood for people who are in the
Speaker 4: majority and in the powers structure. So it's like, that's
Speaker 4: just such a lie, and it's deceptive, and this guy's deceitful,
Speaker 4: just like anybody else he's chosen for his cabinet. But
Speaker 4: I'm just I'm just really not not happy because this
Speaker 4: guy also has to be somewhat of a diplomat. He
Speaker 4: negotiates with other people's defense and war departments and and
Speaker 4: you know, has to work with other people like South
Speaker 4: American and African nations joint exercises. And if he's a
Speaker 4: white supremacist, that could cause a lot of problems in
Speaker 4: the negotiating room too. If he just makes a few slips,
Speaker 4: we could lose allies, and that's going to be a
Speaker 4: problem as well. But I totally agree with Cindy and
Speaker 4: Aja that there are so many reasons why this is
Speaker 4: a bad idea, and that's just, you know, just one more.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering who is going to suffer the most, whether
Speaker 2: it's the American people or the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: And I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I think it's probably going to
Speaker 1: be the rest of the world unfortunately. And John, I
Speaker 1: do want to point out that there has been a
Speaker 1: lot of really bad militaries where there were people in
Speaker 1: that military force before it got bad who decided to
Speaker 1: follow the new bad leader. It has happened throughout history.
Speaker 1: So even though we hope that our officers are higher
Speaker 1: level officers will follow the constitution, that's all we can
Speaker 1: really do is hope